Back in September, The Grist’s Max Graham penned the story “Climate change is coming for your olive oil, too,” which looked into why olive oil prices soared to a record high this past summer. He cited “heatflation,” the phenomenon of rising food prices caused by extreme heat. Spanish olive oil production had already fallen by a half — from an estimated 1.3 million to 610,000 metric tons — due to a yearlong drought and a spring of extreme heat in Spain. This was concerning not only for the local industry, but the global one too as Spain accounts for more than 40% of the world’s olive oil production.
“Now fears are mounting over the very real possibility that the country’s inventory will run out before the next harvest begins, in October,” Graham wrote at the time.
