Is a bigger pack of olive oil really cheaper? Price per litre by bottle size and supermarket

On a Turkish supermarket shelf, olive oil comes in everything from a 250 ml spray to a 5-litre tin. The big number on the shelf tag is the price of the pack; the number that lets you compare products is the price per litre. Türkiye's Price Tag Regulation, issued by the Ministry of Trade (Official Gazette, 28 June 2014), requires retail tags to show the unit price next to the selling price; an amendment of 18 February 2022 defined the unit price as the tax-inclusive price per the unit of measure suited to the product. For olive oil that unit is the litre.

This article uses that unit price to answer two questions: how much does a bigger pack really save, and what does a litre of the same oil cost in different chains?

The data: 43 products, 7 chains

The figures are shelf prices that our site collects regularly from Market Fiyatı, the price comparison platform developed by TÜBİTAK with the support of the Ministry of Trade. The main snapshot is 43 olive oils scanned on the morning of 10 October 2026: 24 extra virgin and 19 riviera (refined olive oil blended with virgin oil). The chains are BİM, A101, ŞOK, Hakmar, Tarım Kredi, Migros and Carrefour.

Two limits up front. The list is a search result, not the whole shelf. And the price is the price at the moment of the scan; it may include promotions and differences between branches. The list also changes from day to day: compared with the 9 October scan, two products dropped out, two came in, and the 2-litre Sırım Riviera at BİM fell from 510 to 449 lira in a single day.

How much cheaper does a litre get as the pack grows?

The cleanest comparison is a pair where the same brand sells the same oil in the same chain in two sizes. Eight pairs in the scan meet that condition:

Prices per litre. Source: Market Fiyatı platform, our scan of 10 October 2026.

Moving from 1 litre to 2 litres saves between 4% and 9% per litre; the median of the six pairs is 6.2%. The real jump comes at 5 litres: in both examples the price per litre falls by 21-24%. Migros's own-label extra virgin costs 1,499.95 lira for 5 litres; five 1-litre bottles of the same oil come to 1,964.75 lira, a difference of 464.80 lira.

A small pack is not always penalised. Half a litre of Komili Riviera at Carrefour works out at 409.80 lira per litre, against 409.95 for the 1-litre bottle: practically no difference. Change the format and the picture changes: Yudum Egemden's 250 ml riviera spray comes to 879.60 lira per litre, 2.2 times the brand's own 2-litre bottle.

A big pack has a cost of its own: an opened tin is used for weeks, and the oil meets air every time it is opened. Whether the saving suits how fast you use the oil is worth weighing against the conditions in our article on how to store olive oil.

What does a litre of the same oil cost in each chain?

Taking the first five chains together, the median litre of extra virgin costs 310.00 lira (11 products); at Migros and Carrefour it is 549.90 lira (13 products): 1.77 times as much. For riviera the comparison is 253.75 against 409.80 lira, 1.61 times.

The gap does not come from the chain alone; it also comes from the product mix on the shelf. Every product in the first five chains is a standard 1- or 2-litre bottle. Migros and Carrefour also stock organic, regionally named and half-litre products, and these pull the median up.

Where we can catch the same product in two chains, the gap is clearer. A litre of Yudum Egemden Riviera costs 209.00 lira at BİM; at Carrefour the 2-litre bottle works out at 394.95 lira per litre. Despite the bigger bottle, it is 89% dearer per litre. Tariş Kuzey Ege Extra Virgin runs the other way: the 750 ml bottle at Carrefour comes to 622.53 lira per litre, the 1-litre bottle at Migros to 639.95 lira. Kristal's extra virgin oils cost 325.00 at A101, 359.00 at Hakmar and 499.95 lira at Migros, but all three are sold under different line names; the data cannot separate the effect of the line from that of the chain.

Products carrying the chain's own name form the cheap end of the supermarket shelf. Migros's own-label 2-litre riviera costs 225.00 lira per litre, 45% below the Migros riviera median of 409.95 lira. Migros's 1-litre extra virgin, at 392.95 lira, is the cheapest 1-litre extra virgin scanned in that chain.

How big is the gap between extra virgin and riviera on the shelf?

When extra virgin and riviera from the same brand sit side by side in the same chain and the same size, extra virgin costs this much more: Orkide (BİM, 1 L) 25.1% · Yudum Egemden (BİM, 1 L) 23.9% · Lio (ŞOK, 2 L) 16.7% · Lio (ŞOK, 1 L) 15.2% · Tarım Kredi (1 L) 15.2%. We measured the wholesale gap from commodity exchange records in our article on the price gap between extra virgin and riviera.

The cheapest end of the shelf has not moved in six weeks

In the shelf table of our weekly bulletins, the cheapest litre of extra virgin was 249.00 lira in the scans of 30 August, 20 September, 27 September and 4 October, and it was still 249.00 lira on 10 October. The cheapest riviera stood at 199.00 lira in the same five scans. On 10 October both figures belonged to Orkide's 1-litre bottles at BİM.

Extra virgin oils under 300 lira per litre: Orkide (249.00, BİM), Yudum Egemden (259.00, BİM), Lio 2 L (297.50, ŞOK), Komili Lezzetli Yumuşak (299.00, A101) and Migros 5 L (299.99). Price alone says nothing about the quality of the oil; what to check on the bottle is covered in how to read an olive oil label.

In short

A bigger pack of olive oil is cheaper, but the saving is uneven: 2 litres save 4-9% per litre, 5 litres 21-24%. Half a litre is often not penalised, while a spray bottle doubles the price per litre. The gap between chains is larger than the gap between pack sizes: the median litre of extra virgin is 310 lira in five discount chains and 549.90 lira in two supermarkets. The cheapest end of the shelf has stayed at 249 and 199 lira since 30 August. When comparing, look past the big number on the tag to the price per litre that the regulation requires.