diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 60a038c..0911091 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -14,6 +14,7 @@ fields
 
 ### Changed
 - Don't run newline fix on description fields
+- Install requests-cache in main run() function instead of check.agrovoc() function so we only incur the overhead once
 
 ### Updated
 - Python dependencies, including Pandas 2.0.0 and [Arrow-backed dtypes](https://datapythonista.me/blog/pandas-20-and-the-arrow-revolution-part-i)
diff --git a/csv_metadata_quality/app.py b/csv_metadata_quality/app.py
index df78571..5ab9eff 100644
--- a/csv_metadata_quality/app.py
+++ b/csv_metadata_quality/app.py
@@ -1,11 +1,14 @@
 # SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-3.0-only
 
 import argparse
+import os
 import re
 import signal
 import sys
+from datetime import timedelta
 
 import pandas as pd
+import requests_cache
 from colorama import Fore
 
 import csv_metadata_quality.check as check
@@ -84,6 +87,19 @@ def run(argv):
     else:
         exclude = list()
 
+    # enable transparent request cache with thirty days expiry
+    expire_after = timedelta(days=30)
+    # Allow overriding the location of the requests cache, just in case we are
+    # running in an environment where we can't write to the current working di-
+    # rectory (for example from csv-metadata-quality-web).
+    REQUESTS_CACHE_DIR = os.environ.get("REQUESTS_CACHE_DIR", ".")
+    requests_cache.install_cache(
+        f"{REQUESTS_CACHE_DIR}/agrovoc-response-cache", expire_after=expire_after
+    )
+
+    # prune old cache entries
+    requests_cache.delete()
+
     for column in df.columns:
         if column in exclude:
             print(f"{Fore.YELLOW}Skipping {Fore.RESET}{column}")
diff --git a/csv_metadata_quality/check.py b/csv_metadata_quality/check.py
index 350d9b0..f0ee2c1 100755
--- a/csv_metadata_quality/check.py
+++ b/csv_metadata_quality/check.py
@@ -1,14 +1,12 @@
 # SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-3.0-only
 
 import logging
-import os
 import re
 from datetime import datetime, timedelta
 
 import country_converter as coco
 import pandas as pd
 import requests
-import requests_cache
 from colorama import Fore
 from pycountry import languages
 from stdnum import isbn as stdnum_isbn
@@ -203,19 +201,6 @@ def agrovoc(field, field_name, drop):
     if pd.isna(field):
         return
 
-    # enable transparent request cache with thirty days expiry
-    expire_after = timedelta(days=30)
-    # Allow overriding the location of the requests cache, just in case we are
-    # running in an environment where we can't write to the current working di-
-    # rectory (for example from csv-metadata-quality-web).
-    REQUESTS_CACHE_DIR = os.environ.get("REQUESTS_CACHE_DIR", ".")
-    requests_cache.install_cache(
-        f"{REQUESTS_CACHE_DIR}/agrovoc-response-cache", expire_after=expire_after
-    )
-
-    # prune old cache entries
-    requests_cache.delete()
-
     # Initialize an empty list to hold the validated AGROVOC values
     values = list()