Olive oil prices will not fall until the next harvest

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“Our golden… little oil,” it seems, we will say, since prices for olive oil have already reached their maximum, and forecasts for the near future are not very encouraging.

It is characteristic that in August 2023, olive oil cost 8.10 euros per liter, but after seven months the price soared to 15.06 euros per liter, and a two-liter package reaches 27 euros.

The President of the National Interprofessional Organization of Olive Oil (EDOE), Manolis Giannulis, emphasized that “Prices are high and will remain so until the next olive season. We don’t know whether they will rise further. However, prices are currently at historically high levels. In particular, the manufacturer’s price for extra virgin is more than 9 euros per kilogram, while prices on the shelf, depending on the company, range from 13 to 15 euros, and in a tin – from 160 to 170 euros.”

He also added: “Last year’s olive oil, which was on the shelf before the start of the olive season… has dried up. There is sufficiency given the fact that we have a big decline in consumption, otherwise there would not be enough oil, since production is at a historical low in the pan-European level”.

Price trend

A summary picture of prices for extra virgin olive oil, obtained on the basis of data from the SEDIK detailed price bulletin dated 24-01-2024, is presented in table 1. According to these data, the maximum prices remain stable at 9.50 euros/kg, while the minimum shows an upward trend and amounts to 8.70 euros/kg.

Olive oil prices increased by 72% in a year

According to ELSTAT, in the second quarter of 2023, a decrease in prices for products sold by farmers in our country was recorded. Of course, this was preceded by a long period of significant growth, and prices fell with a significant delay compared to the Eurozone, where they began to decline significantly from the third quarter of 2023.

However, prices for key goods for Greek consumers, such as olive oil, fruits and vegetables, continue to rise, helping to support food prices and inflation. Producer prices (the general agricultural and livestock price index) rose 3.8% year-on-year in November, down 0.4% from October, according to ELSTAT data. They rose 1.9% year-on-year in October and fell 2.7% month-on-month.

Olive oil prices, however, continued to rise to astronomical levels and were up 72.4% year-on-year in November and up 1.4% from October. High producer prices have impacted the price at which butter is sold in supermarkets, which rose 58.5% in December from a year earlier, based on the consumer price index.

Producer prices for fruit in November rose 12.3% year-on-year and 2% from October, while retail prices rose 15% in December. Prices for vegetables and fruits and vegetables increased by 14.9%, but decreased by 6.9% compared to the previous month. Their retail prices rose 14% in December compared to the previous year.

Increase in fraud cases

For their part, consumers are trying to find alternative options so as not to be left without “green gold.” Olive oil extra virgin sells for between 13 and 15 euros per liter, and some are looking for other solutions, knowing they could be scammed.

Fraud is becoming increasingly common, such as in a case in Western Attica where oil purchased by hundreds of consumers turned out to be a mixture of olive oil, sunflower oil and other substances. The person responsible for the falsification also received a clear liquid with the smell of olive fruits. The police seized about 70 liters of this substance from his premises. Also seized were 13,960 liters of sunflower oil and 6,332 liters of a substance similar to olive oil.

“Only through chemical analysis can you be sure. But if you shake the bottle, you will find that olive oil takes a very long time to release from the walls, while seed oil leaves much faster. The color does not matter.”says olive oil factory owner Dimitris Priftis.

Regarding health risks, chemist Ioanna Christopoulou emphasizes: “We cannot know what might happen to olive oil that contains unknown chemicals. These are not substances that we can consume, they are substances that are out of control.”

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