Amrutanjan to add olive oil to portfolio

When one of India’s best-known balm makers looked at olive oil as a growth category, it revealed something the marketing decks miss: in India the bottle has long lived nearer the medicine cabinet than the frying pan.

Every few years an Indian consumer-goods company that has nothing to do with food announces a move into olive oil. To Western eyes it looks odd. It is not. To understand why a balm-and-ointment house would see olive oil as an obvious next shelf, you have to know how the oil arrived in India in the first place — not as a cooking fat, but as a remedy.

Medicine before food

Long before the health headlines, olive oil reached the subcontinent through Unani medicine, the Greco-Arab tradition that still has clinics and pharmacies across India. There it is roghan-e-zaitoon — a warming oil rubbed into aching joints, massaged into an infant’s limbs, worked into hair and dry skin. Small bottles sat in the chemist’s, not the grocer’s. That heritage is the real launchpad, and a company that already sells relief from pain understands it perfectly.

Why the kitchen came late

Indian cooking runs hot — deep-frying, tempering whole spices in smoking oil, searing. A grassy, peppery extra virgin is wasted, and its low smoke point makes cooks nervous. So the version that actually sells for cooking is refined olive-pomace oil or plain refined olive oil: bland, heat-tolerant, cheap. Buyers reach for it on a doctor’s advice about cholesterol, not for flavour. That is a health purchase, which is exactly why a wellness brand feels at home selling it.

What the buyer should know

The trap is that the words on Indian shelves do the opposite of what a European shopper expects. Olive-pomace oil is the lowest grade — extracted from the leftover paste with solvents and refined — yet it is the one pushed for everyday frying. If you want the actual health-and-flavour article, you want a bottle that says extra virgin, kept for drizzling, dressing and finishing rather than fed into a wok.

Grade on Indian shelves	What it is	Honest use
Extra virgin	First-pressed juice, unrefined	Raw: dressings, drizzle, dip
Refined / ‘pure’ olive oil	Refined oil cut with a little virgin	Gentle cooking
Olive-pomace oil	Solvent-extracted from spent paste, refined	High-heat frying; cheapest

If you are buying olive oil in India

• Read the grade, not the front label — ‘pomace’ is the bottom, whatever the price.
• Buy extra virgin for raw uses; keep a cheaper refined oil for the pan if you must fry in it.
• Treat a dark bottle and a harvest date as the mark of a serious oil.
• Don’t expect a peppery Tuscan-style oil to survive tempering — the flavour cooks off.

Olive oil in India: common questions

Why do non-food Indian companies sell olive oil?

Because in India olive oil grew up as a remedy — a Unani massage and skincare oil — so wellness and personal-care brands are selling into a market they already understand, positioned closer to health than to cooking.

What is ‘jaitun ka tel’?

Jaitun is the Urdu and Hindi word for olive; jaitun ka tel is olive oil. Historically it meant the small medicinal bottle used for massage and hair, not a cooking staple.

Is olive-pomace oil good for Indian cooking?

It tolerates high heat and is cheap, which is why it sells for frying — but it is the lowest grade, solvent-extracted and refined, with none of the flavour or antioxidants of extra virgin.

Which olive oil should I actually buy?

Extra virgin for anything raw or finished, where its flavour and polyphenols survive; a refined olive oil only if you specifically need to cook at high heat.

Can I cook Indian food in olive oil?

Yes, but use a refined olive oil for tempering and frying and save extra virgin for raita, salads and drizzling — its delicate flavour is destroyed by a hot tadka.

Drawn from the history of olive oil in South Asian Unani medicine and the grading of oils sold on the Indian market.