Sales down in Italian vegetable cooking oil - Food Industry Report - Brief Article - Statistical Data Included

Eurofood, August 29, 2002

The Italian market for vegetable cooking oils shows no signs of improving with sales down both in value and volume.

According to figures from the market research group Information Resources for the year ended 31 March 2002, value of sales was down by 1.1% to E 196.5m while volume fell by 4.3% to 146.5 million litres. None of the categories --corn, mixed oil seeds sun flower, groundnut and soya--made progress.

The best sales were for corn oil with 35.4% of the market worth 69.5m [euro] but this was 0.8% down on the previous twelve-month period.

Mixed-seeds oils came next with a 29.3% share worth 57.5m [euro], 0.1% lower.

The main factor behind the disappointing performance is the lasting love Italians have for olive oil and producers are wary of making the considerable investments needed to promote other products.

Malgari Chiari is the market leader with 20.8% followed by Unilever Bestfoods Italia with 15.7% with Carapelli in third place with 11.3%.

The private labels' share amounts to 21.6% with other producers taking 30.6%.