Using Olive Pomace Oil as opposed to a different grade of olive oil, or even a different seed oil, will have some pros and cons. There’s reasons why a food manufacturer, food service distributor or even a restaurant might want to use Pomace, and why they may not want to.

My goal is, with this article, to give you a thorough run down on both the pros and cons of using olive pomace oil. After that, I’ll review the bottom line on how to decide whether to use pomace no matter if you’re a food manufacturer or a distributor.

Should you use Olive Pomace Oil or should you use Sunflower Oil (or even safflower for that matter)? These are some of the important oil comparisons that procurement teams and R&D departments have to do as food manufacturers.

And if you’re a home chef? We’ll you probably equally debate this standing in the aisle of your grocery store. Whether you’re a home chef or if you are in industrial food manufacturing, we’ll look at the pros and cons of these two oils for each industry.

For easy comparisons’ sake, I’m going to look at sunflower grouped together with it’s counterpart, safflower oil. Sunflower oil has historically been more available and popular over the last 30 years, but in today’s natural food market, safflower oil is becoming equally used and in demand. For that reason, I think it’s only fair to compare using Olive Pomace Oil to using Sunflower OR Safflower Oil.

Why would anyone choose to use Olive Pomace Oil over the higher quality Extra Virgin Olive Oil — or over any other oil, for that matter?

I’ve gotten this question enough in my time working with manufacturers, that I thought I would explain all of the exact reasons. We’re going to review the reasons specifically pertaining to the manufacturing realm — because they are very different than the reasons you might choose to use certain oils in your home kitchen or even in a restaurant.

What is Olive Pomace Oil really? And how is it different from regular olive oil?

Answering those questions require defining exactly what olive oil is and the process of how it is made. It’s actually easiest to explain exactly what extra virgin olive oil is, then olive oil, then the olive pomace oil. This is because most people don’t know that plain old “olive oil” isn’t just olive oil — it’s actually a refined, lower grade version of EVOO.

My best explanation comes in visual form. Here is a flip-book presentation that I created a few years ago to help explain the differences between each of the grades.

Olive Pomace Oil is a much debated topic in today’s increasingly health-focused food industry. Is olive pomace oil good or is it bad?

Before you make any final decisions either way, you should look at both sides of the debate. Understanding the pros and cons of olive pomace oil will help you make a decision that’s right for your product.

As always, it’s also helpful to survey your target market to see if they have any strong feelings either way about this ingredient. It will affect your marketing as well as your procurement search process.

I’m going to start with the cons of olive pomace and and work our way to the pros.

Olive Pomace Oil is the lowest grade of olive oil. It is used by manufacturers across the US and Canada.

Here’s an overview of how it’s produced. This will help you understand how the oil is made and decide if it is the right ingredient for your product.

Why do manufacturers choose the grade of olive oil that they do?  This is a good question, especially if you're a growing brand or manufacturer in the process of deciding what grade is right for your product.

Today we're going to look at a debated topic: Why would a manufacturer choose the lowest grade of olive oil, Olive Pomace Oil, over other bulk oil grades available?

There's actually a number of reasons-- and they're not all price.  Let's review 4 reasons why manufacturers in the industry (potentially even your competitors) would ever choose olive pomace oil for an ingredient.  

First though, let's define Olive Pomace Oil, so that everyone is on the same page.