VIDEO – Olive oil too expensive: what are the alternatives?

The price of olive oil has increased by 20% in one year.

An increase that is mainly due to the exceptional drought of recent months in Spain.

What should we replace this oil, very popular with the French, with? TF1’s 8pm gives you some alternatives.

It is an increase that no longer surprises us, namely that of the price of olive oil. “It is true that they have risen considerably. I compare a little more than some time ago and have changed the brand of olive oil. Four months ago it was at 8.80 euros, there it went to almost 15 euros.”points to a customer.

The success of blended oils

The cause of this increase is the repeated drought in Spain, the largest olive oil producing country. As a result, sales on shelves fell by 10% this year. But can we do without this product? According to the consumers we interviewed, it is not that simple. “When I make a salad, I add olive oil, that goes without saying” says a passerby.

Replacing the olive oil in our cupboards is one of the solutions to reduce the bill. While the price has risen by 20% in one year, that of rapeseed has fallen by 9% and for sunflower oil even up to 14% lower. But you still need to know how to use them, because each recipe has its own oil. According to Pascale Hébel, consumption expert and associate director at C-Ways, the alternatives are numerous: “If we eat raw vegetables, we can replace them with walnut or hazelnut oil. And for cooking oil we have a lot of alternatives: sunflower oil, rapeseed oil, vegetable oil. ‘cheap peanuts.’

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Blended oils are another solution to avoid completely losing the flavor of olive oil. The liter is on average half as expensive as that of olive oil. “These are combined oils that we blend with olive and rapeseed oil and are experiencing very strong growth as we achieved more than 40% of sales this year compared to what we sold on average the year before”, explains Franck Lecêtre, commercial director of the industrial company Lesieur, in the 8 p.m. TF1 video at the top of this article. All brands combined, combined oils are the only ones on the market to see their sales increase by more than 13% in one year.