Spain will produce only 15% more olive oil in the new campaign with skyrocketing prices

2023-10-09 18:13:29

The Government confirms the bad omens. Spain will produce only 15% more olive oil in the new campaign compared to the previous one, which was terrible. And production will remain more than 30% below the average of the last four years, without reaching one million tons. A balance that indicates that the prices of liquid gold They will continue shooting in the supermarket.

The first estimate published by the Ministry of Agriculture places production at 765,300 tons for the 2023/2024 campaign, which represents 15% more compared to the low harvest of the previous season, which closed with 664,000 tons, and 34% less than the average amount produced in the last four campaigns.

In parallel, the Ministry estimates link stocks of 257,000 tons, 43% and 52% lower than the initial stocks of the previous campaign and the last four campaigns, respectively.

The acting minister of the branch, Luis Planas, has specified that in this way a global availability for commercialization of 1.02 million tons will be reached. “This is a first estimate that logically throughout the campaign we will specify based on the real data of the harvest obtained and its marketing,” he added.

Planas explained that this year’s campaign has been impacted “by the lack of rainwhich has logically produced a direct impact on production” and “due to high temperatures at the end of April, which have caused both flowering and subsequent fruit set to reduce the possibilities of increasing production.

In this way, the Ministry made the data public this Monday after having received the production estimates from the autonomous communities with the aim of having harvest forecasts at the beginning of each campaign, because they constitute a key tool for market transparency and to facilitate decision-making for all operators in the sector.

Oil remains expensive

Everything indicates, based on these forecasts, that oil will continue to be expensive. Last week, the minister considered the scenario of the “maintenance of prices, with a slight decrease.” Although when analyzing the evolution of prices, he advocated doing so “from a longer perspective” and ironically said that the olive oil indicator seems “almost the risk premium a few years ago.”

Planas affirmed that “liquid gold” is “key for families, not so much from a quantitative point of view, because the impact is very limited in the shopping basket,” but from the prism of the “eating habits” of the spaniards And he defended “a price that is fair and pays decently to the producers” and that at the same time Don’t turn olive oil into a “gourmet” product.

This same Monday, the Facua consumer association has made public a comparative study that shows that the price of a liter of extra virgin olive oil has risen by an average of 3.66 euros in supermarkets so far this year, with increases that range between 1.25 and 6.30 euros per liter, but rising to 7.36 euros per liter in the case of virgin olive oil.

Specifically, the average price of a liter of extra virgin was 6.61 euros in January 2023, once the VAT reduction from 10% to 5% had already been applied, while at the beginning of October, the average for these oils was located at 10.27 euros. That is, so far this year, has become more expensive by 55.4%.

From the analysis it is extracted that the most pronounced increase so far this year has been detected in the 5 liter bottle of Carbonell virgin olive oil at Carrefourwhich has increased its price by 141.5%, going from 26 euros in January to 62.79 euros at the beginning of October, which amounts to 7.36 euros per liter.

In second place, the 110.7% increase in liter of Coosur brand extra virgin Hojiblanca variety in Eroski. At the beginning of the year it was sold at 5.69 euros, while it is currently at 11.99 euros, that is, 6.30 euros per liter more expensive. Almost the same increase has occurred in Alcampo110.3%, going from 5.70 to 11.99 euros so far this year.

While the third largest increase has been recorded in the five-liter bottle of Carbonell extra virgin in Alcampowhich has gone from 25.72 to 49.99 euros, which represents an increase of 4.85 euros per liter.

Facua will send these records to the Ministry of Consumer Affairs in an expansion of the complaints filed last month, in which he asks the Department that directs Alberto Garzn to open an investigation into the increases in profit margins that are presumably occurring both in olive oil and in the rest of the foods affected by the VAT reduction.