The First Crack: Spring Rain Brings Hope
After the record peak of January, March 2024 brought the first hint that the worst might be over — not from a harvest, but from the sky.
What happened
Sustained spring rain and mild temperatures gave Spain’s olive trees excellent conditions for flowering and fruit set — the make-or-break moment of the olive year. With a better crop suddenly plausible, prices started their first real decline from the January record, easing from above €8 toward €7.8 a kilo in Andalusia by spring.
Why it matters
Olive prices turn on weather at flowering more than almost anything else. A few weeks of timely rain in March did what nothing else could after two years of drought: it cracked the record price open. The relief was months from the shelf, but the direction had changed.
If you want to guess where olive-oil prices are heading, watch the spring weather in Spain, not the autumn harvest — by harvest time the crop is already decided. Rain at flowering is the single best early signal of cheaper oil to come. March 2024 was that signal.
Source, March 2024: Spanish price and harvest-condition reporting (Mintec / Olive Oil Times).