A Tale of Two Bottles

Always read the small print

Okay, so the supermarket staff wouldn’t let me adjust their price labels so that I could get both labels into the photo, but let me explain. The bottles on the left hand side, with a red label and the words Olive Oil cost £9 for a litre. The bottles on the right hand side with the black label are Extra Virgin Olive Oil, also priced at £9 for a litre.

Choices, choices. But how do you know which one is ‘better’? Well, as a start point, to be called Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO) the product in the bottle must be submitted for both chemical analysis and sensory testing by a team of expert tasters. It is the top grade of olive oil - the natural juice of the olive with only the olive water removed. It’s acidity level must be less than 0.8% (the chemical analysis) and have no defects - in either smell or flavour (as detected by the tasting panel).

Olive Oil, on the other hand, is obtained by taking the oils that have been rejected as EVOO or Virgin Olive Oil (a sort of middle ground predominantly used in food production) and refining it to remove all the defects (leaving a colourless and flavourless liquid) and then adding back in some virgin or extra virgin oil to make the oil palatable. There are no rules about how much virgin or extra virgin is added back into the olive oil so it can range from a splash to half a bottle.

What I’m saying is that one of these products is the equivalent of orange juice and the other, orange squash.

One of my gripes with this particular Olive Oil is that on the front it says that it is: ‘composed of refined olive oils and virgin olive oils’ while on the back the ingredients label says: ‘refined olive oil, extra virgin olive oil’. It can’t be both.

Whilst the Olive Oil won’t do you any harm, it probably won’t do you much good either. The front label says it’s ideal for grilling and roasting but why bother when for the same price you can buy the Extra Virgin? Okay, even the EVOO is a blend, mass produced oil and isn’t going to set anyone’s palate a tingling, but of the two it stands a fighting chance of having an olive flavour and being ‘good for you’; so at £9 a litre is certainly worth a punt. The label says it’s ideal for dips and dressings but 100% in our house, this is a cooking oil. We buy artisan oils, (more on those in future editions) where the flavour of the oil is important either to complement the dish or to contrast and add ‘zing’.

Next time, I’ll talk a little about blended oils but dive deeper into labelling and QR codes on bottles.

Until then …