Will extra virgin oil cost less? Italian is the most expensive

The new oil campaign is just around the corner and concerns are growing among operators in the sector about a possible price drop. Two years of the Spanish production gap have in fact left on the ground a price level that extra virgin had never previously touched. And now, faced with the likely rebound in production from Spain, but also from other producing countries, the main question circulating within the olive oil sector is how much prices will fall.

They are convinced of this at Certified Origins, a Tuscan company founded by the merger of two cooperatives of olive growers that today, thanks also to its leadership in the export of Tuscan PGI oil to the USA, has reached a turnover of 190 million euro and issues a monthly bulletin with the main production and market trends. "The 2024-25 campaign will bring with it important news in terms of production," explains thehead of corporate global affairs at Certified Origins, Giovanni Quaratesi. Spain will return to normal levels with a supply of around 1.2-1.3 million tonnes after a two-year period in which it had produced around 700 thousand tonnes per year due to drought. But production is estimated at 350 thousand tonnes in Turkey (last year, due to the shortage of product on the domestic market, Ankara had blocked exports), around 300 thousand in Tunisia and 250 thousand in Greece. Italy in this picture will only be the fifth producer with a volume of around 200 thousand tonnes perhaps even less'.

Although these are still only forecasts, however, the first effects have already been recorded. According to our elaborations on Poolred data (the oil market monitoring platform in Spain) and Ismea relative to the end of October," adds Quaratesi, "extra virgin olive oil in Spain is quoted at 6.859 euros per kilo, in Italy the price is 9.17, in Greece 7.15 and in Tunisia 7.23. A still very high level of quotations. To begin to see any effects we have to wait at least until the end of the year when the harvest campaign will be in full swing.

And in the meantime, supermarkets have once again seen a flurry of promotions with extra virgin olive oil used as a covert product. "At the beginning of the year," explained the business insight director of Circana (a company that monitors sales in large-scale distribution), Virgilio Romano, "the share of sales of extra virgin olive oil on promotion had dropped to 42%, a drop of 1.5% compared to 2023. In the last four months, however, we have seen a rebound of 2.5% points and a share back to 43%'.

In fact, the sustained price trend of the last 18 months at least has produced two results: on the one hand the drop in consumption, estimated by Assitol at -16% in the last year alone. From this perspective, a fall in prices could in the medium term favour a recovery.