Vancouver-area businesses struggle amid rising olive oil prices

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 amida 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, wildfiresand 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 facingincreased prices, but scarcity has made olive oilharder 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, addingthe 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 betweensubstituting olive oil, using a lower quality oilor increasing their prices.

WATCH: B.C. Businesses struggle with high olive oil prices:

Expensive olive oil? Blame climate change

3 months ago

Duration 2:10

The impact of climate change in Europe is being blamed for high olive oil prices. Michelle Morton speaks to some B.C. businesses about how they're adjusting to the increases

'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 costsand 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 anorth-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 $200when they might go back down to $100," he said.

Lisa Funaro, owner of olive oil tasting bar Di Olivain 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 raiseprices 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.