Crude oil has fallen 10% this year, but another less-crude kind of oil is rocketing higher. Prices of extra virgin olive oil are at an all-time high, according to statistics tracked by the International Monetary Fund going back to 1990.
Olive oil was trading for $6,269.63 per metric ton as of April, up 46% from last year.
For those who buy their cooking and dipping oils in quantities less than a ton, that comes out to about $6 a liter. Of course, shipping, marketing, and sales costs will make that bottle a lot more expensive.
Filippo Berio, a top olive oil brand based in New Jersey, called the latest olive season “the most challenging on record, with the lowest crop yields in 30 years.”
Olive oil has gotten much pricier because of a severe drought since last year in Spain, where about 40% of olive oil is made. Last summer was the hottest on record in the country, and among the driest, too. Spain’s Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food projected in March that the crop will yield just 680,000 tons of olive oil in the current growing season, down from the five-year average annual yield of 1.37 million tons, according to the Olive Oil Times. Spain has asked the European Union for emergency funds to help farmers. The Italian harvest also came in light.
The extreme temperatures and prices could be a sign of more volatility ahead—and more sticker shock for shoppers stocking up on olive oil. Climate change is likely to make it harder to grow olives in some of the best regions for production, Spanish and Portuguese researchers found in one study. It’s a problem that canola be solved with some larger changes.
Write to Avi Salzman at [email protected]
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