Experts Predict Significant Decline in Olive Oil Prices

Summary

International olive oil prices are expected to drop sig­nif­i­cantly in 2025, as major pro­duc­ers like Spain, Portugal, and Greece antic­i­pate strong yields. Despite chal­lenges such as cli­mate change and high pro­duc­tion costs, indus­try experts pre­dict that prices will sta­bi­lize and decrease, with Deoleo esti­mat­ing a drop to €5 per liter.

International olive oil prices are expected to fall sig­nif­i­cantly in 2025.

According to Deoleo, the world’s largest olive oil bot­tler, the chal­lenges dri­ving prices to record highs are steadily decreas­ing. 

The com­pany pre­dicts that the global olive oil short­age will soon sub­side, as Spain is fore­casted to pro­duce between 1.3 and 1.5 mil­lion tons in the 2024/25 crop year.

Additionally, pro­duc­ers in Portugal and Greece antic­i­pate strong yields. 

Outside the E.U., major olive oil pro­duc­ers such as Turkey and Tunisia are also gear­ing up for sub­stan­tial har­vests, with Tunisia’s out­put pro­jected to reach between 340,000 and 350,000 tons. 

In this con­text, Italian pro­ducers’ dis­ap­point­ing har­vest is expected to have only a mar­ginal impact on global olive oil pro­duc­tion. 

Speaking to CNBC, a Deoleo offi­cial acknowl­edged that ten­sions sur­round­ing extra vir­gin olive oil prices have not fully sub­sided. 

“However, the out­look is pos­i­tive for the com­ing months, as the mar­ket is expected to begin to sta­bi­lize and nor­mal­ity is expected to be grad­u­ally restored as the new har­vest pro­gresses and sup­ply increases,” said Miguel Ángel Guzmán, Deoleo’s chief sales offi­cer. 

Guzmán pre­dicted that olive oil prices would drop to approx­i­mately €5 per liter, com­pared to the €9 seen recently in major mar­kets.

Dusan Kaljevic, the chief exec­u­tive of Filippo Berio North America, shared a sim­i­lar fore­cast in a recent inter­view with Olive Oil Times.

“If the num­ber of 3.2 mil­lion met­ric tons is con­firmed after the first two months of har­vest­ing, I expect that the price will go below €5 in January,” he said.

Analyzing recent price trends, the International Olive Council (IOC) reported that ris­ing prices were observed only in Italy in October. 

Specifically, in Bari, olive oil prices rose by 5.2 per­cent to €915 per 100 kilo­grams com­pared to last sea­son — well above the 2011 to 2023 aver­age of €484. 

In con­trast, prices in Jaén, Spain, fell by 9.3 per­cent to €732 per 100 kilo­grams com­pared with the 2011 to 2023 aver­age of €345.5.

Similarly, in Chania, Greece, extra vir­gin olive oil prices declined by 13.6 per­cent to €665 per 100 kilo­grams, com­pared to an aver­age of €326.4 over the pre­vi­ous 12 years. 

In its October short-term agri­cul­tural out­look report, the European Commission said that E.U. olive oil exports could see a strong rebound if prices fall dur­ing the cur­rent sea­son. 

However, high pro­duc­tion costs con­tinue to push prices up in many pro­duc­ing regions and remain a key fac­tor in deter­min­ing con­sumers’ final sale prices. 

“After absorb­ing the sub­stan­tial increases of the past three years, we are now wit­ness­ing a sta­bi­liza­tion in pro­cess­ing costs,” Giampaolo Farchioni, owner and man­ager at Farchioni Olii, told Olive Oil Times.

“Another chal­lenge lies in the wide­spread neg­a­tive trend in extra vir­gin olive oil con­sump­tion over the past 12 months, affect­ing retail, [hos­pi­tal­ity], food ser­vice and exports,” he added.

Over the past two years, surg­ing olive oil prices have neg­a­tively impacted con­sump­tion.

Consumers adjusted their pur­chas­ing habits in sev­eral coun­tries, often opt­ing to pur­chase in smaller quan­ti­ties or even switch­ing to alter­na­tives. 

Many grow­ers and indus­try observers in Europe believe the effects of cli­mate change exac­er­bated the olive oil short­ages of the last two sea­sons. 

“This sea­son is another com­plex sea­son as the quan­tity of olives in Puglia is very low, it did not rain for months and the farm­land with­out irri­ga­tion is going to pro­duce ter­ri­ble results,” said Lucia Di Molfetta, co-owner of the Apulian pro­ducer Di Molfetta Pantaleo. ​“The price of olives is still very high, while this last week olive oil prices are drop­ping.”

“This sea­son is another sea­son that we are going to remem­ber,” she added. ​“With cli­mate change impact­ing like that, many more sea­sons like this we are going to see.”

Deoleo and Filippo Berio acknowl­edge cli­mate change as a sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenge for the indus­try. 

“It has been iden­ti­fied as an exis­ten­tial threat to the indus­try,” said Guzmán, empha­siz­ing the need for the sec­tor to adapt to ​“an increas­ingly uncer­tain future.”