You will probably have noticed that the price of extra virgin olive oil has increased substantially recently. We want to outline some of the challenges the industry is facing and what is behind these increases.
The olive harvest happens just once a year. Where we make our extra virgin olive oil in Crete, the harvest usually takes place in November and December. This is when the weather changes from summer to winter and the olives start to ripen – olives are in fact a winter fruit. In other parts of Europe, Spain and Italy for example which are further north of Crete, the transition to winter starts earlier so the harvest usually commences in October.
The winter 2022 harvest saw the worst recorded harvest in Europe. Total yields across Europe were down by circa 50% against the 5-year average. This season, winter 2023, sees the situation worse still, with the final picture expected to be more severe than the 50% reduction from the previous year. With such low yields of olives, this is why you’re seeing olive oil become so much more expensive at the moment, no matter whether it comes from Greece, Spain, Italy or other European countries.
All of this is being caused by climate change and the successive droughts which are making the climate too hot for olives to grow as they should. These past two years, there was no water in the water table and even with irrigation systems to water trees, the dry soil meant that the water was simply running off. It is unprecedented to have such low yields and especially for this to occur 2 years in a row. Just to give you an idea of the challenges in our area of Crete, our trees (from where some of our oil comes from) harvest is down by 70% based on a 5-year average and the neighbouring farmers’ trees (where the remainder of our oil comes from) show a similar story. Such low yields are impacting prices as farmers are restricted to such limited means. In these times, larger brands will source extra virgin olive oil from wherever they can and as you will see from the small print on the product labels, their oil will be blended from multiple country sources. But with harvests across all of Europe suffering, even supermarket olive oils and large brand olive oils are unable to escape these challenges.
We have just started the season as the harvest in Crete was only completed in December 2023. The next harvest is not until November 2024 and with such low yields and lack of oil at the start of the year, 2024 is destined to be a difficult year for businesses involved in producing extra virgin olive oil.
Why is olive oil so expensive at the moment?
