Read the price per litre, not the bottle price
On the shelf, 500 ml, 750 ml and 1 litre bottles stand side by side, and the big number is almost always the bottle price. Only the unit price is comparable. Swiss law requires it: under the Price Indication Ordinance, pre-packaged goods sold by volume or weight must show the unit price next to the retail price. But it is printed small, and sometimes per 100 ml rather than per litre, which leaves you multiplying by ten in the aisle.
Our table above does that for you: every oil is converted to one litre and sorted by it. The conversion also shows how much the pack size distorts the picture. The same brand in the same chain costs more per litre in the half bottle than in the full one, and for organic oil the small bottle is often the only size on the shelf. Reach for organic that way and you pay the small-bottle premium without noticing.
The cheapest litre is not automatically the best buy either. An opened bottle keeps its full aroma for weeks to a few months at most. A litre that stands open for half a year in a one-person household ends up costing more than its unit price suggests. Which size suits which household is worked out in 500 ml, 1 litre or a bulk tin.
Why olive oil is getting cheaper in 2026, but only slowly on the shelf
After the drought years olive oil had become a luxury. In the EU, consumer prices rose by 78 per cent between 2022 and 2024. As harvests recovered, the trend reversed: in 2025 prices fell by 23 per cent across the EU and by 38.9 per cent in Spain. At source the drop is even clearer. For the week of 22 to 28 September 2026, the Spanish price information system POOLred reported 3.38 euros per kilo for extra virgin olive oil.
Less of that reached Switzerland. According to the Federal Statistical Office's consumer price index, olive oil became 8 per cent cheaper in 2025. That is noticeable, but far from the Spanish figures. The reason lies in the cost behind the bottle: glass, bottling, transport, storage and retail margin are paid in francs and do not fall with the raw material. Purchase contracts run for months, and cuts often appear first as promotions rather than on the shelf label. The full calculation, with figures on the new harvest, is in Olive oil prices in 2026: why it is getting cheaper.
«Vergine» is not «extra vergine»: careful when comparing prices
The Swiss ordinance on foodstuffs of plant origin divides virgin olive oil into three grades: extra virgin olive oil, virgin olive oil and lampante oil. The limits behind them are set out in the EU marketing standard: «extra» may have at most 0.8 per cent free acidity and must show no sensory defect. Plain «vergine» may have up to 2 per cent acidity and slight defects.
For price comparisons this is no detail. According to K-Tipp in May 2026, the cheapest olive oils at Aldi, Coop, Lidl and Migros all cost the same. Three of them are labelled «extra vergine» or «nativ extra». Migros's M-Budget oil, by contrast, is now only «vergine». Migros explained the downgrade by saying the higher grade was «challenging» to guarantee. Same price, then, does not mean the same product.
That is why M-Budget is flagged «Virgin only» in our table and is left out of the answer to the question about the cheapest extra virgin oil. At source, incidentally, the gap is small: in the same September week POOLred quoted virgin olive oil only about 10 cents per kilo below extra virgin. What the grades mean in detail is explained in our guide to extra virgin olive oil.
Price and test grade: cheap is not automatically bad
Swiss consumer tests have shown the same pattern for years: the price says little about quality. In the 2025 tasting test by Kassensturz and K-Tipp, the 13 oils ranged from budget bottles to premium ones. The two oils rated «very good» came from the mid-price range, not the top. The oil rated «insufficient» was the cheapest in the test, sold at Denner.
It works the other way round too. In 2016, nine of 16 oils failed Kassensturz's sensory test, including the two most expensive bottles, from Mövenpick and Globus. The oils rated «very good» that year were Monini at Migros and Naturaplan Bio at Coop, both far cheaper than the premium oils that failed. In 2025 the FRC downgraded two budget oils to «vierge» for sensory defects and noted that the information on the label does not allow consumers to pick a quality oil: hardly any oil gave a harvest date, and only two named the producer.
That is why our table puts the price per litre and the test verdict side by side. The grade in the «Test» column comes from the source named and refers to the batch tested. An oil without a grade is not a bad oil; it simply has not been tested. The full results, from Kassensturz to the FRC, are in Olive oil tests in Switzerland 2026.
Promotions: when they are worth it
Olive oil is a classic promotion item, and for an oil with a good test grade a promotion can pay off. Check two things.
The comparison price. A struck-through price must actually have been charged before. According to SECO, such a comparison with one's own earlier price may only be advertised for half as long as the higher price applied, and for two months at most. Even so, convert the promotional price into a price per litre and compare it with the regular shelf prices of the other chains in our table. A discount on a small bottle can still be dearer than the normal price of a litre elsewhere.
Freshness. Buy on promotion only what you will use within a few months. In 2023 and 2024 the Zurich cantonal laboratory found sensory defects in three of twelve «extra virgin» samples each year, and names poor production and storage among the causes. So look for the harvest year. It is an optional indication and, under the EU standard, may only appear if the entire contents come from that harvest. If it is missing, the best-before date helps: of two bottles of the same oil, the one with the later date was usually bottled later. How to spot an old oil at home is shown in our 2-minute test for rancid oil.
