Shift In Greek Cuisine: Olive Oil Becomes Luxury

News Desk

Athens: Olive oil – an essential part of Greek culture and cuisine – is shifting towards becoming a luxury good due to skyrocketing prices, with its average price on shelves reaching €13 and the price rising 35 per cent in August alone.

The wholesale price of olive oil in Crete – one of the country’s biggest olive oil producing regions – is currently around €8.40 ($9) per litre which means its retail price would be around €12 to €15 during the winter, stated Heraklion Agricultural Cooperative (EASH) Vice President Myron Chiletzakis.

Myron noted that 80 per cent of the country’s olive oil production is exported and that is also behind skyrocketing prices domestically, adding that Greece, as Turkey did, should have banned the olive oil export to prevent that situation, reported Greece broadcaster ‘Open TV’.

Earlier, the Turkish Trade Ministry announced on August 1 a three-month export ban on olive oil in barrels and bulk as a result of the Mediterranean region’s olive oil supply crisis and its detrimental effects on domestic prices.

The rise in the price of olive oil is due to the decrease in production in all Mediterranean countries. It started in Spain, the world’s leading producer of olive oil.

Spain’s olive oil production in the recent season has slumped to around 610,000 metric tons – that’s a a drop of more than 50 per cent compared to the usual 1.3 to 1.5 million metric tonnes, following a two-year drought and record heat. AA/APP