❄️ Cold pressing

Cold pressing is the production of olive oil without heating the paste above 27 °C. Two similar terms are allowed on labels in the EU, and they mean different things.

"First cold pressing" may only be used for extra virgin or virgin olive oil obtained below 27 °C from a first mechanical pressing of the paste in a traditional hydraulic press. "Cold extraction" is for the same oils obtained below 27 °C by centrifuge or percolation. These rules are set by EU Regulation 2022/2104, and before that they were in a 2012 regulation.

A traditional press works like this: the paste is spread on round mats made of esparto or synthetic fibre, the mats are stacked, and a hydraulic piston squeezes out the liquid. Water is usually not needed here. A centrifuge, by contrast, often needs added water, and because of this some of the phenolic compounds are washed out.

More than 80 per cent of the world's olive mills now use centrifuges. So the term "first cold pressing" legally appears only on oil from olive mills that still use presses, and most quality oils are labelled as cold extraction oil. After pressing, the pomace still contains a little oil: it is extracted with a solvent, and that is a separate category, pomace olive oil.