Why olive oil prices are still climbing

Spanish olive oil — the volume that supplies the bulk of European retail — was roughly £3 per litre wholesale in 2021. It is currently £8.50, having peaked at £11 in late 2024.

The usual narrative is "drought" and the usual implication is "this will pass". The first part is true. The second isn’t. The Mediterranean olive belt has lost roughly 40% of its expected yield two years running. Trees that died in the 2022 heatwave aren’t replaced quickly — a young olive tree takes seven years to fruit at commercial volume. The supply curve will not return to 2019.

There is a structural shift to plant olives in cooler northern Spanish and Italian growing zones, and small commercial olive groves are appearing in southern England (we know two; neither is yet at retail volume). But the maths means we are looking at decade-plus before global supply rebuilds.

The practical consequence is that bottom-shelf olive oil — the £4 bottle that was always a blend of multiple origins, often adulterated with cheaper seed oils — is becoming non-existent. The UK Food Standards Agency’s 2025 surveillance found 38% of "extra virgin" olive oil under £8 a litre wasn’t. At those prices, it can’t be.

What to do about it as a shopper. Buy less, buy better — a £15 bottle goes a long way if you stop using it for shallow-frying onions. Switch to British-grown rapeseed for cooking heat (under £6 a litre, perfectly good) and reserve olive oil for finishing. The £20 bottle of single-estate from a producer you can name is, increasingly, the only olive oil worth buying.