It’s time for some real talk about Italian EVOO. When you buy olive oil, be aware that:
✗ PRODUCT OF ITALY does not mean that the actual oil is made with Italian olives or that the olives were milled in Italy.
✗ HARVEST DATE, don’t see one on the bottle? That could mean the oil is a mixture of olive oils coming from different countries, or that it is an oil made with olives harvested in different years, or both.
✗ EXTRA VIRGIN itself doesn’t necessarily mean that an oil has not become rancid due to poorly milled olives, inappropriate storage, or some other factor.
The bottom line: it’s extremely difficult to know what you are getting when you purchase Italian EVOO. Lately we’ve been studying EVOO. We’ve been talking to professors, chemists, and farmers about what makes a good EVOO. Perhaps most importantly, we’ve been asking the question: how can honest extra virgin olive oil producers compete, or even survive, in a market ruled by confusion and dishonesty?
It’s everyone’s responsibility to hold foodmakers and sellers accountable. Ask the uncomfortable questions. Get to know who makes your olive oil. Demand transparency and yes, get suspicious.
When you buy a Gustiamo EVOO, we guarantee that you will receive an EVOO that:
✓ is made by a small family business that owns both their trees AND their mill, owning both is important for traceability and purity.
✓ is made with local olive varieties (yay biodiversity!)
✓ is a new harvest oil, all of our EVOOs for sale right now are from the 2020/2021 harvest and they say it on the bottle.
✓ was milled no more than 12 hours after the olives were harvested.
✓ has undergone lab testing to make sure everything is chemically in order.