Olive oil prices are rising due to bad weather in Europe, but farmers and chefs are displaying resilience and coping skills.
Most Europeans are suffering record grocery costs, so the thought of a celebrity chef dousing their Caprese salad, gazpacho, or dolmas with extra-virgin olive oil is ambitious. Why are olive oil prices so high?
The oldest planted trees on Earth have been vulnerable for a decade as droughts and violent hailstorms have caused many Mediterranean olive orchards to dry up and flood. In 2023, the area and the world had the hottest summer ever.
Italy, Greece, and Spain, the main olive-oil producers, have been hit hardest, as have chefs and customers who don’t know what to cook with.
The summer drought was “I never saw in all my life a dryness like this one,” said Rossella Boeri, olive oil producer and fifth-generation owner of Olio Roi in Badalucco, Italy. “Luckily the olive trees are strong, but we are facing a really big lack of production which is reflected in our olive oil prices, which coincidentally has led to a lower consumption and demand for our olive oil.”
Rafael Alonso Barrau, seventh-generation farmer and Oro Del Desierto owner in Almeria, Spain, verifies the decline. We had 15% less than normal last year compared to 20 years. Olive trees provide different yields each year, but this year we got less than 45% output, which is significant.”
Barrau blames climate change for the low numbers, notwithstanding other factors. “The concern is that our summers are becoming longer and hotter and we believe this affects the viability of the production.”
Olive oil producers are struggling, and European customers are too. Large firms, Boeri calls “cartels”, are raising olive oil prices, affecting smaller, family-run businesses and panicking stores. Olive oil stealing has risen. According to Mintec, a raw material market forecaster and data research organization, Spanish olive oil prices rose 115% between September 2022 and September 2023.
Higher costs are felt across the globe, but their impact is greatest in Europe, where olive oil is more than simply an ingredient and a cultural emblem.
“It is like blood for a human being, it is a part of who I am and as a chef, it is the basis of everything I do,” said Umami restaurant’s head chef and owner Matteo D’Elia. “Like wine, high-quality olive oil reveals our terroir via flavor. I love that we can extract the oil and the environment from various areas and soils, which give them distinct flavors.”
Chef Diomis Angelos of Davos’ La Muna Restaurant says Greek food’s essence is in a bottle. “[Olive oil] it is the golden thread intricately weaving the tapestry of my culinary heritage,” stated he. I remember my yiayia (grandmother) making Fasolakia Ladera [“green beans of olive oil”] in our hamlet near Volos, Greece, using olive oil from our family’s historic orchard. Yayia would start a family feast by heating a lot of olive oil in a pot. The scent signaled the start of the feast. She next added finely chopped onions and garlic to soften and combine with the oil, then fresh green beans, potatoes, and ripe tomatoes.”
If olive oil is expensive, what can chefs and home cooks do?
On Greece’s largest island, Crete, Poppy Kourkoutaki, executive chef of Bacchus restaurant in Minos Beach Art Hotel, believes that olive oil is essential to her recipes, but she suggests using other Greek traditions and cultures, such as chef Angelos’ grandmother’s slow-simmering process, to perfect Mediterranean recipes when olive oil is scarce.
“For tasty food without using too much olive oil, the process matters a lot, and things like reducing the temperature to a slow simmer for stews or even using a Cretan ceramic pot called moshari sto pilino can be super important,” explained Kourkoutaki. “In Crete, our ancestors used ceramic pots for centuries, and in the rural villages surrounding my restaurant overlooking Mirabello Bay, they still use them with excellent results because the pot retains the heat much better and the slow-braising technique draws out all the flavours and juices of the ingredients without the addition of too much olive oil.”
If you make good bone broth, you may forgo the olive oil in slow-cooked foods, she said. “Instead of olive oil, you use meat or fish fat, an antique meat preservation method from before fridges, she explained. “The process is not used any more as it is not really healthy when compared to our highly nutritious omega-rich extra-virgin olive oil we produce on the island of Crete, but it is a good solution when oils are more expensive and harder to find.”
Nicola Olivieri, an award-winning baker, believes that culinary creativity might help solve the olive oil shortage. His fifth-generation bakery, Olivieri 1882, in Arzignano, Italy, is noted for its award-winning Christmas panettone and Easter Fugassa Veneta. Panettone, which utilizes butter instead of olive oil, led him to develop other classic Italian dishes without olive oil. “I use olive oil in almost every recipe I make because I enjoy its versatility. He stated there are other fantastic Mediterranean-inspired Italian foods to cook.
“Strutto, a pig fat alternative, may be used to produce focaccia, grissini, and cakes. “Seed oils can also replace,” he stated. “But that being said, they will change the recipe because they are relatively neutral in flavour, so will not add the same dimension and aroma that olive oil gives.”
Riso Buono founder Cristina Brizzolari uses the “a little goes a long way philosophy” to make risotto using premium olive oil. “Living in Casalbeltrame, Novara, I’m lucky to be surrounded by top quality olive oil producers, so I always go directly to the farms to support fellow agriculturists,” stated. “By doing so, you can save on the amount you are using because higher-grade cold-pressed oils have a much stronger and pronounced flavour – you just need a little bit to taste the true flavours of the Mediterranean.”
In Australia, spending more for high-quality olive oil is common, and pastry chef Carina La Delfa, who just founded Lumos bakery in Melbourne, draws inspiration from her nonna. “A great way to make your olive oil last longer is to use it as a garnish, such as in dressings and on top of finished pasta dishes rather than cooking with it.” La Delfa shares another Sicilian grandmother-taught trick: “My nonna used to keep her olives in cheaper grades of oil like vegetable oil to get the flavour of the olives without having to buy expensive oils.”
Boeri values premium olive oil as part of their culture. “It has been three years in the making with droughts and severe temperatures, but we are a fifth-generation olive oil producer, and we will keep fighting the climate situation and produce excellent, high-quality olive oil like the one our family made in 1877.”
