Olive Oil Price in EU Rises by 50% in a Year

The price of olive oil in the European Union increased by 50% between January 2023 and January 2024.

This was reported by Eurostat, which emphasizes that the price increased by 37% in August (compared to August 2022), and this trend continued to rise in the next two months, when the recorded increase was 44% in September and 50% in October, and then the peak of the annual change came in November 2023 with +51% compared to the same month in 2022, and finally in December there was a slight decrease (+47%).

The highest growth in January 2024 was recorded in Portugal (+69% compared to January 2023), followed by Greece (+67%) and Spain (+63%).

The increase in costs, which has affected all commodities in general, but which in the case of oil is emphasized by the shortage of recent years’ harvests and therefore of stocks, is particularly caused by the drought of 2022/2023. Above all, crop failures in the world’s leading producer, Spain, which suffers from chronic rainfall shortages, are a heavy burden.