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0 pointsjancsika3y ago0 comments

It's trickier than you let on.

At least for California, you have to look for the California Olive Oil Council seal if you want to be sure:

For example: there is a company called "California Olive Ranch." It used to have a popular olive oil sold in a lot of larger grocery stores that had the COOC seal. Then it started to source olives (oil?) from somewhere outside California and blend with the California olives[1]. That broke the rules of the COOC seal-- to have the word "California" on the label you can't blend with non-Californian olives. So the seal is no longer on that bottle, but the name "California Olive Ranch" is obviously on that label because it's the name of the company.

Thus, a shopper would be misled by your second sentence and buy an oil with olives and whatever else from imported non-Californian sources. That means the third sentence is also wrong-- looking for harvest dates and COOC seal isn't something that the shopper can do to double check their choice. Rather, that is the only thing they can do to be sure they're getting actual virgin olive oil of sufficient quality (the seal) that isn't rancid (the harvest date being within less than a year).

Edit: I don't have a link, but there was a recent COOC fiasco where a lot of the smaller farms got up in arms due to a proposed language change in the requirements for obtaining the seal. Don't remember the details, but it sure sounded like it would have made it easier for a member to blend with some amount of imported olives and still carry the seal.

Honestly, I think there's enough intrigue and drama in this topic of finding bona fide olive oil to start a substack subscription thingy if anyone is interested in that. :)

0 comments

abeppu3y ago

> At least for California, you have to look for the California Olive Oil Council seal if you want to be sure

Is there a ranking of olive oil certifying organizations? I ask b/c I when I googled for olive oil testing, I came across the Olive Oil Commission of California, which apparently both does testing and requires members to also do testing, and California Olive Ranch is still a member in good standing of that one. http://www.oliveoilcommission.org/trusted/

Does this mean that even if they sourced olives from outside of California, it still meets some lab tests for pure extra virgin olive oil? If I care more about the "is actually extra virgin olive oil" question than where the olives were grown, I should be satisfied?

Also, I'm annoyed that even if multiple parties are doing tests, we don't really see published that "Brand X isn't pure olive oil, according to independent lab", or even "Brands X, Y, Z were tested, and Brands Y, Z are real olive oil". I'm assuming this is for legal reasons?

jancsikaOP3y ago

> Is there a ranking of olive oil certifying organizations?

Even skimming, the COOC guidelines look to be more rigorous.

In addition to lab tests (by one of three labs approved by COOC), there's a blind sensory test by olive oil experts, a requirement to print the harvest date on the vessel, and a requirement to print a "best by" date as well.

I understand your desire to find out the quality regardless of the provenance of the olives. But given the rampant fraud in the industry, I just can't see a persuasive argument for speculating about an oil that doesn't pass both certifications in California. Especially when the company in question has the word "California" in its name, more especially when its oil was previously certified by COOC. By the time you figure out the answers to all your questions, we'll be on to the next harvest and the bottle of olive oil you wanted to buy will have gone bad.

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