African Olive Oil: Where It Grows, and Where It Actually Goes
African olive oil is one of those phrases that sounds like a single thing and isn't. It covers Tunisian mills pressing Chemlali olives at industrial scale, a Moroccan grove of Picholine Marocaine whose oil never leaves the country, Egyptian orchards planted largely with the table-olive trade in mind, and — confusingly — a wild African tree that is not the commercial oil crop at all. If you have been trying to work out whether African olive oil is any good, the honest first step is not tasting notes. It is arithmetic: who actually grows it, how much of it, and where it ends up. The International Olive Council publishes that arithmetic, and it explains a great deal about why you so rarely see the continent named on a bottle.
For our own oil, see our cold-pressed organic Marrakech olive oil.
The Short Answer
- Four African countries appear in the International Olive Council's country tables: Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria and Egypt. On the IOC balance sheet published in December 2025, they are forecast to produce 735,500 tonnes of olive oil between them in 2025/26, against a world total of 3,440,000 tonnes — close to a fifth of global output.
- Tunisia dominates. The IOC forecasts Tunisian production of 450,000 tonnes and exports of 300,000 tonnes in 2025/26 — more than any single country outside the European Union, and roughly 23% of all olive oil traded worldwide.
- Morocco, Algeria and Egypt barely export at all. Morocco is forecast to produce 160,000 tonnes and to consume 160,000 tonnes; Algeria is forecast to consume more than it produces. That, more than quality, is why African oil is scarce on Western shelves.
- The cultivars are specific and named. The IOC's World Catalogue of Olive Varieties lists Chemlali Sfax, Chetoui, Meski and Oueslati for Tunisia, Picholine Marocaine for Morocco, Chemlal de Kabylie and Sigoise for Algeria, and Aggezi Shami and Toffahi for Egypt.
- South Africa has a small, quality-focused industry with its own voluntary integrity scheme, but it is not broken out in the IOC's country tables at all.
- The “African wild olive” is not the crop. Africa has genuinely distinct wild olive subspecies growing in the Sahara and the High Atlas, and none of them is what goes into a bottle of extra virgin.
- Sidr & Stone's own oil is single-estate Moroccan, from a rain-fed grove on the plains outside Marrakech. That makes us a very small part of a country that is itself a modest exporter, and we would rather say so plainly than imply otherwise.
Which African Countries Actually Make Olive Oil
The International Olive Council's world balance sheet, published in December 2025 following the 122nd session of its Council of Members, lists four African producing countries by name: Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria and Egypt. Everything else on the continent falls into a residual line for other producing countries, which the IOC puts at 15,500 tonnes for the whole world.
Tunisia is not merely the largest African producer. On the IOC's 2025/26 forecast it is the largest producing country outside the European Union, ahead of Türkiye at 290,000 tonnes. Morocco is second in Africa and swings hard from year to year — 106,000 tonnes in 2023/24, 90,000 in 2024/25, and a forecast rebound to 160,000 in 2025/26, which is what rain-fed groves do when the rains return.
| Country | 2023/24 | 2024/25 (provisional) | 2025/26 (forecast) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tunisia | 220,000 t | 340,000 t | 450,000 t |
| Morocco | 106,000 t | 90,000 t | 160,000 t |
| Algeria | 64,000 t | 85,000 t | 75,500 t |
| Egypt | 52,000 t | 45,000 t | 50,000 t |
| Four African producers | 442,000 t | 560,000 t | 735,500 t |
| World total | 2,589,000 t | 3,572,000 t | 3,440,000 t |
Source: International Olive Council world olive oil balance, December 2025. The 2024/25 column is provisional and the 2025/26 column is a forecast; the IOC revises both.
Why So Little African Olive Oil Reaches a British or American Shelf
This is the part almost nobody explains, and it is the whole story. We sell a Moroccan oil, and the thing that struck us most when we went through the trade data was not how little Morocco produces — it is a serious producer — but how little of it ever leaves.
Put production, domestic consumption and exports side by side and the pattern is immediate.
| Country (2025/26 forecast) | Production | Domestic consumption | Exports |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tunisia | 450,000 t | 50,000 t | 300,000 t |
| Morocco | 160,000 t | 160,000 t | 7,500 t |
| Algeria | 75,500 t | 80,500 t | 0 t |
| Egypt | 50,000 t | 50,000 t | 1,000 t |
The columns are not meant to balance — carry-over stocks and imports absorb the difference — but the shape is unmistakable. Tunisia is an export economy in olive oil. Morocco, Algeria and Egypt are domestic markets that happen to make their own oil, and Algeria is forecast to consume more than it produces.
So when a British or American shopper asks why African olive oil is hard to find, the answer is not that it is poor. It is that three of the four producers keep essentially all of it, and the fourth exports so much of it that the question becomes where it ends up. A great deal of internationally traded oil is bottled and labelled in a country other than the one where the olives grew, which is exactly the territory our guide to what “Italian olive oil” legally means on a label covers in detail. Some Tunisian oil does reach Western shelves under its own name — Terra Delyssa is the best-known example — and Moroccan oil occasionally does too, as with Morocco Gold. Those are exceptions, not the rule.
The Cultivars Behind African Olive Oil
African olive oil is not a varietal blur. The IOC's World Catalogue of Olive Varieties lists nine named African cultivars across the four producing countries, and knowing which one is in the bottle tells you far more than the word “African” ever will.
- Tunisia: Chemlali Sfax, Chetoui, Meski and Oueslati — four entries, more than any other African country in the catalogue.
- Morocco: Picholine Marocaine, the cultivar that dominates Moroccan groves.
- Algeria: Chemlal de Kabylie and Sigoise.
- Egypt: Aggezi Shami and Toffahi.
Chemlali is the workhorse of Tunisian volume; Chetoui is the northern Tunisian variety generally treated as the more characterful of the two. Picholine Marocaine is the reason Moroccan oil tastes like Moroccan oil rather than like a generic Mediterranean blend. None of this is exotic information — it is simply information African producers have not historically been asked for, because so little of their oil is sold as a named origin.
If a bottle names its cultivar, that is a good sign. If it names only a continent, you are being told nothing at all.
The African Wild Olive Is Not the Crop
Search for African olive oil and you will run into the African wild olive, and the two get tangled constantly. They should not be.
Every commercial olive oil in the world, African oil included, comes from cultivated Olea europaea subsp. europaea. Africa also hosts genuinely distinct wild relatives of that plant. Kew's Plants of the World Online records Olea europaea subsp. laperrinei (Batt. & Trab.) Cif. as an accepted subspecies of the Sahara, occurring in Algeria, Niger and Sudan, described as a shrub or tree of desert and dry shrubland. It also records Olea europaea subsp. maroccana (Greuter & Burdet) P.Vargas, J.Hess, Muñoz Garm. & Kadereit, native to Morocco's southern High Atlas.
The name most often attached to the “African wild olive” in general usage is Olea europaea subsp. cuspidata. That subspecies is accepted too — but Plants of the World Online currently maps its native range as the Arabian Peninsula to China, not Africa. The honest answer is that the taxonomy of the wild olives is genuinely unsettled, and that no wild olive subspecies, African or otherwise, is the source of the oil in a supermarket bottle. Wild olives fruit sparsely and are not grown for oil at commercial scale.
If a product is marketed as “African wild olive oil”, that is a claim worth asking about rather than assuming.
South Africa: Small, Careful, and Counted Separately
South Africa does not appear in the IOC's country tables. Its output falls inside the residual “other producing countries” line, which the IOC puts at 15,500 tonnes for the entire world — so the South African industry is, in global terms, a rounding error.
It is not an unserious one. SA Olive, the industry association, runs a voluntary Commitment to Compliance scheme for locally produced extra virgin olive oil. Its seal signals that the producer confirms the contents are 100% South African, that the year of harvest is prominently displayed on the label, and that the producer works to the SA Olive Codes of Practice. Publishing a harvest year on the front of the bottle is a discipline plenty of much larger industries still avoid.
How to Buy African Olive Oil Well
Because so little African oil is sold as a named origin, the checks that matter are the ordinary ones — applied a little more firmly. For the fuller walkthrough, see our guide to choosing a quality olive oil.
| What to look for | Why it matters | Where to find it |
|---|---|---|
| A named country of origin, not a region or continent | “Product of Tunisia” is a fact; “Mediterranean blend” describes a supply chain | Back label, usually in small type |
| A harvest year or date | Olive oil is a fresh product; polyphenols and aroma fall away with time | Front or neck label on producers who publish it; absent on most |
| The cultivar | Chemlali, Chetoui and Picholine Marocaine taste materially different | Front label or the producer's own site |
| “Extra virgin”, stated plainly | A legal grade with defined chemical and sensory limits, unlike “pure” or “light” | Front label |
| Dark glass or a tin | Light degrades olive oil faster than almost anything except heat | The packaging itself |
| A published analysis, if any | Free acidity, peroxide value and polyphenol content separate claim from measurement | The producer's site; rarely on the bottle |
One further point on the last row: very few producers anywhere publish a full panel, and that includes us. It is better to know that than to assume a number exists behind every bottle.
The Honest Case Against African Olive Oil
“Isn't most of it just bulk oil for someone else's bottle?” A large share of internationally traded olive oil moves between countries before it is bottled, and Tunisia's export volume — 300,000 tonnes forecast against 50,000 tonnes of domestic consumption — means almost all Tunisian oil leaves the country. Where it is bottled and how it is labelled is a separate question from how it was made. Bulk movement is a feature of the trade, not evidence of poor quality; but it does mean the continent's name rarely survives to the shelf.
“You sell a Moroccan oil, so of course you say Africa is good.” Fair, and better answered with numbers than with protest. Morocco is not the biggest African producer, exports around 7,500 tonnes on a 160,000-tonne crop, and does not appear near the top of any export table. Tunisia is the volume story, and Tunisia is not us. If someone wants the largest, most export-oriented African olive oil industry, that is Tunisia, plainly.
“Aren't rain-fed groves simply lower-yielding?” Yes, generally. Rain-fed growing produces less oil per hectare than irrigated growing and swings much harder year to year — Morocco's 90,000 to 160,000 tonne jump between two consecutive forecasts is exactly that volatility. What rain-fed growing gives in return is fruit that ripens on the season's terms. It is a trade, not a free lunch, and we would rather describe it as one.
Why Sidr & Stone
We are a very small producer in a country that is, by the IOC's own figures, a modest exporter. That is the accurate framing, and it is the one we would rather use. What we can describe precisely is the oil itself.
- Single-estate — one family-owned grove on the plains outside Marrakech, Morocco; no blending across origins.
- Rain-fed — no irrigation; the trees take what the season gives them.
- Organically grown — no synthetic fertilisers, pesticides or herbicides. We are not certified organic and do not describe ourselves as such.
- Single harvest — a small, limited batch, picked once the season says the fruit is ready, which can be weeks later than neighbouring farms.
- Cold-pressed within hours of harvest — flavour, aroma and polyphenols preserved.
- Unfiltered extra virgin — minimally processed, and it may show natural sediment, which is normal.
- 100% natural — a single ingredient, olive oil, nothing added.
- Dark glass with a gold label — protective packaging against light.
- Halal certified.
- 10% of profits to charity — a brand-wide commitment that applies to every product we sell.
- Fulfilment in the UK, EU, and US.
We do not currently publish a polyphenol figure, a free acidity result or a peroxide value for our oil, and we are not going to imply one exists. When we have an independent panel, we will publish it in full. Until then, what we will say is that our oil is single-estate Moroccan, rain-fed, organically grown and cold-pressed within hours of harvest — and that the evidence of that care is in the taste, the colour, and the size of the season's batch. If you want the wider argument for buying from one grove rather than a blend, we set it out in our piece on single-estate olive oil.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is African olive oil any good?
Quality in olive oil tracks cultivar, harvest timing, milling speed and storage far more closely than it tracks continent. Africa produces close to a fifth of the world's olive oil from named cultivars in long-established growing regions, so the useful question is never “is African oil good” but “what is in this particular bottle, and when was it pressed?”
Which African country produces the most olive oil?
Tunisia, by a wide margin. The International Olive Council forecasts Tunisian production of 450,000 tonnes in 2025/26, against 160,000 for Morocco, 75,500 for Algeria and 50,000 for Egypt.
Why is Moroccan olive oil so hard to find outside Morocco?
Because Morocco drinks it. The IOC forecasts Moroccan production of 160,000 tonnes and Moroccan domestic consumption of 160,000 tonnes for 2025/26, with exports of around 7,500 tonnes. Very little is available to export in the first place.
Is Tunisian olive oil sometimes sold as Italian olive oil?
Oil is traded internationally in bulk and bottled elsewhere, and labelling rules govern what a bottle may then be called. Rather than guess, read the origin statement on the back label — our article on Italian olive oil explains exactly what those statements do and do not promise.
What is the difference between African olive oil and the African wild olive?
Commercial olive oil comes from cultivated Olea europaea subsp. europaea. The African wild olives are separate subspecies — Kew's Plants of the World Online lists subsp. laperrinei in the Sahara and subsp. maroccana in Morocco's southern High Atlas — and none of them is grown for oil at commercial scale.
Can African olive oil carry the EU polyphenol health claim?
Any olive oil can, if it meets the conditions. Commission Regulation (EU) No 432/2012 authorises the claim “Olive oil polyphenols contribute to the protection of blood lipids from oxidative stress”, and states that it “may be used only for olive oil which contains at least 5 mg of hydroxytyrosol and its derivatives (e.g. oleuropein complex and tyrosol) per 20 g of olive oil”, with the consumer told that the beneficial effect is obtained with a daily intake of 20 g of olive oil. It is a compositional threshold, not a country of origin.
Where can I buy African olive oil in the UK, EU or US?
Tunisian oil is the most widely available under its own name, usually through supermarkets and online grocers; Moroccan oil is generally found through specialist retailers and direct from producers. Because so little is exported, buying direct is often the only way to know which grove the oil came from.
Is olive oil a medicine?
No. Olive oil is a food, not a medicine. It has a long traditional history — including being honoured in the Prophetic Sunnah — and a substantial body of modern research, particularly around polyphenols, cardiovascular health, and the Mediterranean diet pattern. It can be a worthwhile part of a healthy routine, but it does not cure diseases and is not a substitute for medical care. Be cautious of any olive oil marketed with specific disease-cure claims.
Final Thoughts
African olive oil is not a marketing conceit and it is not a bargain bin. It is roughly a fifth of world production, concentrated in four countries with named cultivars and long-established groves, and it is almost invisible on Western shelves for reasons that have nothing to do with quality and everything to do with trade. Tunisia exports at scale. Morocco, Algeria and Egypt mostly do not.
That is the map. Once you have it, the rest of the decision is the same as it is for any olive oil: find out which cultivar you are buying, when it was harvested, whether it has been kept away from light, and whether anyone is willing to tell you where the olives actually grew. A continent on the label answers none of those questions. A grove answers all of them.
Our cold-pressed organic Marrakech olive oil — single-estate, rain-fed, and pressed within hours of picking — is available to pre-order. First harvest, estimated shipping from November 2026. Fulfilment in the UK, EU, and US.
Pre-Order Sidr & Stone Organic Marrakech Olive Oil — Limited First Harvest →
Disclaimer: This article describes olive oil production, trade and botany at the time of writing, drawing on the International Olive Council's world balance sheet published in December 2025 and on Kew's Plants of the World Online; figures are revised regularly and readers should check current sources. Olive oil is a food, not a medicine, and is not a substitute for medical treatment of any condition. For any health concern, consult a qualified medical professional.