Non-stop rise in 'liquid gold': the price of olive oil has skyrocketed by 115% since the rise began

The price of olive oil has become one of the main concerns of consumers when shopping at the supermarket.. With a liter approaching 10 euros, it is currently the product that is causing the most pressure on food inflation.. The pocketbook notices it and social indignation grows when it is confirmed that in neighboring countries it is much cheaper than in Spain, the main producer.

There are several reasons behind the price increase in our country.. Mainly, the achievement of poor harvests, reduced by the pressing drought that affects the countryside. In the last campaign, barely 663,000 tons were reached, 55% less than the previous year and far from the 1.4 million that Spain usually produces.

And this drop in production, in a market highly marked by supply and demand, is reflecting its consequences in the price.. According to data from the National Institute of Statistics (INE), olive oil has become more expensive by 52.5% in the last year, the largest annual increase since there are records.. It is the food that rises the most in the entire shopping basket.

A look at the evolution of the INE historical series reveals that this 52.5% increase is the highest in the current series and the largest since January 1996, when an annual increase of 35.7% was recorded in the category of edible oils (in the previous bases the subclass of olive oil was not included, as clarified by Statistics).

29 months of 'rally'

What's more, between March 2021 – when the rise of liquid gold began in an annual rate – until August 2023, the price has skyrocketed by almost 115% (114.8%, specifically). It has accumulated no less than 29 months of uninterrupted year-on-year increases.

And the price rally is also observed in the average spending per household on olive oil, which reached 97.7 euros annually in 2022, compared to 77.6 euros in 2021.. This represents an increase of 26%, much higher than the increase in consumption in liters, which does not even reach 3% (from 21.5 liters per home in 2021 to 22.1 liters in 2022), according to data managed by the INE .

Consequently, if we look at extra virgin (the variety that rises the most) the average price per liter currently reaches 9.67 euros, according to a study by the consumer association Facua that compares the prices of up to 50 brands in eight supermarket chains.

Differences between supermarkets

One of the main conclusions of the study is that the price difference in the liter of extra virgin olive oil reaches up to 68.1% depending on the brand and the supermarket.. And another revealing fact: the same brand of this product costs up to 45% more depending on the supermarket chain where it is purchased, a difference that in euros represents no less than four per liter.

Faced with this scenario, Facua demands that the Government investigate the escalation of prices and apply caps to profit margins in all phases of the chain, since “the increases are not only a consequence of poor olive harvests, but also of the speculation,” they say from the association.

However, the acting head of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Luis Planas, insisted yesterday in the press conference after the Council of Ministers that the current “context of high prices” is a consequence of bad campaigns.. And although he predicted that in the next year a higher production will be achieved and, therefore, a lower price of the product can be expected, he insisted that it is too early to be able to make an evaluation of the situation, pending the data provided by the autonomous communities. in October, as well as a price projection, since they will depend on both the rainfall and the prices set by the international raw material markets.

More expensive than in neighboring countries

The other aspect that would be affecting the price of olive oil in Spain is, directly, the level of consumption.. According to data from the International Olive Council, Spain is the largest consumer of olive oil, with 11.4 liters per year per person, compared to 7.1 liters in Italy, 5.8 liters in Portugal or 2.1 liters of France. Planas himself assured yesterday that this product is part not only of our shopping basket, but also of our culture, as an essential food of the Mediterranean diet.

Teresa Pérez Millán, managing director of the Interprofessional Organization of Spanish Olive Oil, recently explained to EL MUNDO that in Spain the price is higher than in neighboring countries because, by consuming more product, there is a greater turnover on the shelves of the stores. supermarkets and prices are more up to date. It thus justified that the price in Spain, the world's main producer of olive oil, is much higher than that reached in Italy (8.21 euros per liter on average), in France (7.52 euros) or in Portugal (6 .86 euros).