Criminals in Mediterranean countries are stealing olives, often cutting down trees, and breaking into warehouses to steal the fruit, the price of which has tripled since 2019.
Olive oil producers say not only high prices will be a problem in the coming months, but also not enough oil to meet consumer demand. According to Euronews, cases of fraud have also become more frequent in Italy, Greece and Spain – with accounting documents and counterfeit oil.
Entire gangs attack olive groves, often using chainsaws to saw off olive branches or cut down trees in unguarded groves. Farmer Nilos Papachristou says:
“They look for heavily loaded branches and cut them off. In this way they not only steal our olives, but also cause serious harm to the tree. It will take four to five years for it to return to normal growth. It is a tragedy what they are doing.”
Farmers are trying to save at least part of the harvest. What happens is that they start harvesting olives earlier, agreeing to a smaller harvest to avoid long-term damage. This is exactly what they do in one of the farms near Athens. Farmer Christos Bekas says:
“Last year, 3.7 kilograms of olives yielded a kilogram of oil. Now a kilogram of oil will yield about 10 kilograms of olives. From my 600 kilograms of olives, I will get 60 kilograms of oil. Last year I had 180 kilograms.”
After decades of growth, the global olive oil market has been significantly disrupted by nearly two years of drought. Global demand for olive oil remains high.
We previously told you that Greece ranks 1st in the world in the production of gourmet olive oil.
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