Where do you get your Olive Oils from?

Hey, Chef T here...

I get this all the time, and instead of re-explaining, here is a letter direct from our importer focusing on the industry of olive oil, and how strict he and his team are around the quality.

"We’ve chosen to source our EVOO from Tunisia. We’ve done this for a few reasons. 

*Tunisia - Tunisia has been growing olive trees since literally before Christ. Thousands of years. The country is literally covered with olive trees.  Most of the trees are old growth, hundreds of years old. They are dry farmed. This means that there is no irrigation system. They only get the water that falls from the sky. Each tree has a radius of 50 feet cleared of brush so the root system of the olive tree can accept all the rain that falls there. The trees are harvested by hand. People, not machines. They use a system of several people with rakes, a giant net and ladders. It takes a good crew about four hours of hard work to harvest each tree. The farmers have generations of experience in determining when each tree is ready to be harvested. Not a giant tractor driving over a row of young, densely planted olive trees for cost and time efficiency.

*Smooth flavor profile - as the base for all of our flavored evoo, we want the flavors we infuse to blend well with the natural olive oil flavor. This works best when the base oil is smooth and buttery versus green, grassy, peppery, bitter. The latter are all flavor profiles that are desirable in varietal evoo where you want to experience the full spectrum of natural olive flavors, but many of these contrast with the infused flavors. For instance -Basil infused flavor would easily be overpowered by a grassy flavor profile.

*Its Organic - Our EVOO is not USDA Certified Organic. Only because we choose not to increase our cost by 20% for the privilege of putting a sticker on the bottle. Besides the annual facility certification fee, you have to pay per label.  And of course, we have hundreds of different products and flavors and hundreds of customers across the US and Canada, all with their own brand and label. The cost is just prohibitive. Besides, the Organic sticker is most useful in a major grocery store where the only information customers can get is from the label. We sell mainly to small specialty stores where the customer can not only taste the product, but also speak with the owner and learn about the product firsthand. You can tell them it is organic, where it is grown, how it is grown, how it is shipped and packaged and then they can taste it.

Even if we did pay the extra money, many of our customers do their own packaging which would render our certification useless.

*Price and Purity- Tunisia has traditionally sold most of their production to Italy where it gets sold as “Italian” olive oil “Packaged in Italy”. Even though Italy produces so much olive oil, they are a net importer. Italy consumes three times the amount that they produce. 

Since we import directly, we bypass all the middlemen, allowing us to get the best possible quality product at the best possible price.

Also, by importing directly we eliminate the many opportunities the middlemen have to adulterate the oil by blending cheaper oils into it. The container leaves the production facility with a padlock and no key. I personally use bolt cutters to open the container when it arrives at our warehouse. I then pull a sample from a random barrel and send that sample to SGS laboratories in Louisiana for our own, independent testing. We test for both Quality and Purity. Does it pass the tests for extra virgin grade evoo? And does it contain any other oil besides olive oil? We have both the Certificate of Analysis from the producer and our own independent tests results available to download and print from our website.

So in closing, we here at ChefLifeFoods hope you enjoy our brand of deliciousness, and know that it is a great simple way to jazz up your foods and bring more connectivity around the table.

Remember to visit us at any of our restaurants and other food ventures!

www.ChefTonysSeafood.com