Value chains & market institutions

Harvest and crushing. Bulgaria harvested 1.60 million tonnes of sunflower seed on 943,470 ha in 2025, at EU standard humidity, against 2.14 million tonnes in 2022, with yields of 1.70 and 2.34 t/ha¹. MAF's own statistics give 1,609,367 tonnes from 929,145 ha for 2024². FAOSTAT estimates that 1.79 million tonnes of seed were crushed in 2023, more than the domestic harvest of 1.78 million tonnes, and records 683,000 tonnes of crude sunflower oil and 714,400 tonnes of sunflower cake produced, figures it takes from an external source³. Bulgaria imported 657,616 tonnes of seed in 2023 and 1.34 million tonnes in 2022³.

Exports. On NSI data published by MAF, wheat, sunflower oil and sunflower seed were the three largest agri-food export products in 2024². In 2025 Bulgaria exported 900,597 tonnes of sunflower seed worth US$757.6 million and US$737.4 million of sunflower oil, and imported 373,024 tonnes of seed worth US$320.8 million (net weights estimated by UN Comtrade)⁴. Greece took 23.7% and Spain 19.3% of the oil exports by value, and Türkiye 24.7% of the seed exports (own calculations)⁵. Oil exports reached US$1,663.1 million in 2022, the highest value since at least 2015⁴. Manufacturers of vegetable and animal oils and fats (NACE C10.4) had 67 enterprises, 2,617 persons employed and net turnover of EUR 1,010.1 million in 2024⁶.

Exports. Bulgaria exported 5.73 million tonnes of wheat worth US$1,382.3 million in 2025, together with 697,389 tonnes of barley and 451,526 tonnes of maize⁴. Algeria bought 42.6% of the wheat by value, followed by Greece, Spain, Romania, Morocco and Egypt (own calculation)⁵. Maize exports were 2.59 million tonnes in both 2019 and 2020⁴. Laboratory analyses by the Bulgarian Food Safety Agency placed 73% of the 2024 wheat harvest in the groups with high bread-making quality, against 48.7% in 2023².

Storage and ports. At the end of 2024 the MAF register listed 4,245 active grain storage sites with a capacity of 18.93 million tonnes, against 16.20 million tonnes at the end of 2019²⁷. Products of agriculture, hunting, forestry and fishing accounted for 5.9 million tonnes, or 19.9%, of the goods handled in Bulgarian main ports in 2024⁸. Varna loaded 5.14 million tonnes and Burgas 3.12 million tonnes of dry bulk goods in 2025, a category that includes grain, oilseeds and other bulk cargo⁹.

Harvests. Oil-bearing roses were harvested on 4,325 ha in 2024 and gave 11,642 tonnes of flowers, 10.7% more than in 2023, while lavender gave 32,298 tonnes of fresh flowers from 8,598 ha². The rose harvest was 14,587 tonnes in 2020 and the lavender harvest 81,523 tonnes in 2021¹¹. Medicinal, aromatic and essential-oil crops covered 42,771 ha in 2024². The sources used publish no official series on the quantity of rose oil distilled.

Rules, labels and exports. Bulgarian rose oil, Bulgarsko rozovo maslo, was entered in the EU register as a protected geographical indication by Implementing Regulation (EU) No 1020/2014 of 25 September 2014¹⁴. The Oil-Bearing Rose Act was adopted on 16 January 2020, published in State Gazette No. 9 of 31 January 2020 and entered into force on publication, except one provision that applied from 1 January 2022. It set up a public register of rose growers, processors and plantations kept by the ministry, and requires rose flowers to be bought under written contracts between registered growers and processors¹⁵. Exports of essential oils other than citrus and mint oils (HS 330129), which include rose and lavender oil, were US$39.9 million in 2025, against US$106.8 million in 2018, and France took 39.7% of them (own calculation)⁴⁵. In 2024, 90 enterprises with 780 persons employed manufactured essential oils⁶.

Milk supply. Farms produced 770.5 million litres of milk in 2024, 2.7% less than in 2023, of which 687.6 million litres were cows' milk². Dairies received 634.1 thousand tonnes of cows' milk, 21.5 thousand tonnes of ewes' milk, 10.3 thousand tonnes of goats' milk and 3.3 thousand tonnes of buffalos' milk in 2024, and obtained 91.3 thousand tonnes of cheese, 146.2 thousand tonnes of yoghurt and other acidified milk and 70.7 thousand tonnes of drinking milk¹⁹. In January–July 2025 dairies processed 430.2 million litres of milk, 1.7% more than a year earlier². State Fund Agriculture processed 1,146 applications in 2024 covering 6,440 contracts, annexes and terminations between milk producers and first buyers².

Cheese and yoghurt. Bulgarsko kiselo mlyako and Bulgarsko byalo salamureno sirene were registered as protected designations of origin in July 2023¹⁶¹⁷. MAF reported 34 dairies in the producer register for the yoghurt and 28 for the cheese, with 7 more in the registration procedure by mid-2025, and the amendments to the national standards BDS 12:2010 for Bulgarian yoghurt and BDS 15:2010 for Bulgarian white brined cheese were published². Cheese exports (HS 0406) fell from 26,082 tonnes in 2015 to 14,411 tonnes in 2025, while imports rose from 22,105 to 44,205 tonnes (2025 net weights estimated by UN Comtrade), and imports have exceeded exports by volume every year since 2018⁴.

Size of the industry. Food and beverage manufacturers (NACE C10 and C11) had 5,904 enterprises and 88,886 persons employed in 2024, 18.6% of manufacturing employment, and produced value added of EUR 2,198.6 million, about US$2.38 billion at the 2024 average rate, on net turnover of EUR 9,797.4 million (own calculations)⁶²⁰. Among the food groups, bakery had the most enterprises (2,724) and persons employed (24,559), and meat processing the highest turnover (EUR 2,143.8 million)⁶.

Wine. Registered wine producers declared 634,649 hectolitres of wine from the 2024 harvest, and total production including non-industrial output was 763,310 hectolitres, 10% less than from the 2023 harvest².

Producer organisations. At the end of 2024, 37 producer groups and organisations were recognised, 17 of them in fruit and vegetables and 10 in milk, against 38 a year earlier²¹³. The dairy groups and organisations had 323 member farmers and those in fruit and vegetables 122². Three fruit and vegetable operational programmes were under way in 2024, and State Fund Agriculture paid BGN 305,405 of aid on them. No public intervention or private storage was opened in 2024².

Organic farming. The organic area, fully converted and under conversion, reached 198,051 ha in 2024, 3.95% of the utilised agricultural area and 34.0% more than in 2023 (own calculation), after 86,310 ha in 2021²¹. Of this area, 119,427 ha were under conversion in 2024. Bulgaria had 5,646 registered organic operators at the end of 2024, including 4,978 agricultural producers, 391 processors and 119 exporters²². Seventeen control bodies approved by the minister monitored organic operators in 2024².

School schemes and crisis aid. In the 2024/25 school year the school fruit scheme reached 445,860 children and the school milk scheme 442,030, with payments of BGN 16.3 million and BGN 23.7 million from EU and national funds². After the heat and drought of summer 2024, Implementing Regulation (EU) 2024/2675 made up to EUR 10.9 million from the EAGF available to Bulgaria, and State Fund Agriculture paid BGN 21.3 million to 8,869 maize growers for 511,374 ha². Amounts paid before 2026 are in lev as published, and the lev was converted to the euro at 1.95583 lev per euro from 1 January 2026²³.

Food inflation. Annual food price inflation in Bulgaria peaked at 27.8% in November 2022, against a euro-area peak of 17.9% in March 2023, and averaged 22.4% in 2022²⁴. It rose again to 7.0% in July 2025 and was 5.3% in December 2025²⁴. Bulgaria adopted the euro on 1 January 2026 at a conversion rate of 1.95583 lev per euro²³. Food inflation was 3.7% in January 2026 and 1.6% in September 2026, when inflation for all items was 5.6%²⁴. On Eurostat's purchasing power parity data, food prices in Bulgaria were 91.0% of the EU average in 2025, against 85.0% in 2022²⁵.

Euro changeover. Vendors had to display prices in both euro and lev from August 2025 to August 2026²⁶. An ECB blog post of April 2026, co-written by three ECB economists and an economist of the Bulgarian National Bank, found that consumer prices rose by 0.6% from December 2025 to January 2026, an increase the authors attribute to food and services, while energy and industrial goods prices fell. It estimated that unusual January increases in some services added 0.3–0.4 percentage points to inflation, and found no evidence of systematic upward price adjustments in data on about 1.4 million products from the Consumer Protection Commission's price monitoring portal. The authors also estimated that some services prices were adjusted ahead of the changeover, between May and December 2025, adding roughly 0.1 percentage point to headline inflation in 2025²⁶.