Spain’s supermarket thieves covet olive oil as prices surge

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Olive oil has become the most stolen supermarket item across a large swath of Spain, as surging prices make the “liquid gold” a more popular target than ibérico ham in the theft rankings.

As droughts and heatwaves cause shortages and push prices to record highs, supermarkets said olive oil was now the most shoplifted product in regions that account for 70 per cent of Spain’s population.

The main culprits are criminal gangs targeting the staple food for resale on the black market.

Spain is the world’s biggest producer of olive oil — known as oro líquido or liquid gold — and the product occupies a central place in the country’s cuisine and consciousness. Shoppers accustomed to paying less than €5 for a litre of high-quality extra virgin oil only four years ago have been aghast to see prices climb as high as €14.

Alejandro Alegre, marketing director at STC, a security company that carried out a survey of supermarkets, said it was unusual to see an essential food item so high up the theft list. “Olive oil is the only one that could be considered a staple. The others are ibérico ham, cured cheeses, razor blades and alcohol.”

He said it was “important to note that there is no hunger theft” driving the trend. Instead, olive oil was being pilfered by organised criminal gangs intending to resell it to consumers trying to save money.

The olive oil price in Spain has more than quadrupled in the past four years as water shortages and punishing heat have led to successive poor harvests.

Extra virgin olive oil was sold in the wholesale market for an average of €2.13 per kilogramme at the end of February 2020 but now costs €8.88, according to Spain’s agriculture ministry, with prices jumping almost 70 per cent in the past year alone.

Last summer, STC began receiving requests to put antitheft alarms on olive oil bottles. But José Izquierdo, a sales chief for supermarket chain Eroski, told Spanish television that thieves were using magnetic devices to crack open security tags, which are more commonly used on bottles of spirits and wine.

Olive growers and companies that press olives into oil have also been the victims of robberies in recent months, with thieves stealing tens of thousands of litres of products.

Olive oil was the most stolen item in supermarkets in eight of Spain’s 17 regions, including the three most populous: Madrid, Catalonia and Andalusia. At a national level, however, the most shoplifted product was spirits. STC could not gather data on the total value or volume of the goods stolen.

While theft of strong alcoholic beverages is common across Europe, STC said Spain stood out for its “gourmet” preferences, with cheese, bonito tuna and even cockles also highly prized by criminals.

AECOC, a trade group for manufacturers and retailers, estimates that Spanish businesses lose €1.8bn of goods a year because of shoplifting as well as administrative errors.

Spain’s latest olive harvesting season, which began in October last year, has just finished. Kyle Holland, oilseeds and vegetable oils analyst at commodity data firm Mintec, said the harvest was expected to yield about 800,000 tonnes — “a decent increase on the same period last year”.

“But everyone else — Italy, Turkey and Greece — is producing less,” he added. “And it’s not just the supply. The quality has dropped off because of the extreme heat.”