No Alentejo, only one of the four olive pomace processing plants stopped receiving olive pomace due to storage incapacity, forcing the stop of almost 50 lagares, in the present olive growing season.
The Fenazeites-National Federation of Agricultural Cooperatives of Olive Growers had in a statement issued last day 9, warned that the olive sector in the Alentejo “was paralyzed, from olive picking to oil production, due to the lack of capacity of factories in the region to store bagasse from the mills".
Lusa contacted the four factories and only one of them, UCASUL-Union of Agricultural Cooperatives of the South, in Alvito county, confirmed having stopped receiving bagasse due to lack of capacity to store the product, resulting from the production of oil and formed by skin fragments, olive pulp and pit.
The other three factories indicated that they have not stopped receiving bagasse from suppliers due to any storage incapacity.
These are the AZPO – Azeites de Portugal factories (strong) and Casa Alta (Penique-Odivelas Park), in Ferreira do Alentejo county (Beja), and the Oleoalegre, in the municipality of Monforte (Portalegre).
Speaking to Lusa, the president of the UCASUL board, António Brito, said that the factory has twice stopped receiving bagasse from non-associated usual suppliers, between cooperative and private presses.
The first stop took place between days 21 November and 02 of this month and the second between the day 04 of this month and this tuesday, because “saturation of the storage tanks” was reached, said.
According to António Brito, in those two periods, the factory only received bagasse from the mills of its seven member cooperatives and restarted, on Wednesday, receivable from other regular suppliers, “but in a very controlled way”.
"Near 50 mills had to stop production or look for new solutions" because they were unable to deliver bagasse to the UCASUL factory, that transforms olive pomace into oil and biomass, said.
This factory has a static capacity to store 150.000 tons of bagasse and, per day, can transform 600 tons, but "has already received 6.000 tons, in other words, 10 times more", he stressed.
In the current campaign, due to increased olive production and lack of rain, which is favorable to the quick catch, olives have arrived in larger quantities and faster to the mills and “a much larger volume” of bagasse to be processed in the factories, He explained.
UCASUL wants to expand its unit's facilities or create a new factory, but there has been "a lot of difficulty in assigning licenses", said António Brito.
"The entire olive growing sector has been growing, but there was no political will on the part of the Government to expand the olive pomace processing units or create new ones", He criticized.
Contacted by Lusa, the management of AZPO and Oleoalegre said that the two factories, from the spanish group Migasa, "they are receiving bagasse from the usual suppliers and some new ones", which they turn into oil and olive oil.
The two factories "did not stop receiving bagasse from the usual mill suppliers due to lack of storage capacity", which "did not stop" producing, he stressed.
In the current campaign, AZPO and Oleoalegre were contacted for bagasse delivery by unusual suppliers, namely private and cooperative presses, and accepted "some new".
The administration declined to specify the storage and bagasse processing capacities of the two units, but he said that "they can and are available to make the necessary investments" to increase them, "if it's necessary".
Also the industrial director of Casa Alta, João Diogo, told Lusa that this factory, that transforms bagasse into oil and biomass, is "scrupulously complying with contracts with suppliers".
Casa Alta “has not stopped receiving bagasse” and will “receive a lot more than I was thinking at the beginning of the campaign, but all the mills with whom you have a contract are operating normally", indicated.
According to João Diogo, in the current campaign, as had already happened in the 2019/2020, the upper house, which has a static capacity to store 300.000 tons of bagasse, received this product from cooperative presses, who are not regular suppliers.
"And it still has space and capacity to receive and transform more bagasse from other suppliers", he stressed, referring that Casa Alta “has few, but big bagasse suppliers and who are the big operators in the olive oil area in Alentejo”.
News: Lidador News/Lusa
