Why Big Brands Buy Bulk Oil — and What It Costs You

From a boardroom’s perspective, bulk olive oil is a perfect product. It is available in whatever volume the quarter requires. It can be sourced from whichever region is cheapest that season. It can be blended into a consistent house flavor that never surprises anyone. For a brand that needs to fill millions of bottles, buying from brokers is simply rational.

But every one of those advantages is paid for by the person holding the bottle. Availability means oil of unknown age, pooled from many harvests. Price-driven sourcing means the origin changes without notice. Consistency means blending down to the middle — sanding off the vibrancy that makes great olive oil worth the name.

Posterino made the opposite set of choices. We grow only what our estate in San Procopio yields, harvest by hand, mill within six to twelve hours, and store the oil in stainless steel under nitrogen until bottling. It will never be the cheapest way to make olive oil. It is simply the best one — and it is the only way our family has ever done it.