`Extra Virgin Olive Oil Prices Could Reach €11/Kg in Italy, Officials Warn - Olive Oil Times
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Extra Virgin Olive Oil Prices Could Reach €11/Kg in Italy, Officials Warn

By Paolo DeAndreis
Aug. 2, 2023 14:28 UTC

New esti­mates for Italy’s 2022/23 crop year show a 27 per­cent decrease com­pared with the pre­vi­ous cam­paign.

The yield at the end of the crop year in September is expected to remain at 241,000 tons, and the first fore­casts for the com­ing 2023/24 crop year show signs of improve­ment.

It would be a fatal error to believe that the next cam­paign will fix every­thing. On the con­trary, reduced olive oil stocks in Europe warn us about the future avail­abil­ity of extra vir­gin olive oil.- Andrea Carrassi, gen­eral direc­tor, Assitol

Still, sig­nif­i­cant uncer­tain­ties rose as heavy rain­fall was reported dur­ing flow­er­ing through­out the coun­try. Considerable dif­fer­ences are expected in terms of vol­umes among the most rel­e­vant olive oil-pro­duc­ing regions of the coun­try.

Olive oil stor­age totals are expected to remain low and con­tinue to impact record-high olive oil prices.

See Also:Europe Confirms Steep Decline in Olive Oil Production

This is the com­plex sce­nario dis­cussed dur­ing a meet­ing of the European Commission’s Civil Dialog Group on the Agricultural Market, which brought together some of the most rel­e­vant farm­ing and olive oil-pro­duc­ing orga­ni­za­tions.

An offi­cial of the European farm­ing orga­ni­za­tion Copa-Cogeca noted that Italy has an esti­mated 235,000 tons of olive oil stocks, 40 per­cent lower than in June 2022.

According to the orga­ni­za­tion, olive oil prices in Italy dur­ing the next mar­ket­ing year could climb up to €11 per kilo­gram.

During the meet­ing, the Federation of the European Union Olive Oil Industry (Fedolive) noted how extra vir­gin olive oil prices in Italy are now at about €8 per kilo­gram. Sky-high prices are tak­ing a toll on the olive oil sold in Italy.

According to the Italian Institute of Services for the Agricultural and Food Market (Ismea), olive oil prices in the Italian mar­ket rose by 46.3 per­cent from March 2022 to March 2023.

A large por­tion of national olive oil sales are made in super­mar­kets, which, accord­ing to Fedolive, will have to accept sig­nif­i­cant price increases in future nego­ti­a­tions with olive oil pro­duc­ers.

As pro­duc­tion esti­mates remain low and future olive oil avail­abil­ity on the mar­ket is put into ques­tion, prices are expected to grow even more. A high level of infla­tion and increas­ing logis­tics and pro­duc­tion costs fur­ther con­tribute to ris­ing prices.

Commenting on the find­ings at the E.U. meet­ing, Andrea Carrassi, the gen­eral direc­tor of the Italian Association of the Edible Oil Industry (Assitol), warned that the next har­vest is unlikely to seal the wounds of a trou­bled mar­ket.

“It would be a fatal error to believe that the next cam­paign will fix every­thing,” Carrassi said. ​“On the con­trary, reduced olive oil stocks in Europe warn us about the future avail­abil­ity of extra vir­gin olive oil in the next months and the next cam­paign.”

“Even if we are now expect­ing a bet­ter sea­son than the last one, the risk now is to see last year’s sit­u­a­tion repli­cat­ing itself, dark­en­ing prospects for our sec­tor,” he added.

“It is urgent that both the sec­tor and the insti­tu­tions thor­oughly approach the mat­ter with mea­sures that allow us to secure extra vir­gin olive oils for our con­sumers,” Carrassi con­cluded. ​“If not, the health of the Italians, which owes so much to this well-being juice, might not count any­more on the olive oil’s ben­e­fits.”

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