Extra virgin olive oil must be cold pressed. The most efficient method to Olive Pressing is the expeller-press. There are many important factors involved in the production of high quality Extra Virgin Olive Oil and the most critical of those are:
1. Never use fallen olives. Our olives are hand harvested using gentle release methods at the perfect time.
2. Olives are pressed within 24 hours of harvest. “Fresh olives give you fresh oil, it’s as simple as that”
3. We use only mechanical means to extract the oil, never any heat or solvents. Cold pressed!
4. The “free acidity” in the oleic oil must be 0.8% or lower to be classified as EVOO in North America. Simply put, it is really a freshness index. It tells us if we did a good job getting the olives and oil from farm to table. The lower the number, the fresher the oil. Ours is typically about 0.3%
Learn how you can participate in our Co-op Olive Pressing program and get oil from your own olives.