Olive oil prices set to drop within months

The last two years had been difficult for olive producers and brands due to high temperatures and drought conditions in Spain, which supplied 50% of global olive oil production, the 5 February report said.

However, following a period of more stable weather followed by rainfall, Spain produced an olive crop of 1.4M tonnes last year – a higher volume than normal for the country’s sector and more than double the crop in 2022/23, Filippo Berio UK managing director Walter Zanre was quoted as saying.

“We sell 60M litres of olive oil a year and, at the end of last year, we were really struggling to source … we’d made provisions but there wasn’t anything of the quality we needed around,” he said.

“But as the new season oils have come on stream, prices have fallen and in reality, it takes around three months for these reduced prices to reach supermarket shelves.”

Although there had been some price reductions in November, many retailers had been reluctant to pass those on to consumers, he said.

Despite output being up and prices expected to come down, Zanre said consumption had seen a significant reduction.

“With the high prices of the last two years, consumption has come down 20%,” he said.

“People have also left the category and it’s fallen back to the lowest levels of 2004. The shortage has undone all the good work done to build it.”

Consumers had “formed new habits” and switched to other oils, Zanre added.

Tags: prices, olive oil