Olive oil hits €60 per 5L jug in Spain

Olive oil at €60 per jug, according to forums

Olive oil has ceased to be a pantry staple and behaves like what its price suggests: a luxury item. The most repeated reference in the thread places the five-liter jug of extra virgin oil at around €60. Some already put a date on the next surge: that same jug, they argue, could reach €100 in six months. And over the conversation looms the memory of rationing already experienced with sunflower oil.

How much does a liter of olive oil cost today?

The range is wide and depends on the store. One user claims to have seen large cans at Lidl for €10 per liter; at the other end are flyers listing hojiblanca extra virgin for just over €4, which another user argues never get restocked. The spreading suspicion is uncomfortable: poor forecasting for some, commercial practice for others, pushing buyers toward more expensive brands.

The ghost of rationing

Limiting units per customer is not new. The most cited precedent is sunflower oil, when nervous buying emptied shelves and rationing was required. It is remembered that this was a short episode: within two months the fever subsided and prices returned to normal. The doubt now is whether olive oil will trinc the same path, because if the product behaves like an asset, hoarding makes economic sense.

Rationing was already seen in big-box stores. At Costco, cheesecakes were bought to resell on the street, leading to limits of two units, or five per person. Some apply this logic to oil, and the forum vocabulary already speaks of an olive oil corralito, of buying four jugs before the market turns, and of not setting alarms for the pantry.

Super-intensive olive groves in Seville

Around Seville, farms that had cereals a few months ago are being converted to super-intensive olive groves. Drought and falling harvests explain part of the pull, but not all: some see a purely financial move there, treating the olive tree as the raw material to be in, the new bitcoin of the countryside. Those planting frantically expect to make money, not cover costs, one forum user points out.

Not everyone rows in the same direction. An organic producer in traditional mountain olive groves recalls that a couple of years ago it wasn't worth harvesting olives due to rock-bottom prices. That pendulum, from abandonment to fever, supports those who believe the cycle will turn on its own: if it rains and new production comes into bearing, there will be oil in tanks without buyers. The same market currently debated at €60 per jug may find itself tomorrow with surplus.

Comparison with Australia

International comparison creeps into the thread. A user claims that in Australia, a liter of olive oil costs between AU$15 and AU$20, i.e., between €10 and €15, with reference salaries of AU$4,000, about €3,500. The income differential would make the liter hurt less there, even if the product costs the same or more.

In that comparison appears an argument about migration policies that should be left where it stands: it is claimed that labor scarcity explains those wages, but it is a thesis launched without data. Other users point to a global effect: prices of basic goods tend to equalize upward between countries, and wages do not always accompany that movement.

Price caps, subsidies, and consumption

When the price of a basic food runs away, the usual repertoire returns: some propose limiting the price by decree and subsidizing purchases, the model of price controls. The idea circulates in the thread, where the price of oil is read politically.

The other suggested route needs no decree: consume less. If the price doubles, consuming half balances household spending, calculates a forum user. And those who have been planting olive trees for years warn that if it rains and production increases, people will have already gotten used to other oils.

Among suspicions, one summarizes the climate: some recall that a famous investor had put his money into agricultural land rather than technology. If big money buys farmland, the problem may not be just drought.