Recently, as I was reaching for the well-known green bottle in a grocery store aisle, the price tag stopped me cold. Not a specialty deli. Not a hand-labeled flask with an imported artisan brand. A simple, own-label liter of olive oil that costs about the same as a good bottle of Rioja. Although the term “liquid gold” has been used for a few years, it is beginning to feel more like a warning than a clever observation.
The figures underlying that sticker shock are really startling. From about $1,313 per metric ton in December 2020 to over $9,000 by August 2023, the price of olive oil increased so sharply that it hardly seems real when you type it out. Midway through April 2024, the average supermarket price in the UK for a litre of own-brand olive oil was £7.38, a 42% increase from the previous year. According to industry estimates, a two-liter bottle of extra virgin may soon surpass £16. Major producer Deoleo’s chief sales officer has publicly stated that the industry is going through one of its most challenging times ever. Companies don’t usually use that language unless things are really bad.
This isn’t particularly complicated, but it’s a serious issue. About 40% of the world’s olives are produced in Spain, where the harvest has been severely damaged by years of heat and drought. Trees are forced into early flowering by warm winters, and a cold snap kills those blooms. Heatwaves in the spring exacerbate the harm. Global production is expected to drop from 3.4 million tonnes in 2022 to about 2.3 million tonnes in 2024, according to the International Olive Council. Rafael Alonso Barrau, a seventh-generation farmer in Almeria, saw his yield decline by over 45% in a single season. “The concern,” he said, “is that our summers are becoming longer and hotter.” That is difficult to dispute.
Another aspect that frequently receives less attention is the supply chain. Bigger businesses have been accused of exploiting the shortage to raise prices even further, driving out smaller family producers who are less able to absorb costs. According to reports, there has been an increase in olive oil theft in supermarkets throughout parts of Europe. This seems almost absurd until you consider that bottles are now priced similarly to spirits. People’s perceptions of what was once merely a cooking staple have obviously changed.
The real question is whether this is a structural shift or a short-term squeeze. Yield instability may become the new norm rather than the exception because climate projections for southern Europe do not indicate a return to cooler, wetter conditions anytime soon. It’s possible that premium extra virgin olive oil is starting to gradually transition from a common cooking ingredient to something more carefully selected and used sparingly, more akin to how people treat a good wine than a vegetable oil.
The options have improved for those who are already making adjustments. Rapeseed oil that has been cold-pressed has a mild flavor and can withstand heat fairly well. Avocado oil tastes clean and has a high smoke point, making it suitable for most cooking techniques. When the unique flavor of olive oil isn’t important, even sunflower oil—which Spanish consumers have already shifted toward in large numbers—works well. It matters that none of them taste like olive oil, but it doesn’t matter as much when you’re frying an egg as it does when you’re finishing a salad.
If this trend continues, the true loss will be cultural as much as gastronomic. Olive oil is more than just a cooking medium for households in Mediterranean Europe; it is ingrained in the way that food is perceived, remembered, and shared. It feels more than just a financial annoyance to watch that gradually push itself out of typical kitchens. Something seems to be subtly disappearing.
