Italian olive oil gets pricier
Poor harvest likely to make product more expensive on shelves
ROME — From specialty shops in Rome to supermarkets around the world, lovers of Italian olive oil are in for some sticker shock this year, with prices due to jump by as much as 20 per cent.
A combination of bad weather and pests hit the harvest in southern Europe, most of all in Italy, where production is halved from last fall. That is pushing up Italian wholesale prices by 64 per cent as of mid-February compared with a year earlier, which translates to shelf-price increases of 15 to 20 per cent in Italy.
In other countries, the ultimate price increases will depend on several factors — such as how much retailers take on the costs themselves and the change in currency values. The U.S., for example, is likely to see a more modest rise in price as a stronger dollar keeps a lid on the cost of imports.
Italy’s harvest was especially hard hit by the combination of early rains that knocked buds off the trees and the threat of an olive fly that forced an early harvest, further cutting yields. Wholesale prices of olive oil from Spain, the world’s largest producers, are up a more modest 10 per cent, with yields similar to last year’s.
Vincenzo Iacovissi, the owner of the Sapor d’Olio olive oil shop in Rome, said sales have dropped, though he’s tried to ease the shock for customers by explaining why prices have gone up.
“When there are increases of 15 to 20 per cent, there is some impact on sales. However, explaining the reasons for this increase has in part helped to make up for this,” Iacovissi said.
Italians collectively consume about 20 per cent of the world’s olive oil, leading Spain at 16 per cent, and that affinity makes them pretty resilient as consumers. The U.S. is the thirdbiggest market, consuming 10 per cent of the yearly total.
Cedric Casanova, the owner of an Italian grocery in Paris, said he was hoping to get 30,000 litres of olive oil delivered, but received just 8,000 litres. He will have to rely on leftover stock from last year — and absorb some of the price increase himself.
With global stocks down just 14 per cent, no one is predicting general olive oil shortages, even with a 75 per cent increase in consumption of olive oil over the past 25 years as demand pushed into non-traditional markets. The market for olive oil in the period has grown twofold in the U.S., sevenfold in Britain and 14 fold in Japan, according to Italy’s Coldiretti farm lobby, even if continental Europe remains by far the largest market.
Italian olive oil is more vulnerable than that of other major producers to climate shifts and pests due to its varied topography, from hills in the north to larger groves in the south. This also lends great variety to Italian olive oil, where unique flavours are derived from a combination of the terrain, topography and the more than 400 olive varieties, according to Nicola Di Noia, an olive oil expert for the Coldiretti farm lobby.
“We have hundreds of different varieties of olives that are more difficult to defend compared with Spain or northern Africa, where there are big groves that are easier to manage,” Di Noia said.