Olive oil closed August with an average price 52.2% above the prices recorded in the same month of the previous year, marking the largest year-on-year increase for this product in 21 years. In addition, the price also increased by 8.7% compared to the previous month, according to CPI data published by the National Institute of Statistics (INE).
The rise in prices this month of August represents a chain of 28 consecutive months in which oil has become more expensive, with double-digit percentages in the last 27. The price of olive oil has been more than twice as expensive this August than in March 2021, having grown by 114.8% these months.
Before skyrocketing with double-digit rates as high as the current ones, the price of olive oil began its upward trend in April 2021. That month, a year-on-year increase of 2% was recorded, which was continued with a rebound in the 5% in mayonnaise.
The effect of drought
Farmers point to drought as the source of higher olive oil prices. The lack of water has caused, for the second consecutive year, a poor harvest, as production has not reached the levels necessary to satisfy demand.
In monthly values, its price has risen in seven of the last eight months. The latest data, from August, reflects that olive oil cost Spanish households 8.7% more than in July.
Spending per household on olive oil rose by 20 euros in 2022
According to data from the INE, the average consumption of olive oil per household stood at 22.1 liters in 2022, the highest figure since 2018, when its average consumption was 22.2 liters per family. This figure is far from the 30.4 liters that each household consumed on average in 2007, the year in which the financial crisis broke out.
During the first year of the pandemic, the average household consumption of olive oil was 20.5 liters, a figure that increased as Spain regained normality, reaching 22.1 liters in 2022.
The average expenditure per household on olive oil reached 97.7 euros in 2022, compared to 77.6 euros in 2021. That is, last year, households spent on average 20.1 euros more on olive oil than in the immediately preceding year.
This is the highest figure since 2007, when the average expenditure per household on olive oil stood at 98.9 euros. Between 2006 and 2022, the year with the lowest spending on this basic product in the so-called Mediterranean diet was 2020, the first year of the pandemic, when 65.5 euros of funds per household were reached.
