Grocery experts are warning a global shortage of olive oil after consecutive years of extreme weather conditions in Spain and the Mediterranean.
"We’ve currently got good supply so there’s no need to rush out and top up, but with olive oil being a hugely popular grocery item both here in New Zealand and around the world, we’re already thinking about solutions and alternatives to help customers get the best value," explained Jocelyn McCallum, Head of Grocery Food & Frozen at Foodstuffs North Island.
The world’s largest producer of olive oil is Spain and extreme weather has damaged the harvests of olives for a second year. Global production of olive oil is expected to fall and be short of global demand.
"Olive oil represents roughly 40-50 percent of our total oil sales so it’s very popular with New Zealanders," said McCallum.
"Over the last six months, we’ve seen supplier olive oil prices increase by 50-60 percent and as global demand outstrips supply, we can expect supply prices to continue to increase. Our experts are predicting we are near the ceiling of the likely increases, however until growers get better conditions and supply levels improve, it’s likely supply prices will remain higher than usual."
Foodstuffs has a good supply of olive oil but are raising the flag early to give customers the opportunity to make slicker decisions when it comes to choosing oil products by considering alternative options.
Read more about olive oil here.
