Major price increase in olive oil

Hello! I don't want to sound like Chicken Little :shifty: but I read in the business section of my local newspaper that the olive crops in Spain, Greece and Italy have greatly suffered this year due to adverse weather and by the spread of a nasty fruit fly and moth that damages the developing fruit. I have not read how the olive crop is in California but suspect, with the continued severe drought, the supply will also be low. Thus, there will be a major drop in the worldwide supply of olive oil and prices will go up due to high demand. So... better plan to stock up in the next few weeks before the prices begin to climb much higher. Don't panic - just plan ahead.

PS: Be wary of cheap oil later this winter and spring. Unscrupulous companies take advantage of this high demand by adding other oils (like soybean or corn oil) to olive oil and say it is 100% olive oil when it is not. This can have major saponification problems to your recipes.

Already started stocking up when the drought hit California.

Or consider switching to the high-oleic oils such as HO sunflower and HO safflower. Or look at rice bran oil as another reasonable substitute for olive.

I use so little olive oil I do not much worry about it. I happen to love sunflower and avocado. I am more concerned about he cost of cocoa butter and where it is going to go

cmzaha said:

I use so little olive oil I do not much worry about it. I happen to love sunflower and avocado. I am more concerned about he cost of cocoa butter and where it is going to go

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You are absolutely right! I forgot about the looming shortage of cocoa beans - which translate into anything chocolate. Up goes the price of cocoa butter and...sniff... :cry:...chocolate.

Both the Olive Oil and Cocoa Butter are going to affect me. I use a lot of olive oil and cocoa butter. I can and am changing out the cocoa butter to Shea Butter as I have a lot from Baraka Shea (raw) plus reducing the olive oil and adding in palm. It will be a totally new recipe so I have to test it a bit.

Thanks for the heads-up! Olive oil is a main staple of mine. Cocoa butter, too...................... not to mention chocolate.


IrishLass

I too use a lot of olive but have cut down on the cocoa as switched over to Shea quite awhile ago. I'll be stocking up soon. I was at Costco today and it's gone up a dollar since I last bought it.

Researching it, you get a lot of mixed signals/story's. While Spain, the largest producer is saying they will experience a 50 to 60 % decrease in production, the cost per liter has went up 1 euro. French and Italian price increases are more drastic. While Greece , the third largest producer is expecting to double their production this year. Also Spain still has a stockpiles of last years record harvest.

Sooo, it may not be as bad as it sounds. Yet if it does, I'll still buy my OO, just use too much of it to change.

I just bought 10 bottles at Sam's Club. The price was up a bit, but not horribly. But I will need to get more if we land a spot in a particular show this summer.

Carolyn - do you find the Sunflower oil gives the same slip as olive oil? Rice and Avocado do not in my soaps, Almond does, but I have not tested the Sunflower and was thinking of buying more soon.

Report from Greece: Until now, everyone I know of or have heard of having olive trees has had an incredibly great production, way better than last year's, as JustBeachy's sources predicted.
So, no fear for oo! The cocoa problem will indeed be disturbing...

El_Granado_Loco said:

Report from Greece: Until now, everyone I know of or have heard of having olive trees has had an incredibly great production, way better than last year's, as JustBeachy's sources predicted.
So, no fear for oo! The cocoa problem will indeed be disturbing...

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My "sources" are that I trade futures. :razz: I get tons of reports every week about most of the commodity markets, along with important news updates about the markets.

On the cocoa scare, most reputable financial reports are downplaying a surge in cocoa prices and the main stream media hype about a major cocoa shortage. Truth is, cocoa has been going up steadily in price for the last 10 years. Lots of times reports are "leaked" to try and drive or curtail a market.

After looking over the cocoa futures index, indicators and news, here's my take.

Current cocoa futures contract is selling at around 2840. The high for this contract was this year in mid Sept and was up at close to 3400. The simple moving average and stochastic, (indicators that are used to judge movement and direction), are pointing to the futures close to reaching a "bottom", upon which it will probably try to rebound back up.

However the July 2015 contract, contracts for cocoa delivery mid next year, is still trading at around the 2835 mark. Meaning in simple analysis, the markets don't see a reason for major upswings yet.

Things could change at any time, and the only perfect prediction of any of the commodity and/or futures markets is, it will either go up or go down. But to my interpretation, limited as it may be, I see more of just the same steady increase we've seen over the last 5 to 10 years.

Taking out seasonal crop results, I would expect to see a long-term steady rise in cocoa. It is one of those goods gaining popularity in emerging markets while remaining consistent in developed markets. Interesting that some farmers have never tasted the goodness that they are growing... Check out the Ivory Coast farmers' reactions to tasting it for the first time:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/20...oast-cacao-farmers-had-never-tasted-chocolate

Snappyllama, what an interesting video! Thanks for sharing.. How sad, I 'd never thought of this...

Story tonight on NPR about Italy's crops. Decreases in the stores they said would be seen late winter/early spring. They were more specifically talking about evoo because that it what I would guess most of the commercial market is. I finally found a can of pomace oil at a restaurant supply store nearby. No date on it though. Going to make some Bastille and see how it goes.