Spain Expects 23% More Olive Oil: Prices Fall in 2026/27

Spain expects to produce 1.6 million tonnes of olive oil in the 2026/27 season, 23 per cent more than a year earlier, according to a forecast published by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food on 1 October, and prices at origin have already fallen to about €3.34 a kilo for extra virgin oil.

The recovery in the world’s largest producing country comes as Tunisia, which harvested a record crop last season, expects 200,000 to 300,000 tonnes against about 500,000, while Greek producers are selling their first oil of the season at markedly lower prices. Olive oil is becoming cheaper again largely because of a single Spanish harvest.

Spain. The ministry’s forecast of 1,602,596 tonnes follows a 2025/26 season in which winter storms reduced Spanish output to 1.30 million tonnes. Andalusia, which accounts for almost four fifths of national production, expects 1.26 million tonnes, up 29 per cent, and the farmers’ association ASAJA-Jaén estimates that about 350,000 tonnes of last season’s oil will still be in storage when the new campaign begins. On the Poolred price system, extra virgin oil traded at €3.34 a kilo in the week to 5 October, well below the levels of 2023 and 2024. The government is expected to decide in the first half of November whether to apply, for the first time, a rule that would require mills to withhold oil from the market.

Tunisia. After a record harvest of about 500,000 tonnes in 2025/26, the National Chamber of Olive Producers expects about 300,000 tonnes this season, while the farmers’ union Synagri puts the figure at 200,000 to 250,000 tonnes; the agriculture ministry is due to publish its own estimate. Growers attribute the decline to alternate bearing, in which a heavy crop is followed by a lighter one. Tunisia is also a major supplier to Europe: between November 2025 and August 2026 the country exported 381,200 tonnes of olive oil, 50.8 per cent more than a year earlier, and the European Union took 56.6 per cent of it, most of it shipped in bulk to Spain and Italy.

Greece. In Laconia, in the southern Peloponnese, a cooperative sold its first early-harvest extra virgin oil this autumn at €5.95 a kilo, compared with €7.85 a year earlier and €10.20 in 2024/25. Supermarket prices have followed the same path, with branded extra virgin oil costing €13.50 to €14 a litre in 2023/24 and about €9.40 by January 2026. Volumes are lower in parts of the country as well, and local authorities around Almyros, in central Greece, expect 1,500 tonnes this season, compared with 3,500 tonnes last year.

Olive oil prices rose sharply after the droughts of 2023 and 2024, when poor Spanish harvests drove up the cost of a staple of Mediterranean cooking across Europe. The forecasts for 2026/27 point the other way, and the decline rests largely on Spain, which produces more olive oil than any other country and sets the reference price for much of the market.

The weather risk remains. Even in Spain’s year of recovery, heatwaves from June to August limited the size of the fruit and its oil content, as heat and drought continue to change the chemistry of the harvest. Tunisia and parts of Greece, meanwhile, enter the season with smaller crops and lower prices at the same time. Spain’s decision in November on withholding oil from the market will show how far the largest producer is prepared to go to keep prices stable.