Now that we are entering colder months it’s time to start educating ourselves, staff, and customers on freezing olive oil!

Freezing Olive Oil

If you receive any EVOO and it seems to look cloudy, you notice white objects floating in the EVOO, the bottle of oil looks like a snow globe, or any whiteish color substance in the oil there is no need to worry.

This occurs because the oil is extra virgin, it is not allowed to be processed any further than when harvested. What you see is the naturally occurring waxes from the skins of the olives. Olive oil, like any other natural substance, can freeze at temperatures below 50 degrees Fahrenheit. The phenomenon of freezing does not occur at a precise temperature because olive oil is a complex mixture, but these waxes will solidify and appear as it is not an exact transition from solid to liquid.

All orders whether UPS or Freight are shipped in non-climate-controlled truck trailers and containers which are affected by the exterior temperatures. A change in the appearance of oil, in response to the drop in temperature, does not affect the quality of olive oil in any way. If you receive the oil and it has been frozen, leaving the oil in a warm room (80 degrees) overnight should resolve the problem. If you are storing your oil in a room against a window/cement wall/brick wall, even though the room temperature may be high, you are likely to get some freezing due to the transfer of the cold through the wall. It is best to pull them away from that surface.

If you have a retail customer call stating that they see anything floating in their olive oil, they probably left the bottle in their car overnight or left it somewhere where it got cold. You can explain the concept to them about the freezing. The way to confirm that it is indeed the natural waxes, is to reverse the process, and gently warm the oil. Generally, the best way to inform a retail customer of this process, is to have them run their tap water as hot as they can and fill a pitcher/pot so that the bottle can be submerged to the neck for 1 min. Then the oil should be clear when they remove it.

Further proof of this concept is a process called “Winterization”. Food manufactures that use EVOO in products that will be stored in a refrigerator will put their product through a process called winterization. They chill the oil down and then remove all the solidified wax, so this does not occur in the fridge. The oil is no longer Extra Virgin Olive Oil as it has been further processed.

Examples: