What are the reasons for olive oil prices increasing And Impacting Spain?

The price of olive oil continues to increase and it is Spain who are seemingly being hit the hardest.

Farmers have been speaking about why the cost of olive oil is going up and despite being largely produced in Spain, they are actually being impacted most by the increasing costs of producing the highly sought-after oil.

Olive oil is one of the most consumed products in the world and an essential ingredient for the Mediterranean diet, however, in recent times the prices for this much-craved oil have reached historic highs.

Despite a lot of Europe and countries in the European Union having been hit very hard by these price hikes, nobody more so than Spain, despite being the world’s leading producer of the essential kitchen product.

What are the reasons for these historic price hikes?

Simply put, drought and extreme heat waves have played a huge role in seeing the cost of producing olive oil skyrocket and in turn, the product itself must also then go up in price so producers are not seeing themselves go out of pocket.

These extreme weather conditions during summer months have seen Spain’s production of olive oil halved. The prices at origin for making olive oil have seen an increase of 112 per cent since this time last year.

Despite the price rises and consumers likely not happy about having to fork out more for a bottle of olive oil, the farmers producing it have insisted they are still out of pocket.

“We’ve had higher production costs, historical ones, like never before,” said Farmer Jesus Anchuelo of the Small Farmers Union. “This oil that is now being sold, whose price is rising every second week, was paid to us at a price that we could barely cover production costs.”

How much have prices really been rising?

It’s believed that one single litre of olive oil in shops up and down Spain has risen by 52.5 per cent in just a year which is worryingly way above the European average that stands at just 38.3 per cent, and this includes countries such as Greece and Italy.

This is not just impacting olive oil itself, however, because it’s driving up the prices of other products that rely on the oil to make other things. For example, in a can of sardines, olive oil is by far the most expensive ingredient.

Spain do indeed export 70 per cent of their olive oil produced, and with prices going up but demand staying very high, it means that people are having to fight fiercely for olive oil, despite it being widely produced in their homeland.