🫒 Table olives

Table olives are olive fruits that have had their natural bitterness removed and been made ready to eat. Fresh olives are bitter because of oleuropein: it is not harmful, but olives are hardly ever eaten straight from the tree. The bitterness is removed with lye, by long soaking in brine or by fermentation.

The International Olive Council divides table olives by ripeness into green olives, olives turning colour and black olives. So green and black olives are often not different varieties but fruit picked at different times. Varieties chosen for the table have large fruit, tender flesh and a stone that comes away easily; olives heavier than 5 grams count as large.

The three most common methods are Seville-style green olives, Californian black olives and Greek-style natural black olives. Together they make up about 80 per cent of world production. Finished olives are sold whole, pitted or stuffed, with pepper, almonds, anchovies or capers.

In the 2024/25 season the world produced about 3.3 million tonnes of table olives. The largest producers were Turkey (750 thousand tonnes), Egypt (600 thousand) and Spain (533 thousand), but the leader changes from year to year: the season before, Egypt came first. Well-known table varieties include Gordal Sevillana, Manzanilla de Sevilla, Kalamon, Konservolia, Gemlik and Aggezi Shami.