How much does it cost to produce one liter of olive oil?

How much does it cost to produce one liter of olive oil?

In an open letter to consumers, oil miller Pino Nicotra from the Agrestis Buccheri cooperative in Sicily explained how the cost of a liter of olive oil is made up. I would like to try to summarize this for you and for our situation, because Pino has only calculated the production costs in Italy. And then, of course, there are the transportation costs to Germany, so that you can have the olive oil from Italy conveniently delivered to your home. Once you have read this, you can begin to ponder how olive oil can cost only €4 per liter in the supermarket around the corner.

Cold-pressed olive oil

Costs for the production of olive oil

The production of olive oil does not begin with the pressing of the oil, but with the care of the soil and trees. Pino charges EUR 2767 for 100 olive trees in his terraced olive groves, which incidentally only produce a productive harvest every two years. This results in 7000 kg of olives and for one liter of olive oil you need about 10 kg of the Tonda Iblea variety, i.e. for one liter of olive oil you have to charge € 3.95 for the field work.

Olive harvest at Agrestis

These are the costs until the olives are ripe. Now it’s time for the harvest. Pino charges EUR 9.10 for field work, harvesting, the oil mill and transportation to the mill. Then there are the costs for filling into canisters and bottles, labeling and storage.
Then you are already at 13.05 EUR, plus 32% tax, which the cooperative has to pay. So 17.23 EUR. We actually buy a liter of olive oil for around EUR 20.
DescriptionCost per liter of olive oil

Salvatore and Pietro

Then, as I said, the olive oil is transported to us, which also costs us another EUR 200 plus VAT per pallet from Sicily to Germany.