HOW TO SELECT AN OLIVE OIL

[Alejandro]

First of all I am a foodie, but secondly I must be honest, I am working as a consultant for an olive oil client. I want to better understand what people look for in selecting an olive. Can anyone share some thoughts?

Thank you

Alejandro

[Steve]

So am I correct in interpreting that you mean are learning about how to package and market an oil to consumers?

Here are some things I look for:
1) I always try choose an oil that is in a dark bottle, metal container, or in a clear bottle in a box.
2) I like to see the variety of olive listed.
3) I always appreciate seeing the exact harvest date.
4) If the manufacturer will explain the characteristics of their oil (buttery, fruity, pungent, etc) that is sometimes nice to know beforehand.
5) If the oil is harvested by hand, that should be listed on the bottle; it is very good to know.
5) This is not really something I look for, but I like it when the bottles come with their own no-drip spout.

Basically, I really like it when an olive oil manufacturer will tell me the whole life story of their olives. I want to know that the olives were cared for.

[Alejandro]

I am a marketing consultant and a recent client is an olive oil producer. I am exploring various ways to market the brand and I am exploring further consumer insights.

Your points are very interesting. Can you tell me why you want to know whether the olives are harvested by hand?

[Steve]

Mechanical harvesting can be harsher on the olives and, among other things, can increase the free acidity of the oil by damaging some of the olives. As long as the hand harvesting is done quickly I feel that it is a better way to treat the olives.

I come from a farming family and have spent a lot of time in my youth not only hand-picking raspberries (and other berries) from the field but also working on mechanical harvesters. Partially from personal experience, I feel that hand-picking is a better way to ensure that an agricultural product like a fruit will be of high quality.

-Steve

[Costas the Greek]

Steve,

I think you're right about one thing: getting the oils to press as quickly as possible is very important. But there's also wide variation in both methods of hand and mechanical harvesting. Some machines are gentler than others. And "hand-harvest" means different things in different countries, from whacking branches with sticks, so the fruit falls to the tarp, or literally hand-picking each and every olive. In Greece, where I have harvested olives with family, there are little mechanized brush machines that almost everyone uses to "comb" olive tree branches that have been trimmed and fall to the ground. Some bruising occurs there.

The Australians, who have a relatively young olive oil industry compared to Old Europe, have arranged and planted their olive trees in a way that allows for the rapid harvesting of olives. California Olive Ranch has taken a similar approach in using mechanical harvesting to bring the olive to press very quickly. Both are making pretty good oils right now.

I like to think that even if you rush perfect olives to press within minutes of their picking, there will still be other factors at play that determine an excellent taste, such as the "terroir", the taste properties of your specific type of olive, and whether there were significant variations in heat/cold and water during the growing season.

Here are some interesting links on the topic of mechanical harvesting:

* Mechanical olive harvesting advances described to growers
* Mechanical table olive harvest: 'We're Close.'
* Views of the kinds of harvesters used.

Ideally, I'd love to find a producer that's making oil from both mechanical and manual means, so we can try and do a taste test of the oils, at the same time. And preferably a blind tasting at that. :-)

(photo source: The Olive Oil Source)

[Calivirgin]

That is an interesting theory for mechanical harvesting. I personally would prefer the olives to be mechanical harvested. I might be partial since that is how our family harvests our own olives. Reason being a critical factor in producing premium oil quality is minimizing the time between harvest and processing. The old Mediterranean way of shaking olives onto the ground and hand gathering them takes a long time, especially for large acreages and we feel that the hand touched or ground touched olives along with extended times from tree to mill diminish quality. Mechanical harvesting also allows you to choose the exact prime time for when you want to havest. To say the mechanical harvesting beats up on the olive isn't entirely correct; plus any little dings do not matter since they are milled within two hours from coming off the tree. Our acidity for this year and in the past is under 0.1 %. The picture of the harvester in the post above looks pretty involved. We have been using grape harvesters and coffee bean harvesters that have been adapted for olives.

[Nancy-Jeanne Prohaska Thompson]

There are no "free range" olives though we make sure that our olives listen to Mozart each day.

[Rachel Black]

A while ago I put together an olive oil buyer's guide on my blog: http://blog.ameliaoil.com/?p=66

I also think Steve's advice is very good.

Cheers,

Rachel

[Calivirgin]

I would also suggest promoting california or US grown olive oil to consumers. Along with C.O.O.C. certified oil. Since there isn't any FDA regulations on oil and you never know what is in the bottle when you buy imports or non-COOC cert oils. California has now started new requirements for Oil sold so at least it has to be verified that it is in fact olive oil in the bottle if it is sold here. I haven't heard about any other states.

[Nancy-Jeanne Prohaska Thompson]

Trying to sell your California oil with scare tactics about certifications may work with some but.those tactics just raise the prices and enrich the certification people/government. It is simply NOT TRUE that "you never know what is in the bottle when you buy imports or non-COOC cert oils".

Food products in the US are all labeled by law and there are tests conducted by various marketers in the business as well as at the point of entry by the US government for imports. It is illegal to sell any food product in the US as another food product. Period.

Reputable food retailers REQUIRE that Olive Oil marketers purchase millions of dollars in liability insurance so that it is HIGHLY doubtful that any US retailer would be selling wrongly labeled products for this reason alone. Most producers regularly test their incoming inventories to match their profiled specifications,

The best consumer insurance is to know the brand and producer all the way through -the same with any and all foods and drinks.Tried and true. And don't try to purchase EVOO at a flea market on the cheap.

I can tell you that trying to smear EU products will not work: too many high quality producers.And growing imports from wonderful producers in places like Chile and Australia.