Spaanse olijfbomen

“Spanish olive oil liquid gold”

“Spanish olive oil liquid gold” headlined RTL Z today in their morning edition of October 19. What is going on? I would like to briefly explain this in this blog.

Last year's harvest was one of the worst harvests ever in Spain. Due to drought in Spain, olive trees produced fewer olive trees than normal. To illustrate: my uncle picks an average of 120,000 kg of olives every year, last year in the 2022/2023 harvest this was only 20,000 kg.

If you consider that 66% of all olive oil worldwide comes from Spain, it is inevitable that this will lead to scarcity on the world market. In addition, due to the war in Ukraine, there is a scarcity of sunflower oil, so olive oil is used as an alternative.

The index prices do not lie, the market price has risen enormously over the past year: 117% increase in one year (Source: olive oil price index ).

Olive oil price index as of Oct 2022; 117% increase

Unfortunately, this also leads to increased purchase prices and sales prices for me. I have also seen purchasing prices double in one year.

But I hope it won't be crazier than in Spain, watch RTL Z's news broadcast here:

What will happen in the near future? With the news earlier this year that Spanish farmers are desperate (read more: Spanish farmers desperate due to extreme drought "Everything is scorched away "), expectations are that shortages will increase even further and the price of olive oil will rise even more to rise.

Finally, I would like to end with some good news; Last summer holiday I was able to try new olive oils, all of which were delicious. I will keep you informed when I expand my range.

olives on olive tree on the Mediterranean sea

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