Spain's importer syndrome
Despite being the global leader in olive oil production, soaring prices have turned a fundamental ingredient of the Mediterranean diet into a luxury out of reach for many Spaniards.
Nobody in my family gets the joke.
By now, any relative preparing to visit Galicia knows to save space in their Samsonite for an industrial-sized box of Barry’s teabags and a few slabs of dairy milk chocolate.
The gag waits in cold storage, ready for when the inevitable message arrives:
- Need anything else brought over?
- Olive oil please.
Tough crowd. But unsurprising. In Ireland, olive oil is just olive oil - a luxury ingredient used so sparingly that any sort of price spike goes unnoticed.
In Spain, however, the ferocious and unrelenting price increases that kicked off during Covid-19 have been in the headlines ever since. El País reported that, between January 2021 and December 2023, the price of olive oil in Spain increased by 165.5%. With Spaniards consuming 30 times the global average per year (12 kilos v 0.4 kilos), it’s a big deal.
Furthermore, at present, many European countries continue to enjoy below-current market-priced golden-green goodness, and Spaniards are pissed off.
The importer syndrome
The reaction to the viral video showing a litre of extra virgin (the really good stuff) olive oil retailing in Dublin for €4.70/litre compared to €8.50/litre in Huelva was as expected.
“Being the main producer of olive oil isn’t doing Spain much use for controlling the prices of such a basic element of the Mediterranean diet,” wrote La Voz de Galicia. “Images of bottles costing four or five euros per litre in Ireland and other European neighbours have irritated Spaniards, who are wondering how it’s possible to have arrived at such a situation.”
Due to relatively low consumption in Ireland - bottles of aceite de oliva often sit unopened, gathering dust in cupboards for most parts of the year - stocks (purchased well in advance at lower prices) have lasted much longer. This explains why, despite being the global leader in olive oil production, Spaniards are being forced to pay high for their own supply.
The exporter now feels like the importer.
While Spaniards have been feeling swindled by supermarkets, several producers have been hit by heists: in January, Olis Bargalló reported the theft of 10,000 litres of olive oil from its facilities in Castellví de Rosanes (40km west of Barcelona). Last summer, meanwhile, bandits in the Cordoba and Malaga provinces helped themselves to a combined 26,000 litres from two local producers.
Usually reserved for expensive wines and spirits, security tags on olive oil bottles are now a common sight across supermarkets in Spain, confirming its status among many Spaniards as a luxury good.
While olive oil outlaws and petty thieves remain a concern for producers and retailers alike, the livelihoods of Spaniards across are facing a far greater existential threat.
A perfect storm
Spain is becoming hotter for longer.
2023 ended with Malaga smashing its temperature record for December by five degrees. 2024 began with Catalonia declaring a drought emergency.
“Spain’s coming crisis is climate change,” wrote Simon Kuper in the Financial Times (August 2022). “The cracked, barren fields seen from train windows look north African. The grape harvest in Jérez began on July 28, the earliest in the region’s history. Farming with boundless irrigation isn’t a long-term strategy. Millennia-old Iberian agriculture may be dying out.”
Unseasonal heat of close to 40 degrees Celsius in April/May 2023 scorched vast swathes of blossoming olives. “Heat waves and extreme drought have resulted in one of the worst production campaigns so far this century,” Primitivo Fernández, general manager of Anierac, told Tapas Magazine.
According to La Vanguardia, Andalusia - the region that accounts for 72% of Spain’s total olive output - produced an estimated 550,600 tonnes of olives during the most recent harvest season, about 40% less than an average harvest. On a national level, the overall harvest was down more than a third on the average of the past five years, and the law of supply and demand continues to do its thing.
The situation has been exacerbated further due to rising energy, fertiliser, packaging, and transport costs. In a recent Spain Revealed video, James Blick shows a three-litre bottle of extra virgin olive oil that cost €9.95 in 2021 now retailing at €29.55.
With fewer olives on trees, many Spaniards have been forced to branch out for cheaper alternatives.
“Without olive oil, there is no Mediterranean diet. In fact, it is the only food that must be part of a diet to be considered Mediterranean,” wrote Dr. Javier Sánchez Perona, CSIC scientist at the Instituto de la Grasa. Along with high vitamin D levels and easy access to fresh fruits and vegetables, olive oil has been earmarked as a key contributor to the surging longevity of Spaniards.
“The health benefits of olive oil have been attributed to its antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties,” wrote Howard E. LeWine, Chief Medical Editor of Harvard Health Publishing. “In fact, observational studies have shown a link between lower risks of cardiovascular disease, some cancers, and even dementia in people who consume higher amounts of olive oil than those who use little or none.”
Despite the clear health benefits, olive oil consumption in Spain plummeted by 20% between December 2022 and November 2023. Its absence from many Spanish kitchens could have costly health effects in years to come.
Spain is the best country in the world at marketing itself to itself - as a land, it’s fiercely proud of its self-sufficiency. With climate change, however, all bets are off.
“Although concern about climate change is growing,” wrote Michael Reid in Spain: The Trials and Triumphs of a Modern European Country, “it lags behind other European countries. A Eurobarometer poll in 2021 found that only 3% of Spanish respondents found climate change to be a top problem, compared to the average of 13%.”
With summers arriving earlier and leaving later, climate is now a direct threat to food security in Spain and, in turn, its identity. The science is telling us that a bad harvest isn’t bad luck. Barcelona is going through a drought emergency in February - what will things be like in the summer?
“Olive oil is no longer the only liquid gold,” wrote Maite Gutierrez in La Vanguardia.
“Now rain is as well.”