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<pre>Jamal

Thanks for the graphs, they make interesting comparisons.

Alonso, in todays notes, states that the per capita consumption of olive oil
is a massive 20kgs/annum/person for Greeks and 12kgs/annum/person for
Spaniards. If these figures are accurate then your graphs showing
1kg/annum/person for (some) North Americans and <0.5kg/person/annum for
Australians indicate we have a lot of catching up to do. It is my belief
that the figures Sweeney uses
http://www.victorianolivegroves.com/growing.htm ) underestimates the
growth in useage within Oz. I believe it to be more like 10%/annum!

It may also point the way for the development of future markets. Perhaps
this is one of the reasons why we have had announced this week that a local
company is set to plant 1000 acres of Barnea in my area of Victoria,
Australia. This enterprise has, according to the local press, presold it's
product to the Italian community (in 6 years time!). The article also
pointed out that it was not known whether the oil thus sold would stay in
Italy.

Regards
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<pre>>From: "P Caird" <caird@hitech.net.au>
>Alonso, in todays notes, states that the per capita consumption of olive oil
>is a massive 20kgs/annum/person for Greeks and 12kgs/annum/person for
>Spaniards. If these figures are accurate then your graphs showing
>1kg/annum/person for (some) North Americans and <0.5kg/person/annum for
>Australians indicate we have a lot of catching up to do.

My personal stats about oil:
- my wife and me use about 8-10 kg/year of oil;
- my "olive expert" family (his wife, him and 2 kids) use 130-150 kg/year.

It's hard to have an average value :-)

Bye!

Marco Bernardini
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<pre>P. Caird wrote:

> Alonso, in todays notes, states that the per capita consumption of olive oil
> is a massive 20kgs/annum/person for Greeks

Incredibly, this does appear to be true, even perhaps a slight underestimate.
As I wrote for my thesis back in 1997:

"Greece has the highest consumption of olive oil in the world, at 20.8 kg per
person per year (Kiritsakis & Markakis, 1991), or 57g a day (at 500 calories,
around 20-25% of the energy requirement of an adult)."

This is quite an astonishing quantity!

The source is:

Kiritsakis, A. & Markakis, P. (1991) Olive Oil Analysis, in H.E. Linskens &
J.F. Jackson (Ed), Essential Oils and Waxes. Springer-Verlag, Berlin, pp.
1-20.

Adrian
--
Adrian.Shaw@aber.ac.uk
Sefydliad Y Gwyddorau Biolegol, Prifysgol Cymru,
Aberystwyth, Ceredigion, Cymru
http://pcjagg.dbs.aber.ac.uk/mynegai.html
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