🏷️ Olive pomace oil

Olive pomace oil is oil extracted from what is left of the olives after ordinary olive oil has been pressed. The pomace, made up of skins, pulp and crushed stones, still holds a little oil, and it is extracted with solvents. Under the International Olive Council standard, such oil may in no case be called simply "olive oil".

First the pomace is dried: it contains 40–70 per cent water, depending on whether it came from a two-phase or three-phase mill. Then the dry mass is soaked in a solvent, in industry usually hexane, which dissolves the oil. The solvent is drained off and evaporated. This gives crude pomace oil, which then always has to be refined: neutralised, bleached and deodorised.

What is sold is a blend of refined pomace oil with virgin olive oil, with acidity no higher than 1 gram per 100 grams. In the EU the label says it is oil made from treated olive pomace and oils obtained directly from olives, and the country of origin is not given.

Studies have shown that solvent-extracted oil contains 2–6 times more saturated and 4–30 times more aromatic mineral oil hydrocarbons than oil from a centrifuge. Hexane itself does not add them: their source is sought in drying the pomace with hot gases.