Year’s End: The Bumper Crop Confirmed
2024 ended on a note of relief unthinkable a year earlier. The harvest was big, the cellars filling, and the industry was openly forecasting that the era of record prices was over.
What happened
As 2024 closed, Spain was on course to produce roughly 1.4–1.5 million tonnes for 2024/25 — a bumper crop after a wet winter and mild spring — with Greece and Tunisia also recovering. Major bottlers were now predicting that olive-oil prices would halve from their record levels.
Why it matters
This closed the loop on the whole crisis. From the January peak to a year-end bumper harvest, 2024 contained the entire turn — the most expensive moment in olive-oil history, and the rebound that ended it, in a single twelve months.
A bumper crop is a genuine reprieve — cheaper, more honest oil, less incentive to fake it. But the underlying squeeze, a warming climate on a concentrated crop, is unchanged, and the 2025 price crash would bring its own pain to growers. Enjoy the cheaper oil; don’t mistake one good year for a solved problem.
Sources, late 2024: 2024/25 harvest estimates; CNBC, “Deoleo says olive oil prices set to halve.”