Olive oil, olives and fresh fish top Greek food export list

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Most exported greek produts

It is well established that Greece, because of its terrain, does not have large plains, but instead, has many small plains, plateaus, slopes, and arable land by the sea. All of these have special microclimate and are excellent for producing quality and unique products.
Food –especially agri-food products– are a major export item of Greek production. In fact, Food & Beverages contributed approximately 16.2% to Greek exports for the year 2018, while compared to 2017 they showed an increase of 1.7%. Of them 51% were processed foodstuff while 49% were fresh.
As reported by a survey carried out by Global Greece, which put under the microscope 30 of the most important exportable Greek F&B products based on the growth of their exports over the last five years, the 30 most significant Greek agri-food products for the country’s exports are the following: extra virgin olive oil, olives, citrus fruit, kiwi fruit, and refined olive oil when talking about fresh products with high export volumes and positive growth; fresh fish, grapes, apricots, cherries & peaches, and frozen fruit, all fresh products with high export volumes and normal growth; asparagus, honey, frozen fish, and saffron (fresh products which do not –for the time being, at least– have high export volumes but very good growth); fruit preparations, Feta cheese, compote, pickles, bread, cookies, rest of cheese, wine, raisins as processed products with high export volumes and positive growth; yogurt, butter and cream, preserved tomatoes, marmalade and spoon sweets, and ouzo, processed products with high export volumes and normal growth; and fish filet, sauces and flavorings, meat preparations – sausages, soups and broths, and frozen vegetable preparations aka processed products which do not –for the time being, at least– have high export volumes but very good growth.
Namely, extra virgin olive oil exports amounted to €585,214,331 in 2018 (compared to €480,217,589 in 2017), fresh fish to €513,201,549 in 2018 (6.61% increase from the previous year), processed vegetable preparations amounted to €489,304,165 for the same year (€425,017,668 in 2017), feta cheese exports were €449,373,620 (€323,547,592 in 2017, showing a 5.10% increase), while fresh olives amounted to €435,320,515 in 2018 with a 6.61% increase compared to 2017 (€408,326,941).
Accordingly, all the classic countries to which Greek Food and Beverages are exported, such as Germany, Italy or Great Britain have all consistently positive outlooks. Exports, however, to Spain, France and Romania are also developing at a great pace. On the other hand, of the countries currently importing small quantities of food from Greece, it is worth mentioning the case of Estonia which has shown significant improvement within both the last 5 years as well as the last year. Slovakia, Slovenia and Israel are also doing well, while exports to Russia and Egypt have soared in the last year.