Olive Oil Prices Rising Worldwide

Olive oil prices are ris­ing in all major mar­kets, a trend that is expected to con­tinue in the com­ing months.

According to the lat­est data released by the agri­cul­tural mar­ket obser­va­tory of the European Union, Spanish extra vir­gin olive oil prices have risen by 4 per­cent in the last month, a 15-per­cent increase com­pared to September 2021.

Other rel­e­vant mar­kets, such as Italy and Greece, have also expe­ri­enced a 2 per­cent rise in the last 30 days, with Greek extra vir­gin olive oil prices ris­ing 12 per­cent in the pre­vi­ous 12 months.

The E.U. agri­cul­tural obser­va­tory has also reported sig­nif­i­cant increases in vir­gin and non-vir­gin olive oil prices in all major E.U. mar­kets. For exam­ple, in Greece, the price of vir­gin olive oils rose 59 per­cent in the past year.

The increase in vir­gin and non-vir­gin olive oil prices had been widely pre­dicted, given the tur­moil in the veg­etable oils mar­ket caused by the Russian inva­sion of Ukraine and the low expec­ta­tions for the 2022/23 crop year in the main pro­duc­ing coun­tries.

A few weeks ago, the Spanish Minister of Agriculture Fisheries and Food Luis Planas warned that olive oil yields for the incom­ing sea­son would be sig­nif­i­cantly lower than aver­age. He also esti­mated veg­etable oil prices would remain high.

Given the effects of the drought and quickly ris­ing pro­duc­tion costs in Spain and Italy, the two largest pro­duc­ing coun­tries in the world, extra vir­gin and vir­gin olive oil price hikes are seen as bad news for bot­tlers.

On top of cli­matic and eco­nomic prob­lems fac­ing Spain, some of the country’s largest pro­duc­ers warned of a sig­nif­i­cant reduc­tion in extra vir­gin olive oil con­sump­tion fol­low­ing the end of emer­gency mea­sures enacted to curb the spread of the Covid-19 pan­demic, which led to a sig­nif­i­cant increase in house­hold con­sump­tion in the past two years.

According to E.U. data, European olive oil stocks are esti­mated to reach 661,000 tons by the end of September, slightly above the aver­age of the last five years. The increase in end­ing stock is pri­mar­ily attrib­uted to the abun­dant yields of the 2021/22 crop year.

These end­ing stocks are expected to sus­tain E.U. olive oil exports, which reached almost 500,000 tons of extra vir­gin olive oil and 200,000 tons of vir­gin olive oil in the cur­rent crop year.

According to Food Ingredients First, one of the lead­ing exporters of Spanish olive oil, Acesur, expects global olive oil demand to grow amid the sun­flower oil short­age. As a result, the com­pany expects olive oil prices to rise by 20 or 25 per­cent in the next few months.

Kyle Holland, an ana­lyst at Mintec, told The Wall Street Journal that pro­duc­tion decreases in Spain could lead to olive oil prices ris­ing to €4.30 per kilo­gram.

Olive oil prices are also expected to increase out­side of Europe’s major pro­duc­ing coun­tries. Lordan Ljubenkov, the pres­i­dent of the Cooperative Association of Dalmatia, told local media that prices in Croatia are likely to rise by 20 to 30 per­cent in the com­ing month.

“Croatian olive pro­duc­ers will not see their actual work become more expen­sive, but the pack­ag­ing will cost more, as will fuel, trans­port and the means of pro­tect­ing the olives them­selves,” he said.

“Everything about olive oil and the efforts put into the process by Croatian olive grow­ers will become more expen­sive, and at the same time, the final prod­uct, extra vir­gin olive oil, will also cost more,” Ljubenkov added.

Outside of the European Union, offi­cials in Tunisia and Morocco told local media that they are expect­ing to see their olive oil prices rise. In addi­tion, pro­duc­ers in Chile and California have told Olive Oil Times they also have increased their prices to cope with infla­tion.

• The Wall Street Journal
• Total Croatia News
• Medias 24