🏷️ Lampante olive oil

Lampante olive oil is mechanically pressed olive oil that, because of its defects, is unfit to eat without refining. The name is Italian: the Treccani dictionary explains that such inedible oil, with faulty flavour or too high acidity, was considered fit for oil lamps.

Under EU rules, lampante is oil with free acidity above 2 grams per 100 grams or with strong defects: a median score for the strongest defect at tasting higher than 3.5 points. Oil with a smaller defect also counts as lampante if it has no fruitiness at all. The International Olive Council draws the line higher, from 3.3 grams of acidity, because between virgin and lampante it has one more grade, ordinary virgin olive oil.

Lampante does not reach retail shelves in the EU. It is sent for refining or for technical uses. During refining the oil is degummed, neutralised with lye, bleached and deodorised with steam under vacuum.

Refined lampante, together with added virgin olive oil, then becomes the ordinary "olive oil" sold in shops. Hardly any natural phenolic compounds remain in it after refining: researchers found none already after neutralisation.