High Prices Are Changing How Italians Feel About Olive Oil

A long-held fear of Italian olive oil pro­duc­ers who were forced to raise their prices has come to pass: Italian house­holds are using less olive oil. 

According to the lat­est sam­ple sur­vey, a grow­ing share of con­sumers opt to pur­chase alter­na­tive edi­ble oils for cook­ing as olive oil prices remain well above the aver­age of the pre­vi­ous decade. 

Istituto Piepoli found that 30 per­cent of respon­dents shifted to new buy­ing habits as the price of extra vir­gin olive oil rose from €4 to €9 per liter.

According to the sam­ple sur­vey pub­lished by IlSole24Ore, 12 per­cent of con­sumers reduced their spend­ing on extra vir­gin olive oil by more than half. A fur­ther 47 per­cent of con­sumers said they now spend 30 per­cent less on olive oil.

While 55 per­cent did not change their cook­ing habits, the rest of the con­sumers chose cheaper seed oils for cook­ing, keep­ing olive oil only as an occa­sional ingre­di­ent. Three per­cent chose other oils for all their needs.

Only a frac­tion of the inter­viewed con­sumers (three per­cent) agreed that a fair price tag for one liter of extra vir­gin olive oil should be around €12, with the vast major­ity indi­cat­ing €7 is a fair price.

The sur­vey mea­sured con­sumer sen­ti­ment, includ­ing their atti­tudes toward the econ­omy and per­sonal finan­cial sit­u­a­tion. According to sev­eral olive oil pro­duc­ers, those num­bers do not reflect the actual extra vir­gin olive oil sales trends.

“Despite the price increase in 2024, con­sump­tion of Italian extra vir­gin olive oil has grown by three per­cent, demon­strat­ing that con­sumers appre­ci­ate the qual­ity and the trace­able ​‘Made in Italy’ prod­uct,” said David Granieri, pres­i­dent of Unaprol, an olive oil pro­duc­ers’ asso­ci­a­tion, sug­gest­ing that the appeal of Italian extra vir­gin olive oil remains strong.

Zefferino Monini, the chief exec­u­tive of Monini, one of the largest Italian olive oil pro­duc­ers, agreed, adding that sam­ple sur­veys only cap­ture con­sumer mood.

“Nielsen data, which track actual sales, show a slight drop,” he said. ​“In 2023, extra vir­gin olive oil sales by large retail­ers dropped 9.5 per­cent,” adding that there had been a 7.8 per­cent decrease for January and February 2024.

Monini said he believes that the promis­ing results of the cur­rent har­vest will lower prices in the mid-term, bring­ing them down to €6 per bot­tle.

While high olive oil prices are mostly attrib­uted to the vastly reduced global olive oil pro­duc­tion over the last two years, pro­duc­ers believe those price tags might help change the per­cep­tion of extra vir­gin olive oil on the mar­ket.

“Consumers are learn­ing that if they need to spend more for the prod­uct, the best choice is to spend on a prod­uct made in Italy,” said Chiara Coricelli, the chief exec­u­tive of Pietro Coricelli.

“When extra vir­gin olive oil was sold at €3 per bot­tle, it was deval­ued,” she added. ​“Those prices were not sus­tain­able as they could not guar­an­tee income across the whole pro­duc­tion chain.” 

Days before the sam­ple sur­vey sur­faced, Andrea Carrassi, the gen­eral direc­tor of the Italian Association of the Edible Oil Industry (Assitol) olive oil group, warned that extra vir­gin olive oil could not be con­sid­ered a com­mod­ity. 

“This is the right his­tor­i­cal moment to con­vey a mes­sage to the con­sumer, which is that extra vir­gin olive oil has a very spe­cific value, which means it has to be paid for fairly, just like what has hap­pened with wine,” he said.

Assitol has recently asked national and European insti­tu­tions to launch rel­e­vant com­mu­ni­ca­tion cam­paigns to pro­mote the health ben­e­fits of extra vir­gin olive oil.

Sara Merigo, the chief exec­u­tive of Istituto Piepoli, con­firmed that sales data dif­fer from con­sumer sen­ti­ment. She attrib­uted the sur­vey’s sig­nif­i­cant reac­tions to the unique rela­tion­ship Italians have with extra vir­gin olive oil.

“It is not just a prod­uct,” she said. ​“It rep­re­sents us on the inter­na­tional stage and has been part of our diet for cen­turies.” 

• Affar Italiani
• Istituto Piepoli