Italian food exports top €72 billion as coffee and cheese outpace wine and olive oil
Italy’s agri-food exports rose 5.6% to more than €72 billion in 2025, led by roasted coffee, cheese and fresh fruit. Export growth stalled in the first five months of 2026, while wine and olive oil remained under pressure.
Export value reaches a new record
Italian agri-food exports exceeded €72 billion in 2025, rising 5.6% from 2024 and setting a new record, according to reports by Horeca News and Gazzetta del Gusto based on CREA’s foreign-trade study. Imports increased faster, climbing 10.1% to €72.45 billion. Higher international prices for agricultural commodities, including green coffee and cocoa, contributed to the import increase and also affected the value of some processed-food exports.
Agri-food products accounted for 11.2% of Italy’s total exports and 12.2% of its imports. Products identified internationally with Italian origin generated €52.2 billion, or 72.5% of total agri-food exports. Gazzetta del Gusto reported that this Made in Italy segment grew 3.7% from 2024, more slowly than the sector as a whole.
Coffee, cheese and bakery products lead growth
Roasted coffee recorded the strongest increase among the highlighted categories, with export value up 23.6%. Cocoa-based confectionery rose 21.4%, fresh fruit 14.6%, cheese 13.4% and bakery products 6.5%. Exports of Grana Padano and Parmigiano Reggiano also increased in value. However, the results for coffee and cocoa confectionery partly reflected higher costs for imported raw materials, which lifted average export unit values.
Extra-virgin olive oil, preserved tomatoes and some wine categories moved in the opposite direction. Olive oil provides the clearest distinction between value and physical trade: export value fell 17.2%, while volume increased 18.2%. CREA linked this divergence to lower international olive oil prices following sharp increases during the previous two years, when limited global supply had pushed quotations higher. Export volumes in several other declining categories also proved more resilient than their values.
EU demand offsets weaker US sales
The European Union remained Italy’s largest agri-food trading partner, taking 59.5% of exports and supplying almost 70% of imports. Sales to EU countries grew 8.1% in 2025, with particularly positive results in Spain, the Netherlands, Poland and Romania. Trade remained concentrated geographically within Italy: Lombardy, Emilia-Romagna, Veneto and Piedmont together represented more than 60% of national agri-food imports and exports.
The United States was the exception among Italy’s major export destinations. Italian agri-food shipments to the market fell 4.2% to €7.55 billion in 2025, partly because tariffs increased in the second half of the year. Extra-virgin olive oil, PDO wine, spirits, sauces and condiments were among the affected categories. Pasta, mineral water, roasted coffee and bakery products continued to grow. Despite the decline, exports to the United States remained above the €6.7 billion recorded in 2023.
2026 begins with flatter trade
In the first five months of 2026, Italian agri-food exports decreased 0.4% from the same period of 2025, while imports fell 4.3%. Roasted coffee, Grana Padano and Parmigiano Reggiano maintained positive momentum, but olive oil and some wine categories remained negative. The figures indicate that headline export value increasingly depends on product mix and prices rather than uniformly rising demand.
CREA also highlighted Italy’s uneven trade with Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay in the context of the EU-Mercosur agreement. Italy imported almost €3.7 billion of agri-food products from the four countries in 2025 and exported about €500 million. Imports were concentrated in green coffee, animal feed, soybeans and beef, while Italy sold pasta, apples, preserved tomatoes, extra-virgin olive oil, roasted coffee and confectionery to the bloc.
