Bertolli plans to colour-code olive oil ranges
Big brands love to colour-code and rename their olive oils — a band for ‘mild’, another for ‘robust’, a ‘light’ for the timid. It looks like a guide to flavour, and sometimes it is. But the words that legally matter are a different, smaller set, and knowing them is how you stop paying for the packaging.
Walk down the oil aisle and you meet a rainbow: a yellow band here, a green one there, bottles promising ‘mild and light’ or ‘rich and full-bodied’, rounded shapes and heritage typefaces. Most of that is brand architecture — a way to make one company’s range feel like a considered spectrum of tastes. Some of it genuinely helps you pick a flavour. But underneath the marketing sit a handful of legally defined grades, and those are the words worth reading first.
The grades that actually mean something
Extra virgin is the top grade: oil from the first mechanical pressing, no heat or solvents, with low acidity and no sensory defects. Virgin is the same idea, one notch down in quality. Plain ‘olive oil’ — once labelled ‘pure’ — is mostly refined oil, stripped of flavour and faults by processing, then blended with a little virgin oil for taste and colour. These are defined categories, checked by chemistry and taste panels. The brand’s own colour band is not; it sits on top of whichever grade is in the bottle.
‘Light’, ‘mild’ and ‘classico’ decoded
The most misread word on the shelf is ‘light’. It refers to light flavour and colour, not calories — every olive oil has essentially the same fat and energy. ‘Light’ or ‘extra light’ oil is refined ‘olive oil’, gentled down for people who dislike a strong taste; it is not a diet product. ‘Mild’, ‘delicate’, ‘robust’ and ‘intense’ are honest flavour signposts within extra virgin, and useful for matching oil to food. ‘Classico’ and ‘pure’ are marketing, not grades. The trick is to read the grade first, the mood-words second.
| What the label says | What it actually is | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Extra virgin | Top grade, unrefined, no defects | Finishing, salads, dipping |
| Virgin | Unrefined, slightly lower quality | Everyday raw and light cooking |
| ‘Olive oil’ / ‘pure’ | Mostly refined, a little virgin added | Neutral cooking, higher heat |
| ‘Light’ / ‘extra light’ | Refined, mild flavour — not fewer calories | Baking, frying, timid palates |
| ‘Mild’ / ‘robust’ | Flavour signpost within extra virgin | Matching oil to the dish |
What the front label won’t tell you
None of these words guarantee origin. A single brand’s ‘Italian-styled’ bottle may hold oil blended from several countries, as the small print on the back often admits. A colour band tells you how the brand ranks its own range, not where the oil grew or how fresh it is. For that you look elsewhere — a harvest or best-before date, a named country or region, a dark bottle. The grade tells you the quality tier; the back label tells you the truth.
How to read a bottle in ten seconds
- Find the grade first — extra virgin, virgin, or plain ‘olive oil’.
- Ignore ‘light’ as a calorie claim; it means mild flavour.
- Treat colour bands and ‘classico’ as the brand’s own map, not a legal fact.
- Turn the bottle around for origin and a date — that is where honesty lives.
Olive oil labels: common questions
Is ‘light’ olive oil lower in calories?
No. ‘Light’ refers to mild flavour and pale colour. All olive oil has essentially the same fat and calories; light oil is simply refined and gentle-tasting.
What is the difference between extra virgin and ‘olive oil’?
Extra virgin is unrefined top-grade oil with no defects. Plain ‘olive oil’ is mostly refined oil blended with a little virgin oil for flavour and colour.
Do the colour bands mean anything official?
No. Colour-coded ranges are a brand’s own way of signalling flavour intensity. Only the grade — extra virgin, virgin, olive oil — is a legally defined category.
Does ‘classico’ or ‘pure’ indicate quality?
Not really. ‘Classico’ is marketing, and ‘pure’ is an old term for refined ‘olive oil’. Read the grade instead.
How do I judge quality on the shelf?
Start with the grade, then look on the back for a harvest or best-before date, a named origin and a dark glass bottle.
Do not let the colour-coded wall intimidate you. The bands, the ‘classico’, the swirls of ‘rich’ and ‘mild’ are a brand telling you how it sees its own shelf — useful for picking a flavour mood, meaningless as a quality guarantee. The words that carry legal weight are the dull ones : extra virgin, virgin, olive oil. Read those first, then flip the bottle over for a date and an origin. And file ‘light’ away forever as a taste, not a calorie : there is no such thing as a slimming olive oil.
Drawn from olive oil grading standards and common supermarket labelling practice.