Jon Clarke (Publisher & Editor)OLIVE growers are worried as prices plummet to a record low.
The average price for olives is now €1.85 per kilo, while growers are claiming that to break even they need to get €2.20.
A spokesman for the small farmers and livestock breeders union, UPA, said the big retailers were to blame for the low prices not a reduction in demand.
He said that supermarkets dictate the price as nine out of ten bottles of olive oil are sold to them.
Olives are a fundamental part of the Andalucian economy, with the provinces of Jaen and Cordoba being particularly reliant on the crop.
Fortunately growers can obtain subsidies from the EU so they can store their oil until the market recovers.
Does any one have any advise on bottling locally and exporting olive oil to overseas countries, from here in Spain.
Advice is saught also in bottle suplly and bottling equipment.
I understand the plight of smaller olive is particularly difficult. I am not fully aware of the economics of olive oil production but I know a local factory that still has some of last year’s oil in storage – the highest quality oil at that.
Olives are more important to the economy of inland Adalucia than property or tourism so as well as ex-pats buying more locally produced oil, I think John Thornton’s exporting idea is excellent. However I think a deal with a local producer and bottler and utilising ex-pat marketing expertise to promote local brands in UK is the way to go.
Wish the price of olives was 1,85€ per kilo, I’d be a lot better off. Think you mean price of olive oil…..it takes about five kilos of olives to produce one of oil. The future of the oil business is bleak indeed, none of the local growers want to face up to what is likely to be a serious revision of the CAP subsidy by 2013, and for most of them, that subsidy represents the profit they obtain for their crop.