Spain’s olive oil prices approach €3 a kilo: what it means for your supermarket bill

Shoppers in Spain are typically still paying more than €4 for a litre of olive oil, even though the price at the source has sunk to its lowest in five years. Farmers say many are now selling at a loss and want the government to step in.

The price at source is sliding towards €3 a kilo

Extra virgin olive oil is changing hands at around €3.10 a kilo at source, the lowest in five years and well down on the €4.50 it started the harvest year on last October. Prices across all categories, including lampante (the lowest grade, which needs refining before it can be sold), have dropped 8.7 per cent in a month.

However, that’s the bulk price mills and packers pay, so it doesn’t mean €3 bottles on the shelf for regular shoppers. A litre of oil weighs a little less than a kilo, which makes €3.10 a kilo roughly €2.85 a litre.

Supermarket bottles have barely moved

Price checks published this week put Mercadona’s own-brand extra virgin at €4.35 a litre, with Carrefour’s at €4.34. That leaves a gap of around €1.50 a litre for bottling, transport, tax and shop margins.

Some chains have started passing savings on, though only in cents. Carrefour and Dia had trimmed their own-label litres by 24 and 15 cents respectively by early September.

So when does your bottle get cheaper? The honest answer is gradually, as packers use up their existing stock and decide how much of the fall to pass on.

Farmers say they’re selling below cost

Farmers aren’t celebrating. Cooperatives and the farming unions ASAJA, COAG and UPA said on Thursday October 8 that extra virgin, then averaging about €3.30 a kilo, was already below what most olive farms spend to produce it. 

Production costs have risen 57 per cent since 2021, according to the association of olive-growing towns (AEMO), while the harvest is forecast at 1.6 million tonnes, around 23 per cent more than last year. Rain-fed groves, which cost more to run and yield less, are the most exposed.

The fix would keep some oil off the market 

What they’re asking for is a marketing norm (a rule from the Ministry of Agriculture) that would force olive mills to store a set share of their oil instead of selling it, easing the pressure on prices. The cooperatives’ sector head, Rafael Sánchez de Puerta, told a technical conference in Ciudad Real he doesn’t understand the delay.

Agriculture Minister Luis Planas has called the measure extraordinary, as it has never been used, and wants to see the final harvest figures first. A decision is expected in the first half of November.

The catch for shoppers is that anything designed to stop prices falling further could also limit how much cheaper your oil gets. Nothing has been confirmed though, and it’s not yet clear how big the stored share would be.

Until the decision lands, the surest saving is to check the price per litre on the label, because Mercadona’s 3-litre garrafa works out about 30 cents a litre cheaper than its single bottle.