Olive oil crisis: prices explode by up to 264 percent

Olive oil crisis: prices explode by up to 264 percent

The current olive oil crisis is causing significant price increases and transforming a once simple product into a luxury good. Crop failures of up to 50 percent and price increases of up to 264 percent are putting German consumers under pressure. This increase is due to various factors: insect plagues and climatic changes affect harvest quantities, especially in countries such as Spain, Italy, Greece and Portugal.

In February, olive oil prices rose 51 percent year-on-year and rose 54 percent in March, even as overall inflation, including food, declined. At the beginning of 2022, prices were up to 150 percent higher than at the beginning of 2022, which presents buyers with enormous price differences.

The prospects of an early end to the crisis are bleak. The predicted frequency of heat waves and droughts in the coming years will continue to impact crops. Olive trees also take a long time to become productive, which puts further strain on the industry.

The “Stiftung Warentest” revealed in a study that of 23 oils analyzed, only four were rated “good”. As the crisis expands, Silvia Monetti, team leader for food prices and food poverty at the NRW Consumer Center, recommends switching to alternative vegetable oils. Rapeseed oil, for example, contains important unsaturated fatty acids that the body cannot produce itself, while sunflower oil is rich in vitamin E but is less heat-resistant than rapeseed oil. Consumers therefore have the opportunity to partially or completely replace olive oil with other oils whose prices have fallen again.