Buying bulk oil, and what to ask for

Ask for the harvest or pressing date

Not the bottling date and not the best-before. An oil’s clock starts at pressing, and a supplier who cannot or will not tell you is a supplier whose stock age you are guessing at. Record it against the lot, because every shelf-life decision downstream depends on it.

Ask for the grade against a lot

A grade claim is about a specific lot of oil, not about a supplier in general. Documentation that names the lot is worth something; a general assurance that they sell extra virgin is not, and it is the general one that is usually offered.

Ask how it was held

Bulk oil stored warm, in the light, or in a part-empty tank has aged faster than its date suggests. You will not always get a useful answer and asking tells you something about the supplier either way.

Buy to your bottling rate, not to the price break

The cheapest unit price on a year of oil is a false economy when the last of it is bottled months past its best. Work out how fast you actually bottle and buy to that, accepting a worse price for a better product. This is the single most common way a careful bottler ends up selling tired oil.

Keep the lot link unbroken

Supplier lot in, your batch code out, recorded together. If a problem arrives from upstream you need to know which of your bottles it touched, and that link is the only thing that answers it. Without it a supplier recall becomes a recall of everything you made that season.

Taste every delivery on arrival

Against the previous one, and write down what you find. It takes two minutes and it is the only check that catches an oil that came in tired, at the one moment when you can still refuse it. A delivery accepted untasted becomes your problem the instant it is bottled.

References