| Global |
 Over 750 million olive trees are cultivated worldwide, 95% of which are in the Mediterranean region. Most of the global production comes from Southern Europe, North Africa and the Middle East.
World production in 2007/08 crop year was 2.6 million metric tons. Of the total European production, 93% comes from Spain, Italy and Greece.  More specifically, Spain produces an average of 750,000 tons olive oil per year and only 25% of the annual production is extra virgin olive oil, Italy produces an average of 500,000 tons olive oil per year and only 50% of the annual production is extra virgin olive oil, whilst Greece produces an average of 350,000 tons olive oil per year and 82% of the annual production is extra virgin olive oil.
According to the International Olive Oil Council, there are six categories of oil. The labels used for Olive Oils clearly indicate its grade:
Extra-virgin olive oil comes from cold pressing of olives, contains no more than 0.8% acidity, and is judged to have a superior taste. It is the highest quality of olive oil. The other – lower quality – oils are: Virgin olive oil (which has an acidity less than 2%, and judged to have a good taste), Pure olive oil (usually a blend of refined olive oil and one of the above two categories of virgin olive oil), Olive oil (blend of virgin oil and refined oil, containing no more than 1.5% acidity), Olive-pomace oil (blend of refined pomace olive oil and possibly some virgin oil, rarely found in a grocery store, often used for certain kinds of cooking in restaurants) and Lampante oil (not for consumption, mostly used in the industrial market)
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| Greece |
Greece devotes 60% of its cultivated land to olive growing. It is the world's top producer of black olives and has more varieties of olives than any other country. Greece holds the third place in world olive production with more than 132 million trees. About half of the annual Greek olive oil production is exported, but only an average 5% of it reflects the origin of the bottled product.
Greece has by far the largest per capita consumption of olive oil worldwide, over 26 liters per year; Spain and Italy, around 14 L; Tunisia, Portugal and Syria, around 8 L. Northern Europe and North America consume far less, around 0.7 L, but the consumption of olive oil outside its home territory has been rising steadily due to the health benefits, the exceptional taste and the variety of uses/consumption patterns.
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| Lesvos Island |
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 The average annual productionof olive oil by the island of Lesvos is approximately 20,000 tons. Eleven million olive trees cover 450 thousand km2, that is 79% of thearable land and 28% of the total area of the island. The varieties that were planted after theGreat Frost still flourish: 65% of the trees are of the ‘kolovi’ variety and 30% the ‘adramytiani’ one.
These 11 million trees correspond to app. 91,000 inhabitants, which translates to app. 121 olive trees per inhabitant, a far higher ratio than any other found anywhere in the world. In the rest of Greece, the ratio is 9.5 per person, in Spain 5.4 and in Italy 3.0.
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