Olive Oil Categories

Not all olive oils are the same:

Olive oil products belong to three main categories:

A) Virgin Olive Oils

B) Refined Olive Oils

C) Olive pomace oils.

Virgin olive oils

Virgin olive oils are produced solely by using mechanical means to extract the oil from the olives. Essentially, it is olive juice! This category’s products require an organoleptic assesment and a chemical analysis to prove their category statement.

There are three categories of virgin olive oil:

Refined olive oils

Refined olive oils come from processing lampante olive oil with chemical and physical filters. Importantly, this treatment preserves the original glyceridic structure. In addition, producers may blend refined oils with virgin oils (but not the reverse).

There are two types of refined olive oils:

Some refining processes are:

1. Deacidification

Refineries process lampante olive oil with a NaOH solution, which will form some kind of soap with the free fatty acids. Afterwards, they wash the mixture to remove solid parts and achieve a deacidified oil.

2. Bleaching

Refineries filter the oil through activated charcoal or similar agents to remove oxidized substances. As a result, the oil gets yellow color that often resembles cheap vegetable oils.

3. Deodorizing

To remove unpleasant odors, the oil is processed by going through high temperatures and through a vacuum.  The outcome is an odorless oil.

Olive pomace oils

After olive pressing, the solid residue is called olive pomace. Although it still contains a small amount of oil, olive mills cannot extract it. Instead, specialized plants take over. First, they dry the pomace with hexane, which separates solids from liquids. Then, they separate hexane and liquid to obtain crude olive pomace oil.

Because pomace oils result from solvent or physical treatments, regulations prohibit labeling them as “olive oil.” In reality, they are a secondary product of the extraction process.

There are three types of olive pomace oils:

(*) Acidity represents the key parameter in olive oil classification. However, it is not the only one. In fact, every category must also pass several chemical tests to remain within strict limits.

Sources:

www.internationaloliveoil.org