Market · May 1, 2026 · 27 min read

Why extra virgin olive oil won't go back to €3/kg: the market has changed regime

A thesis, the data behind it and a quantitative prediction. The price of extra virgin olive oil has changed regime, not cycle. Even if the next harvest is good, €3/kg at origin belongs to a world that no longer exists.

Why extra virgin olive oil won't go back to €3/kg: the market has changed regime

On 20 April 2026, extra virgin olive oil is trading at €4.29/kg at origin in Spain. Six years ago, in the same week, it traded at €2.07/kg. Two years ago, in April 2024, at €7.80/kg. The quick conclusion is that we are returning to “normal”.

My thesis: that normal no longer exists. And anyone planning 2026-27 with the 2019 price in their head is going to get it wrong.

Not because of scarcity. The 25/26 harvest is on course to close at between 1.28 and 1.35 million tonnes, and the satellites suggest 26/27 can be solid, without being a record. The price will not hold up because of supply, but because the floor below which EVOO cannot trade for any length of time has moved permanently. That is what I am going to argue here, with data.

A note on method: the whole Spanish price series in this article comes from the official weekly reports that the European Commission has published since 2000. It is the source with the longest coverage and the most stable methodology, and the one that lets us compare 2026 with 2003 without cheating.

Twenty-six years of prices in one chart

Before getting into the five data points, look at the whole film. Each point is a month; the line is the average price of EVOO at origin in Spain from January 2000 to April 2026. The red line at €3/kg is the figure half the sector believes the price will go back to.

Average monthly EVOO price at origin in Spain (€/100 kg). Source: European Commission, official weekly reports. Red line: the €3/kg level.
Average monthly EVOO price at origin in Spain, 2000-2026
Series 2000-012000-022000-032000-042000-052000-062000-072000-082000-092000-102000-112000-122001-012001-022001-032001-042001-052001-062001-072001-082001-092001-102001-112001-122002-012002-022002-032002-042002-052002-062002-072002-082002-092002-102002-112002-122003-012003-022003-032003-042003-052003-062003-072003-082003-092003-102003-112003-122004-012004-022004-032004-042004-052004-062004-072004-082004-092004-102004-112004-122005-012005-022005-032005-042005-052005-062005-072005-082005-092005-102005-112005-122006-012006-022006-032006-042006-052006-062006-072006-082006-092006-102006-112006-122007-012007-022007-032007-042007-052007-062007-072007-082007-092007-102007-112007-122008-012008-022008-032008-042008-052008-062008-072008-082008-092008-102008-112008-122009-012009-022009-032009-042009-052009-062009-072009-082009-092009-102009-112009-122010-012010-022010-032010-042010-052010-062010-072010-082010-092010-102010-112010-122011-012011-022011-032011-042011-052011-062011-072011-082011-092011-102011-112011-122012-012012-022012-032012-042012-052012-062012-072012-082012-092012-102012-112012-122013-012013-022013-032013-042013-052013-062013-072013-082013-092013-102013-112013-122014-012014-022014-032014-042014-052014-062014-072014-082014-092014-102014-112014-122015-012015-022015-032015-042015-052015-062015-072015-082015-092015-102015-112015-122016-012016-022016-032016-042016-052016-062016-072016-082016-092016-102016-112016-122017-012017-022017-032017-042017-052017-062017-072017-082017-092017-102017-112017-122018-012018-022018-032018-042018-052018-062018-072018-082018-092018-102018-112018-122019-012019-022019-032019-042019-052019-062019-072019-082019-092019-102019-112019-122020-012020-022020-032020-042020-052020-062020-072020-082020-092020-102020-112020-122021-012021-022021-032021-042021-052021-062021-072021-082021-092021-102021-112021-122022-012022-022022-032022-042022-052022-062022-072022-082022-092022-102022-112022-122023-012023-022023-032023-042023-052023-062023-072023-082023-092023-102023-112023-122024-012024-022024-032024-042024-052024-062024-072024-082024-092024-102024-112024-122025-012025-022025-032025-042025-052025-062025-072025-082025-092025-102025-112025-122026-012026-022026-032026-04
€ / 100 kg 218.5215.2205.2191.4180.2165.1167.1176.9175.2172.5169.8169.3163.3162.1163.1167.7170.5167.9167.5170.8182.1204.1191.8180.5187.8185.6186.5184.2175.4176.5181.8185.9189.3185184.2188.7190192.1194.4196.6204.3212.5231244.4268.5263.9253.2211.4202.2230.8241261.5265.4262.4256.4251.9242.2239.5234.2236.8256.4271.2275.7277.4277.3278287.3317.2360.3403384.4382.5421416.9399.9355.1325.9305.5314.9314.8291.7261.3259.6253.7250.5258.8269.3269255.9243.1236.8234.5240.3242.8258.4261.4264.7262.9260.9249.3241.7239.1239.2236.3233226219.7207.1194.8198187.8181.2176.4187.6197.5232.6248.5239.8221.3207.4207.9208.8210.4212208.1203.1200.7199.6199.1198.4201.7204.3198.8201.8201.9201.1199.9197.6197.4196.7191.6193.2195.2192.1183.8183.2181.6180.4179.4178.3183.2211248.2253.7245.6246.4290.6295292.5285270.8274.4271.3263.5257.5238.8233.2216207.4210.2207.5205.2204.2213.5240.1261.7270.4267.9285303.5325.1325.6323.2333350352.9376412.4399.4377.4330.2307.1327.4328.3323318.3303.7303.1312.5316.5320.7319.8332.4346.1359.5381.2384.2389.3400.5396.5385.2382.6376.2374.4363.7359.1362.4355.1320.9304.4274272.7280.2277.4277.8268276.4283.5270.6267.6253.7239.4233.6221.1229.2228224.6214.7214.4216.6212.3211214.6208.3205.9202.1197.4204.5212.9224.4240.5252.2253.3266274.9303.3335.3332.7328.9323.5327.4320.8316.9326.6331.6326.8354.9342.2339.9337.5358.1375.7395.3451.8483.3526.6530.4524.7524.1530.8585.7630.8722.9784.8838812.7779.1826.8896.9885.4852.8766.9794.6802.3731.8699.7738.8723.9597.2486.8436.2420.3398.4388.8360.4361370.6384.7416.7424.2435444.7434.6435.9431.7427.6

Three decades in one stroke. Five episodes mark the film:

  • 2005-2006: a temporary peak at €4.21/kg because of severe drought in Andalusia. A short 04/05 harvest. The market absorbs it in two years.
  • 2014-2017: irregular seasons in Spain and Italy. The average price rises from €2.30 to €4.00/kg. It eases again.
  • 2019-2020: overproduction in 18/19 (1.79 Mt). A low of €1.77/kg. Traditional groves on the verge of collapse.
  • 2022-2024: a triple shock — persistent drought, energy costs and domestic consumption pulling down at the same time. The price goes to €8.97/kg in January 2024.
  • 2025-2026: a correction from the peak, but the price settles at €4.00-4.50/kg, not at €2.00-3.00/kg.

Fourteen years (2000-2013) trading between €1.60 and €2.80/kg. A transition (2014-2017) testing €3-4/kg. A downward correction (2018-2020). And the break: since late 2021 the price has left its historical range and not come back. The 2024 peak is the anomaly within the anomaly. But the floor —the line it does not fall below— is also higher than at any earlier time.

Let’s go to the data that explain why.

Data point 1 — The low has moved more than the high

When someone says “it’ll come down”, they assume the price oscillates around a fixed historical average. That is reasonable, and it is what almost all agricultural commodities do. But it is not what EVOO has done.

If we split the 26 years of the series into three periods:

PeriodAverage EVOO at originMonthly lowMonthly high
2000-2010€2.32/kg1.624.21
2011-2020€2.71/kg1.784.12
2021-2026€5.00/kg2.538.97

Source: European Commission, official Spanish market reports, monthly averages 2000-2026.

Of the last 64 months, only 3 closed below €3/kg. The last one was March 2021.

The high of the last period —€8.97/kg in January 2024— grabs attention. But the figure that matters is in the low column. In the previous decade, two months out of three closed below that level. Today, not even one in twenty.

The question is not whether the price can touch €3/kg —it can, it has done so three times—. It is whether it can stay there. And the series says it cannot: when it touches it, it bounces. The sector has spent five years discovering that the ceiling is higher. What it has not yet fully absorbed is that the floor is too.

If we look at the last twelve months —harvests normalising, costs settled higher, exports pulling—, the monthly low has been €3.60/kg in May 2025. Since then the price has rebounded every month and settled at around €4.30/kg in 2026. It is a tested floor: the price touched it, did not hold there, and rose again.

The four reasons that follow explain why.

Data point 2 — The 25/26 harvest is good, but the storage tanks are not emptying

The Food Information and Control Agency (AICA) publishes the balance of Spanish olive oil every month: opening stock, production in the month, imports, outflows (domestic consumption + exports) and closing stock. It is the most reliable X-ray of what the sector holds.

SeasonProductionImportsDomestic cons.ExportsClosing stock
19/201,1252486301,008491
20/211,3901835431,098424
21/221,4932135951,080455
22/23666215349739248
23/24856243400760187
24/251,4192054921,029291
25/26*1,277*139*270*493*945 (at 1-Mar-26)

Figures in thousand tonnes. Source: AICA, monthly olive oil balance, data at 1 March 2026. The 25/26 season is in progress (6 of 12 months, October 2025 - March 2026).

At first sight, the 945 kt in storage at 1 March 2026 looks like a lot of oil. But the figure has to be compared with the same date in earlier years, not with the season close: at 1 March 2025 there were 1,010 kt in storage (also a good season), and at 1 March 2024 there were 658 kt (after a bad season). The current level is not exceptional; it is what you would expect in the peak storage month.

What matters is what will be left in September. And here we have to be honest with the arithmetic: 25/26 is running at an outflow rate (consumption + exports) of 122 kt a month, not the 130-140 kt typical of pre-shock seasons. If we extrapolate at the current rate over the remaining six months —and add some late production and imports—, closing stock in September 2026 will come out at around 380-450 kt. That is a comfortable close, not a tight one: above the recent average, although far from the 1 Mt+ of 18/19. Only if outflows speed up beyond the current rate would we see a tense close (250-350 kt), and that would require a recovery in domestic consumption that the data do not show today.

And beneath the stock figure there is a more important structural cause: domestic consumption has not recovered. From 630 kt in 19/20 we have gone to 492 kt in 24/25, and 25/26 is running at an equivalent rate. It is a 15-20% fall that shows no sign of reversing. It is called demand destruction: consumers got used to buying less when it was expensive, and have not gone back to their earlier volumes now that it has come down.

The consequence for the price is clearer in another indicator: the outflow/production ratio. In pre-2022 seasons, annual outflows clearly exceeded production (supply above demand → downward pressure on price). Since 22/23, outflows are of the order of what comes in, or even less. The system empties what it produces without accumulating a structural surplus; the comfortable 380-450 kt stock is not a speculative surplus, it is an operational bridge between seasons.

AICA balance by season, in thousand tonnes. Production and closing stock tell the supply side; exports and domestic consumption tell the outflow. Source: AICA, data at March 2026.
Production, exports, domestic consumption and closing stock by season
Series 19/2020/2121/2222/2323/2424/2525/26*
Production 11251390149366685614191277
Exports 1008109810807397601029493
Domestic consumption 630543595349400492270
Closing stock (25/26 in progress, figure at 1-Mar-2026) 491424455248187291945

This means that even with a good harvest, the system absorbs less oil domestically than five years ago. Dependence on exports is greater. And as we will see in the next section, that dependence is not a problem: it is precisely the mechanism that holds up the price at origin.

Who buys the oil that Spaniards no longer consume

The short answer to “how does the price hold if Spaniards consume 20% less?” has a name. Twelve names, in fact.

Top destinations of Spanish olive oil by export value, comparing 2014, 2019 and 2024:

Destination2014 (€M)2019 (€M)2024 (€M)Δ 2014→2024
Italy1,1849051,530+29 %
United States2764031,013×3.7
France214252633×3.0
Portugal248279491×2.0
United Kingdom117132305×2.6
Australia5472197×3.7
Mexico2944172×5.9
Germany2758159×5.8
Japan80147152×1.9
China72109141×2.0
Brazil4854102×2.1
South Korea283696×3.5

Source: Eurostat-COMEXT, Spanish exports HS 1509, value in millions of euros.

Export value of Spanish olive oil by destination, in millions of euros. Source: Eurostat-COMEXT.
Change in the export value of Spanish olive oil by destination, 2014-2024
Series ItalyUSAFrancePortugalUKAustraliaMexicoGermanyJapanChinaBrazilKorea
2014 118427621424811754292780724828
2019 9054032522791327244581471095436
2024 1530101363349130519717215915214110296

Italy is still the first customer, although much of that oil is repackaged and leaves for the world under an Italian flag. But the real news is further down: the United States has quadrupled its purchases in a decade and is already the second customer, paying high FOB prices for documented origin. And the secondary markets are growing at speeds the sector barely mentions: Mexico ×5.9. Australia and the USA ×3.7. Korea ×3.5. Added together, that is more than €1,500M extra that did not exist in 2014.

Now the other dimension, the one that closes the circle: the price international buyers are paying for Spanish origin, compared with what they pay for alternative origins. This comparison needs care — the total FOB price mixes bulk, bottled, organic and branded oil, so it is not directly comparable with the price at the mill. But it is comparable between origins.

In January 2026, CIF prices into the EU for extra virgin oil (customs code CN 150920) by non-EU country of origin were:

OriginEU CIF priceMonthly volume
Tunisia€3.71/kg12,926 t
Morocco€3.83/kg1,109 t
Algeria€3.99/kg22 t
Türkiye€8.93/kg108 t

Source: Eurostat-COMEXT CN 150920, January 2026.

The Spanish price at origin that same week was €4.30/kg at the mill. When a European bottler decides whom to buy from, the question is not whether Tunisia is cheaper —it is, by €0.55-0.60/kg— but whether the premium for Spanish origin is still worth it. The market’s answer, month after month since 2024, is yes: Tunisia sells everything it produces at the Tunisian price, and Spain sells everything it produces at the Spanish price. There is no mass displacement of sales. The premium for traceability, designation and consistent quality is real and persistent.

That is what holds up the floor at the mill. As long as the twelve countries in the previous table keep buying Spanish origin even when there is a cheaper alternative, the Spanish producer has bargaining power. The day that premium erodes —Morocco scaling up volume, European certifications recognising Tunisia as equivalent, or a tariff change— the floor will drop. That is not the situation today.

The Italian elephant in the room

When people talk about the Spanish price, almost nobody looks at the Italian price. That is a mistake. Italy produces 200-300 kt a year in good years, imports twice as much as Spain and re-exports to 130 countries under its own brands. What happens with the Italian 26/27 harvest directly shapes buying pressure on Spanish origin.

This is what official prices and satellites say today:

IndicatorSpain (Apr 2026)Italy (Apr 2026)
EVOO price at origin€4.28/kg€6.63/kg
Italy–Spain spread+€2.35/kg
SAVI Calabria April(n/a)0.393 (vs 0.426 in 2025)
SAVI Sicily April(n/a)0.392 (vs 0.411 in 2025)
SAVI Tuscany April(n/a)0.375 (vs 0.437 in 2025)
SAVI Puglia April(n/a)0.375 (vs 0.364 in 2025)

Sources: European Commission (prices), Sentinel-2/Copernicus (SAVI). April 2026 data.

Two readings. First: Italy is already paying 55% more for its oil at origin than Spain. The Italian producer gets €6.63/kg while the Spanish one gets €4.28. That extreme gap is what will lead Italian bottlers —Monini, Filippo Berio, Bertolli— to buy more Spanish oil than usual throughout 26/27 to dilute their average cost. The Spanish price at origin does not need to rise for Italy: as long as it holds, Italy remains a structural buyer at these prices.

Second: the Italian satellite points to a weak 26/27 harvest. Calabria, Sicily and Tuscany —which between them produce 65% of Italian oil— show lower SAVI than 2025 in April. Only Puglia improves slightly. If the Italian 26/27 harvest falls to 200-220 kt (22/23-style seasons), buying pressure on Spanish origin increases just when the Spanish harvest should ease the price. The two forces partly cancel out, which helps explain why the Spanish price ranges I will defend in the conclusion are centred, not bearish.

The concrete mechanism behind the floor: cooperatives that hold stock

When people say “producers no longer accept selling below their cost”, the legitimate question is: who, in practice, defends that floor? The answer has names.

Around 70% of the total volume of the Spanish olive oil sector goes through cooperatives. The big ones —DCOOP (which has integrated Hojiblanca since 2013), Jaencoop, Olivar de Segura, Acorsa— bring together hundreds of mills, thousands of growers and, above all, storage capacity, financing and commercial discipline. When the price falls below the perceived cost, there is no need to coordinate 200,000 growers: it is enough for a dozen large cooperatives to decide not to release oil.

That holding of stock at the mill is the concrete mechanism by which the floor is defended. We saw it in 24/25: at origin prices between €3.60 and €4.00/kg in May-July 2025, the sector kept more oil in storage than expected over the summer. The large cooperatives can afford it because they have access to credit lines with the oil as collateral. An individual mill cannot. A lone grower, even less so.

As long as the current cooperative structure holds —and there is no reason to think it will break in the short term—, the floor at the mill is institutionally defended. It only breaks if the cooperatives split, if bank financing tightens, or if an extreme fall in demand forces urgent selling. None of the three scenarios is likely today.

Data point 3 — The satellites point to a solid 26/27 harvest, not a record

SAVI (Soil-Adjusted Vegetation Index) measures tree vigour while correcting for soil noise —significant noise in traditional groves with wide spacing and partial canopy cover—, and it is the most reliable index for this crop morphology. Spring data correlate reasonably with the production that will be harvested in autumn-winter. Olearia processes Copernicus Sentinel-2 data weekly with cloud filtering and quality correction.

A technical note for readers who know the sector: we have repeated this analysis with NDVI —the index that the Andalusian regional government and most public reports tend to use—. The directional conclusions are identical (the relative order between years and provinces holds, 2023 is still the worst and 2026 is still good), but the absolute values are less comparable with what administrations publish. We keep SAVI as the primary metric because it fits traditional Spanish groves better.

This is what the satellites see in April 2026 against earlier Aprils, in the five Spanish olive-growing provinces with the most productive weight:

ProvinceApr 2022Apr 2023Apr 2024Apr 2025Apr 2026
Jaén0.2620.2100.2770.2610.281
Córdoba0.2900.2690.3410.3250.336
Seville0.3090.2450.3320.3310.314
Málaga0.2780.2420.2940.3300.335
Granada0.2120.1980.2520.2290.238

Source: Sentinel-2/Copernicus, weekly aggregates by NUTS-3 region, clean mean SAVI. In bold, the low and high for each province. April 2026 data cover the first three weeks of the month.

Average April SAVI by olive-growing province (higher = more tree vigour). Source: Sentinel-2/Copernicus.
Average April SAVI by province, 2022-2026
Series JaénCórdobaSevilleMálagaGranada
Apr 2022 0.2620.290.3090.2780.212
Apr 2023 0.210.2690.2450.2420.198
Apr 2024 0.2770.3410.3320.2940.252
Apr 2025 0.2610.3250.3310.330.229
Apr 2026 0.2810.3360.3140.3350.238

The satellite reading is nuanced and is best told this way. Jaén and Málaga hit their high in April 2026, confirming tree vigour above any previous April. Córdoba, Seville and Granada, on the other hand, are at or slightly below April 2024, which was the last good year before this one. This is not a record harvest in the making: it is a solid and geographically uneven harvest, with the east of the olive belt in a better position than the middle Guadalquivir.

There is a second data point that adds context and calls for an honest explanation. NDWI —the index that measures water available in the plant— hits a historical high in April 2026 in all five provinces, without exception: 0.054 in Jaén, 0.124 in Córdoba, 0.101 in Seville, 0.118 in Málaga, 0.144 in Granada. The plant has more water than in any other April in the series.

Why, then, does SAVI not hit a high too? The apparent contradiction has three plausible explanations, and probably all three operate at once:

  1. Late flowering. March 2026 temperatures were mild: the tree has developed less biomass than water availability would allow, and still has room to grow during May-June. April SAVI may not reflect everything the tree is going to produce.
  2. Earlier heat damage in 2025. The summer and the 2025 heatwave left trees stressed. Recovery in biomass is asymmetric: what is lost in a few weeks is regained slowly. The plant has water for 2026, but part of its productive potential was decided the previous summer.
  3. Alternate bearing. After a good 25/26, part of the traditional grove alternates and enters an “off” year. It is structural behaviour, not a pathology.

Combining SAVI, NDWI, reservoir data and the nuances above, the Spanish 26/27 harvest should fall in the 1.3-1.5 Mt range, similar to or slightly better than 24/25. Good, without being a record. If flowering makes good use of the available water and May brings no heat shocks, it could surprise on the upside up to 1.55-1.6 Mt. If extreme heat arrives in May or June, it easily drops to 1.1-1.2 Mt. The average of the two possibilities is still a good harvest. That should ease the price. It will ease it, in part. But not to €3/kg, and this is where we land on the structural mechanics.

Data point 4 — It rained well, but the thermometer keeps rising

The olive harvest is not decided by reservoirs, it is decided by rainfall and temperature. Reservoirs are the consequence. Olearia has processed daily climate data since 2000 in the eight Spanish olive-growing provinces. This is what they show for cumulative rainfall in the hydrological year (October-April):

ProvinceAverage 2001-20202023 (drought)202420252026Δ 2026 vs average
Seville474438539928653+38 %
Granada525433521557707+35 %
Córdoba476442581760635+33 %
Málaga505341459651597+18 %
Jaén516383506546595+15 %

Source: daily climate data aggregated to the hydrological year (1 Oct - 30 Apr). Reference average 2001-2020.

Cumulative rainfall in the hydrological year (Oct-Apr), in millimetres. Source: daily climate data processed by Olearia.
Cumulative October-April rainfall by olive-growing province, 2023-2026
Series 2023202420252026
Seville 438539928653
Granada 433521557707
Córdoba 442581760635
Málaga 341459651597
Jaén 383506546595

In the 25-26 hydrological year it has rained between 15% and 38% above the historical average. Seville and Granada exceed 650 mm, values not seen since 2010-2011. For perspective: in 2023 —the year of the catastrophic 666 kt harvest— Málaga barely gathered 341 mm, 32% below average. Between that disaster and now there are 250-300 mm of additional rain, and it shows in SAVI, in NDWI and in the reservoirs, which in 2026 are at 64-87% depending on the province (Huelva 87%, Seville 83%, Córdoba 78%, Jaén 65%, Granada 54%), against 26-37% in 2023.

But rain is only half the story. The other half is temperature, and there the data are less reassuring. April 2026 has been between 1.4 and 3.2 °C warmer than the historical average in the five provinces. Granada and Jaén —which produce more than half of Spanish olive oil— have recorded Aprils 3 degrees above normal. The catastrophic April 2023 was only 1.5-2 °C above the current one: flowering temperature is no longer catastrophic, but it is in risky territory. A heat shock in May, a far from unlikely scenario, can knock out part of the fruit set however much water there is in the soil. And the long series is consistent: heat-stress days in Seville went from 64 in 2024 to 77 in 2025, in Córdoba from 62 to 77, in Jaén from 39 to 54.

That is the structural tension of the current climate regime: when it rains, it rains a lot and all at once; when it is hot, it is hotter than before and earlier in the calendar. The average of Seville’s reservoirs went from 74% in 1996-2003 to 57% in 2014-2024 for that very reason. One good year after three bad ones is a temporary rescue; it does not bring back the average. And that makes irrigation water more expensive, makes rain-fed groves more volatile and drives up insurance premiums. The sector operates with a margin that needs higher prices to be viable. Hence, point five.

Data point 5 — The cost of producing olive oil has risen permanently

Here is probably the least-told fact in the sector.

Eurostat publishes quarterly indices of the prices paid by farmers in each country. Base 2020 = 100. This is what Spanish olive growers are paying at the end of 2025 compared with 2020:

InputQ4 2020Peak Q4 2022Q4 2024Q4 2025Δ vs 2020
Nitrogen fertilisers98.9300.3149.8173.8+76 %
Fertilisers (total)98.7238.9145.3160.6+63 %
Motor fuels95.4208.8137.5135.4+42 %
Energy and lubricants98.7188.8137.7131.1+33 %
Total input basket (Input 1)101.0153.9124.1126.6+25 %

Source: Eurostat, Agricultural price indices (apri_pi20_inq), Spain, index base 2020 = 100.

Agricultural input price index in Spain, base 2020 = 100. Source: Eurostat, dataset apri_pi20_inq.
Agricultural input price index, Spain 2020-2025
Series Nitrogen fert.Fertilisers (total)Motor fuelsEnergy/lubricantsTotal basket
Q4 2020 98.998.795.498.7101
Peak Q4 2022 300.3238.9208.8188.8153.9
Q4 2024 149.8145.3137.5137.7124.1
Q4 2025 173.8160.6135.4131.1126.6

Nitrogen fertilisers, which are the heavy item in high-yield groves, cost 76% more than in 2020 today. And they rose between 2024 and 2025: what looked like a retreat from the 2022 energy shock is reversing. Motor fuels 42% higher. The overall input basket 25% higher. And none of this has returned to pre-2021 levels, nor is there any reason to expect it will: energy is still expensive, fertilisers depend on strained global supply chains, and farm labour in Spain gets more expensive every year.

Translating those indices into €/kg of oil produced is hard because the sector lacks a public aggregate production cost. Our estimate, weighting the Eurostat indices by the typical cost structure of a traditional Spanish grove (~30% labour, ~20% fertilisers, ~15% energy and fuels, ~10% plant protection products, ~25% other), is that the cost per kg of EVOO in an average traditional grove has risen by €0.40-0.60/kg compared with 2020. For intensive irrigated groves, where fertilisation and energy weigh more, the increase is around €0.50-0.80/kg.

If in 2019 producing a kilo of oil in a traditional grove cost around €2.30-2.80/kg, today it costs around €2.80-3.40/kg. The price at origin cannot go back to €3/kg without condemning half of the traditional groves to producing below cost. And growers no longer accept that price: we have seen it in the last two seasons, when most of them held oil at the mill until the price rose. It is a change in behaviour that is probably permanent.

That organised holding of stock is, in practice, a new floor defended by supply. And as long as the cost of production rises faster than the price, that floor can only go up.

There is one more factor the sector barely prices in and which is worth making explicit: the CAP. The negotiation of the new post-2027 Common Agricultural Policy is open, and traditional Spanish groves depend on the area payment to be viable at low prices. At current prices (€4-5/kg), traditional groves do not need the CAP to survive; intensive irrigated groves, much less. That means any CAP reform in 2027 will be conservative with the olive payment: no government will dare to cut it while the sector is profitable, because they know a future shock would need that support. The CAP, in this scenario, works as an asymmetric stabiliser: it does not push the price up when it is high, but it provides a cushion if it were to fall again. It is another safety layer under the structural floor.

The uncomfortable nuance: what could bring the ceiling down

We saw in the section “Who buys the oil” that Tunisia exports EVOO to the EU at €3.71/kg (CN 150920) in volumes of 13,000 tonnes a month, €0.55-0.60/kg below the Spanish price, and that European bottlers still keep choosing Spanish origin. The fair question, however, is: what would have to happen for that origin premium to erode? There are three scenarios worth looking at carefully, because they are the biggest real threat to the ceiling —not the floor— of the Spanish price.

First, Morocco scaling up. Today it exports 1,100 t/month to the EU at €3.83/kg. It has young intensive plantations coming into production and an EU bilateral agreement that gives it preferential quotas. If Morocco goes from 1,100 to 5,000 t/month in the next three years —a plausible scenario, not a guaranteed one—, European bottlers gain an alternative of quality equivalent to Tunisia with enough volume. That would be the biggest downward pressure on the ceiling of the Spanish price.

Second, recovery in Algeria and a restart in Syria. Algeria exports anecdotal quantities today (22 t in January), but has a huge under-used olive heritage. Syria is emerging from conflict and started exporting again in 2025, although at irrelevant prices (€1.06/kg) for oil of very uneven quality. Either country adding a stable 50,000 t/year to the European market would shift the average €/kg ceiling within months.

Third, an EU policy decision. The preferential quota for Tunisia, tariffs on Türkiye and the treaties with Morocco are the walls that hold up the Spanish premium. A tariff negotiation —in the context of a broader Mediterranean agreement or geopolitical pressure— could relax those quotas and make substitution cheaper. It is a low-probability scenario in 2026, but it cannot be ruled out for 2027-2028.

My reading: current Tunisian competition is the force that puts an effective ceiling on the price at €5.00-5.50/kg barring a catastrophic harvest. But the floor of €3.50-3.70/kg is defended by the cost of production, not by the world market: even if Tunisia exports much more cheaply, as long as producing oil costs €2.80-3.40/kg in Spain and growers can hold stock, the floor holds. The real threat to the ceiling is structural; the threat to the floor does not exist in the short term.

And meanwhile, on the supermarket shelf

Price transmission between origin and the supermarket is the uncomfortable conversation the sector has been putting off for years. Eurostat publishes the harmonised index of consumer prices for “oils and fats” in Spain (sub-group CP0115).

A technical caveat before reading the curve: CP0115 also includes sunflower oil, butter and margarine. But in Spain olive oil accounts for most of the value of the sub-group, and the index’s extreme movements in 2022-2024 are perfectly consistent with the olive oil price at origin. The HICP signal essentially reflects what happens on the olive oil shelf. It is worth keeping in mind so as not to over-interpret decimal points, but the direction and magnitude are reliable.

HICP index for oils and fats in Spain (base 2015=100). Source: Eurostat, CP0115.
Oils and fats price index in Spain, 2019-2025
Series 2019-012019-042019-072019-102020-012020-042020-072020-102021-012021-042021-072021-102022-012022-042022-072022-102023-012023-042023-072023-102024-012024-042024-072024-102025-012025-042025-072025-102025-12
Index (2015 = 100) 102.599.495.39492.992.491.390.891.796.3110112.4117.8143141.4139.3154.8160.5170.3206.3221.5239.2219.3212.9185.2157.6141.2141.7145.9

Three figures tell the story: 93.8 in December 2019. 239.2 in April 2024 (peak). 145.9 in December 2025. Spanish consumers have seen olive oil become 155% more expensive in four years, and they still pay 56% more than before the shock.

Now the detail that matters for the thesis: between the April 2024 peak and December 2025, the price at origin fell by 53%, but the consumer price fell by only 39%. And since September, the HICP has started rising gently again. Retailers are recovering margin while origin prices ease. As long as the shelf price stays high, producers will not accept selling cheaply. It is one more layer of the floor at the mill.

Conclusion: a new regime, not a new cycle

Put the pieces together. The structural average has doubled and only 3 of the last 64 months closed below €3/kg. Domestic consumption has fallen by 20% and is not coming back. The map of international buyers has multiplied and the premium for Spanish origin over Tunisia/Morocco remains intact, keeping buying pressure steady. The 26/27 harvest will be solid but not a record, and a weak Italian harvest adds extra pressure on Spanish origin. Reservoirs are full, but the water regime has worsened structurally. The cost of producing a kg of EVOO has risen by €0.40-0.80/kg compared with 2020, leaving the viability floor above €3/kg. The large cooperatives can hold stock when needed. The CAP works as an asymmetric stabiliser. And retailers are recovering margin on the shelf, feeding back into the floor at the mill.

The low of the last twelve months has been €3.60/kg in May 2025. Since then the price has rebounded every month and settled between €4.30 and €4.45/kg. That is a tested floor: the price touched it, did not hold there, and rose again. On that evidence, committing myself with subjective probabilities:

Central scenario (probability >70%): Spanish EVOO at origin will move in the €3.90-5.20/kg range for the rest of 2026 and most of 2027. The structural floor is at €3.50-3.70/kg and, barring a shock, it will not break downwards for any length of time.

Alternative scenarios (combined probability ~25%): one-off dips below €3.60/kg at the start of the 26/27 season if the harvest surprises strongly on the upside, or spikes above €5.50/kg if Italy suffers a catastrophic harvest or a severe heat shock hits in May-June 2026.

Extreme scenarios (probability below 5% each): staying below €3.00/kg would require a simultaneous collapse in input costs, mass substitution by third-country origins and consumption returning to 2019 levels. Staying above €6.00/kg would require a repeat of the 2022-2024 triple shock. Neither is on the 2026-2027 horizon.

Read calmly, this is not bad news. A sector that is paid above its cost of production is a sector that invests, modernises and lasts. The dangerous distortion was the world of €2/kg that ruined producers while consumers paid €4/litre on the shelf.

The other scenario was the bad one.

How we calculated it

All the figures in this article were generated with direct queries on the Olearia Intelligence database on 1 May 2026. The sources:

  • Spanish and Italian EVOO prices: European Commission, official weekly reports on the Mediterranean market, 2000-2026 series, average national market.
  • Olive oil balance: AICA (Food Information and Control Agency, Spanish Ministry of Agriculture), monthly balance. 25/26 data at 1 March 2026.
  • Vegetation and water indices (SAVI, NDVI, NDWI): Sentinel-2 / Copernicus, weekly aggregates by NUTS-3 region (Spain) and by producing region (Italy: Calabria, Puglia, Sicily, Tuscany). Clean values filtered for clouds and corrected for quality. SAVI is preferred over NDVI because it corrects for soil noise, which matters in traditional groves with partial canopy cover. The NDVI analysis gives identical directional conclusions.
  • Daily climate: daily data for the eight Spanish olive-growing provinces (precipitation, temperature, evapotranspiration, water balance, heat risks), 2000-2026 series. Rainfall series are aggregated to the hydrological year (1 Oct - 30 Apr) to compare with the real dynamics of the following harvest.
  • Reservoirs: River Basin Authorities (Guadalquivir, Guadiana, Sur), aggregated by olive-growing province.
  • Farm costs: Eurostat, dataset apri_pi20_inq, index base 2020 = 100. The cost-per-kg estimate for EVOO is obtained by weighting the indices by the typical cost structure of a traditional Spanish grove (~30% labour, ~20% fertilisers, ~15% energy/fuels, ~10% plant protection products, ~25% other). It is an estimate, not an official figure.
  • Spanish exports: Eurostat-COMEXT and UN-Comtrade, heading HS 1509, annual totals 2000-2025 and breakdown by destination country. Aggregates (INT_EU, EXT_EA, World) have been excluded to avoid double counting.
  • Third-country prices by quality: Eurostat COMEXT, codes CN 150920 (EVOO), 150930 (virgin) and 150990 (lampante and other), January 2026.
  • Consumer price: Eurostat, harmonised index of consumer prices (HICP), sub-group CP0115 “oils and fats”, Spain, base 2015 = 100. CP0115 also includes sunflower oil, butter and margarine, but olive oil accounts for most of the value of the sub-group in Spain and the extreme 2022-2024 dynamics are consistent with the olive oil price at origin.
  • Cooperatives and sector structure: the “~70% of volume through cooperatives” figure and the names of the large cooperatives are public sector references (Cooperativas Agro-alimentarias de España, Anierac).

If you want to replicate any of the charts with more recent data, write to us at [email protected].


Want to see this data updated in real time, not frozen at one date? Olearia Intelligence brings together origin prices, satellite, reservoirs, AICA and costs in a single dashboard. Request a demo.

#Prices#EVOO#Olive oil market#AICA#Satellite#Costs#Analysis

Viento del pueblo · 1937

Aceituneros

Miguel Hernández

Andaluces de Jaén,
aceituneros altivos,
decidme en el alma: ¿quién,
quién levantó los olivos?

No los levantó la nada,
ni el dinero, ni el señor,
sino la tierra callada,
el trabajo y el sudor.

Unidos al agua pura
y a los planetas unidos,
los tres dieron la hermosura
de los troncos retorcidos.

Levántate, olivo cano,
dijeron al pie del viento.
Y el olivo alzó una mano
poderosa de cimiento.

Andaluces de Jaén,
aceituneros altivos,
decidme en el alma, ¿quién
amamantó los olivos?

Vuestra sangre, vuestra vida,
no la del explotador
que se enriqueció en la herida
generosa de sudor.

No la del terrateniente
que os sepultó en la pobreza,
que os pisoteó la frente,
que os redujo la cabeza.

Árboles que vuestro afán
consagró al centro del día
eran principio de un pan
que sólo el otro comía.

¡Cuántos siglos de aceituna,
los pies y las manos presos,
sol a sol y luna a luna,
pesan sobre vuestros huesos!

Andaluces de Jaén,
aceituneros altivos,
pregunta mi alma: ¿de quién,
de quién son estos olivos?

Jaén, levántate brava
sobre tus piedras lunares,
no vayas a ser esclava
con todos tus olivares.

Dentro de la claridad
del aceite y sus aromas,
indican tu libertad
la libertad de las lomas.

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