A provocative guide to choosing the perfect oil
It is not easy to make consumers understand that real olive oil carries a significant cost — one built up over an annual cycle that, day after day, month after month, brings a unique product to our table.
How much does a great organic extra virgin olive oil cost? And how much does a great synthetic motor oil cost for your car?
A website belonging to a world-famous oil producer states the following:
The engine is a complex machine, with hundreds of moving components operating across a wide temperature range and subject to various stress factors. The oil you choose must be able to adapt to these operating conditions to protect the engine from wear, corrosion, and the build-up of dirt and deposits. Lubricants have a heavy impact on: performance, fuel consumption, emissions. Lubricants carry several responsibilities: protection from wear, engine cleanliness, long engine life, etc…
This helps us understand the meaning of oil for the human body too.
Extra virgin olive oil contains
- vitamins,
- antioxidants
- phytosterols
- monounsaturated fatty acids
A nutritional composition that makes it a product of great importance for our bodies — naturally, as long as it is consumed in moderate amounts.
So we can say that both of these oils are important for their respective functions, improving the mechanisms of their respective “machines”. So why do we always question whether olive oil is too expensive?
This happens when we are standing in front of a supermarket shelf or in front of a website like ours.
Yet when we take our car in for a service we never ask ourselves that question. And yet we have seen that the function of the two oils is more or less the same!
To avoid falling into this trap, we need to understand the costs that make up the final price of a great organic extra virgin olive oil:
1. The olive tree is pruned regularly every year or at most every two years. The cost of pruning can reach, for trees of the size of our Olivastra Seggianesi, up to €20 per tree.
2. The olive tree must be fertilised. Every year organic compost or farmyard manure is applied, at a variable cost of €2–3 per tree.
3. An organically managed olive grove requires a certification that must be renewed annually, in compliance with a strict set of rules and specifications. The cost depends on the certifying body.
4. Organic treatments, permitted only with products approved by the certification protocol, carry high costs and must often be carried out multiple times throughout the season.
5. To achieve higher quality, organic olives are often harvested earlier than conventional olives, to avoid an attack of the olive fly, which can strike in September and October. This results in a lower oil yield from the olives, as they are not yet fully ripe.
6. Our Olivastra Seggianesi are harvested strictly by hand, using electronic raking combs, collected on nets spread on the ground, and sent to our mill within six hours. The average cost per quintal of Seggianese olives ranges between €50 and €80.
7. The olives must be pressed at the mill, with organic olives always given priority. The cost per quintal of olives at the mill ranges between €15 and €20.
8. High-quality oil must be filtered to preserve all the characteristics it had at extraction, to keep it intact, and to guarantee a shelf life of at least eighteen months. Filtration costs approximately €0.20–0.40 per kg.
9. Finally, the oil must be bottled, capped, labelled and boxed.
All of these stages mean that the cost of an organic and/or PDO oil can reach up to €40.
Behind that price lies everything we have just described. What’s more, you will find it all documented: the label must indicate who made it and where it was made — precise details, not vague generalities.
If you have read this far, we are confident that you will no longer hesitate when it comes to choosing a quality oil.