Many of you have either seen or heard of the adulterated olive oil segment that aired on 60 Minutes last night (1/3/16). If you haven’t seen it yet, you can follow this link below link to watch it: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/60-minutes-overtime-how-to-buy-olive-oil/
The expose talks about adulterated Italian food in general but also features a long segment, including an interview with Tom Mueller on the adulteration of extra virgin olive oil in Italy and the United States. During his interview Tom mentions that upwards of 80% of the extra virgin olive oil sold in the US is adulterated or mis-branded. If you came to us for education, you have a similar figure in your mind already. The UC Davis study revealed this river of adulterated/mis-branded product years ago. The New Yorker also ran stories about this epidemic. The New York Times has written about this and Time Magazine has also done stories recently. To put it bluntly, this is no new news.
By now (hopefully) you should be well familiar with the parameters of our unparalleled UP (Ultra Premium) certification program. Our program remains the highest published standard for extra virgin olive oil in the world.
This claim is validated not because we tout that our olive oil comes from Italy, or any specific place for that matter, nor is it because we make other types of purely romantic claims that obfuscate legitimate criteria for quality. This fact is borne of concrete science in the form of double testing every drop of oil, including a full panel by the best (most accredited lab in the world), vetting by accredited tasters and taste panels, and backing Ultra Trace-ability in our tree to fork protocols. We sincerely hope that you will use these education tools and measurable criteria to help answer any questions that may arise from the 60 Minutes segment.