It is getting back much more in origin than in the supermarket

The story is known: from 2021 the price of olive oil He started up quickly. On the one hand, the extreme weather conditions had ruined the olive harvest and, on the other, The Ukraine War had caused A sudden increase in production costs.

It was a “perfect storm” and we noticed it. What if we notice.

What we are not noticing is the opposite phenomenon.

Chronicle of a climb. At the end of 2022, The liter was worth 114% more than two years agothe campaign was going very badly and the sector began to understand that it was heading to a dead end. The problem had only started, of course.

For summer of 2024, The oil was worth 100.4% more than in 2022 and 62% more than in 2023. demand (showing its inelasticity) I had not fallen so much, but I had fallen 44.5% in just two years. In addition, as a logical market response, the rest of consumer oils grew a lot.

But now the thing has changed. The campaign has been fantastic and that has caused the price of oil in origin to fall rapidly. In fact, As we have commented in recent weekshas fallen below four euros the liter that, traditionally, supposed the olive line of profitability in Spain.

Spurred by the delicate financial and productive situation of the sector, the descent has been very very very. We could say that, in a year, The price has dropped 53.3%; However, that descent is concentrated in recent months or even weeks.

What happens in supermarkets? What happens is that it is not exactly what we are seeing in supermarkets. According to Facuathe one -liter bottle (on average) has only dropped 24%.

It is not a surprise. It has been months for months that the world’s main bottling companies They announced that prices were not going to fall so fast. According to their logic, they could not impact all the oil rise to consumers and that generated financial problems (the owner of brands such as hojiblanca or carbonell, lost 34.3 million euros in 2023): 2024 was time to recover.

And that’s what is happening: the famous “Cohete-Plum Effect“That we see with gasoline. The prices rise very fast and go down very slowly.

What can we expect? Continuity. Prices have to go down in supermarkets, that is given by all analysts. The big question (In the middle of the very satisfactory campaign) It is how much the great actors in the sector will be contained.

Image | Villa Vyctor | Jorge Fraganillo

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