At Hydra Estiatorio, there is no replacement for olive oil. It’s a staple ingredient, used in almost every dish.
But the Greek restaurant, located in downtown Vancouver, is one of many local food businesses suffering as olive oil prices skyrocket amid a worldwide shortage.
Because substituting is not an option for the restaurant, rising costs mean profit margins are thinning.
“It’s the backbone of our cuisine,” said Mark Greenfield, director of culinary operations for Executive Table Group, which owns Hydra.
“It’s not something we could consider changing or altering in any way.”
Climate events like drought, wildfires and flooding, as well as increasing production costs, have caused global olive oil production to decrease.
In the last three years, average retail prices have increased by 140 per cent, according to Statistics Canada data. Prices have jumped by 25 per cent since January alone.
Greenfield says restaurants are not only facing increased prices, but scarcity has made olive oil harder to buy.
“I’ve had suppliers tell me … it’s not available. Even at a higher price they can’t even source it or get their hands on it,” he said, adding the restaurant has had to diversify its sources of the oil, now relying on several suppliers.
“It can be a scramble, especially for the smaller boutique importers who are sourcing from a single-origin farm,” he said.
Greenfield is also concerned about substitutions in the supply chain, or the possibility that those importing the oil might cut products with cheaper vegetable or seed oils.
He says Hydra chefs taste their olive oil every three months and carefully select which one to use.
But Greenfield says many smaller restaurants may have to choose between substituting olive oil, using a lower quality oil or increasing their prices.
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‘Perfect storm’
Fil Bucchino, an olive oil expert and professional taster, says the past three years have been challenging for olive producers in Europe, but last year in particular was the “perfect storm” of poor weather and other factors like increasing supply-chain costs and a spike in the cost of glass, which is often used for packaging.
“You could see it coming, but nobody expected it to be as bad as it got,” said Buccino.
He says, however, growers are optimistic about the upcoming season, noting temperatures have been conducive to olive growing.
“So far, knock on wood, it looks the best that it has looked in the past four years,” said Bucchino.
Rino Cioffi, who runs a north-Burnaby Italian market and deli, Cioffi’s, is counting on olive oil prices levelling off soon.
Cioffi says the store has had to increase its olive oil prices by around 70 per cent to keep up with rising costs.
As a result, Cioffi says he has had to cut down on inventory.
While he used to buy oil in larger batches to keep some in storage, volatile pricing has forced him to buy smaller amounts.
“We don’t want to get stuck at selling olive oil at $200 when they might go back down to $100,” he said.
Lisa Funaro, owner of olive oil tasting bar Di Oliva in East Vancouver, says she prides herself on offering high-quality, pure olive oil to customers at a relatively affordable price, but the jump in costs and scarcity of the oil forced her to raise prices in December.
“It is getting harder and harder to find pure olive oil,” said Funaro.
She says many customers are still willing to pay for the pure olive oil — which she says has health benefits — and is optimistic that prices will go back down soon.