World vegetable oil prices: olive oil and its rivals

Sources: commoditypriceapi.com (daily quotations), the International Monetary Fund's Primary Commodity Prices and the World Bank's Commodity Markets “Pink Sheet” (monthly averages); the Period column shows which applies to each row. Values are world commodity quotations in US dollars per tonne, not Turkish producer or shelf prices. For Turkish exchange registrations see the exchanges page, and for shelf prices the retail page.

Why the gap is this wide

Olive oil is the only major edible oil pressed from a fruit rather than a seed, and mechanically rather than with solvents. The tree needs years to come into bearing, alternates between heavy and light crops, and most groves are unirrigated. Sunflower, rapeseed and palm are annual or high-yielding perennial crops with industrial extraction. That structural difference, not speculation, is what keeps olive oil several times dearer.