`Olive Oil Prices Rising Faster than Inflation in Italy - Olive Oil Times
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Olive Oil Prices Rising Faster than Inflation in Italy

By Paolo DeAndreis
Apr. 22, 2023 00:23 UTC

Olive oil prices at ori­gin in Italy have been sta­ble or slightly fallen in recent days, but prices for con­sumers are still ris­ing and mak­ing other pop­u­lar foods more expen­sive.

According to data pub­lished by the Italian Institute of Services for the Agricultural and Food Market (Ismea), the aver­age price of olive oil at ori­gin was 46.3 per­cent more in March 2023 than at the same time in 2022.

I would say that all foods now cost way more than one year ago. Even in local arti­san shops, small piz­zas’ prices have gone up at least 20 per­cent, some even more.- Graziano Giovane, head of a worker coop­er­a­tive in Tuscany

The infla­tion dynam­ics that impacted Italy and many other mar­kets in 2022 are among the rea­sons for the price increase, along with the effects of the severe reduc­tion in Spanish olive oil pro­duc­tion.

Inflation is also among the con­trib­u­tors to a new record in the over­all value of Italian agri-food exports. In a note, Ismea reported that in 2022 agri-food exports reached almost €61 bil­lion, a record-high and 14.8 per­cent more than in 2021.

See Also:Extra Virgin Olive Oil Makes Good Pizza Even Better, Researchers Find

Inflation has also boosted import val­ues, with a cor­re­spond­ing impact on the coun­try’s trade bal­ance, which fell by €1.6 bil­lion.

The lat­est data released by the Ministry of Agriculture show that olive oil exports in March 2023 are also ris­ing after sev­eral slow months, a trend mainly attrib­uted to the reduced avail­abil­ity of stored olive oil in rel­e­vant mar­kets such as Greece.

Along with olive oil, ris­ing prices for other food, includ­ing toma­toes and moz­zarella cheese, impact Italian con­sumers.

Pizza, among the most pop­u­lar foods in the coun­try, costs sig­nif­i­cantly more than it did one year ago. According to Bloomberg’s Pizza Margherita index, cook­ing a pizza at home in Italy is at least 20 per­cent more expen­sive than one year ago.

The National Institute of Statistics (Istat) esti­mates that agri-food infla­tion was 12.6 per­cent in 2022, com­pared to gen­eral infla­tion of 8.1 per­cent.

Casual con­sumers, who often choose pizza as a quick snack dur­ing work­ing hours, con­firmed the ris­ing prices to Olive Oil Times.

“I would say that all foods now cost way more than one year ago,” said Graziano Giovane, head of a worker coop­er­a­tive in Tuscany. ​“Even in local arti­san shops, small piz­zas’ prices have gone up at least 20 per­cent, some even more. Slices used to be priced €1 but are now at €1.20 or €1.30.”

“I can see that hap­pen­ing both in pizze­rias, where the prices have gone up at least 20 per­cent, but I can also see that when buy­ing frozen pizza in the super­mar­ket,” added Lorenzo Carnevale, an engi­neer in Umbria.

While infla­tion in the coun­try is esti­mated at 7.6 per­cent in March 2023, Ismea said ris­ing olive oil prices at ori­gin seem to be lev­el­ing off.

Between February and March, vir­gin olive oil prices at ori­gin grew mod­er­ately by 2.5 per­cent, with extra vir­gin olive oil prices drop­ping 0.6 per­cent. Consumers now hope that the new trend in prices at ori­gin will slow the growth in the sale price of asso­ci­ated foods.

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