What Is Pomace Olive Oil?
Pomace olive oil is the lowest grade of olive oil, extracted from the leftover pulp, skins and crushed stones (the “pomace”) after the good oil has already been pressed out. Because those scraps hold on to only a little oil, and that oil clings stubbornly, it can’t be squeezed free by pressing alone. Instead it’s pulled out using heat and food-grade solvents, then refined heavily and usually blended with a splash of virgin olive oil so it’s fit to sell. It’s a legitimate, edible product with real uses in the kitchen, but it is not extra virgin, and it should never be sold or priced as though it were.
How pomace oil is actually made
To understand pomace oil you have to picture what happens at the mill. When olives are crushed and the paste is spun in a centrifuge, out comes the juice — the water and the oil — which is separated into the olive oil we know and love. What’s left behind is a damp, pale-brown mash of skins, pulp fragments and broken pits. That mash is the pomace: in Italy they call it sansa, in Spain orujo, in Greece it goes by names tied to the local mills.
This leftover mash still contains roughly 5 to 8 per cent oil, but it’s bound up in the solid matter and can’t be economically pressed out. So the pomace is dried and treated with a food-grade solvent — almost always hexane — which dissolves the remaining oil and lets it be separated off. The solvent is then evaporated away. What you get at this stage is crude pomace oil, which is dark, harsh and completely unfit to eat as-is.
That crude oil is then refined: neutralised, bleached and deodorised at high temperature to strip out the off-flavours, colour and acidity. Refining leaves a bland, near-flavourless oil. Finally, producers blend in a proportion of virgin olive oil to give it back some colour, aroma and the right to carry “olive” on the label. Only after all of that can it legally be called olive pomace oil. It’s the same solvent-and-refine logic used across much of the edible-oils industry — but it’s a world away from the simple mechanical pressing behind a good extra virgin olive oil.
Where pomace oil sits in the grades
Olive oil is graded by law in the EU and by the International Olive Council, and pomace oil sits in its own category at the very bottom — technically not even counted among the “olive oils” proper, but as a separate “olive-pomace oils” class. Here’s how the main grades stack up.
| Grade | How it’s made | Solvents used? | Typical uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| Extra virgin | Mechanical pressing only, no heat treatment; must pass a taste panel with no defects | No | Finishing, dressings, dipping, raw |
| Virgin | Mechanical only, but with minor sensory faults allowed | No | Everyday cooking, some raw use |
| Refined / “Olive oil” (aka “pure” or “light”) | Faulty virgin oil refined to neutral, then blended with a little virgin | No (chemically refined, not solvent-extracted) | General cooking, frying, baking |
| Olive pomace oil | Solvent-extracted from leftover pomace, refined, then blended with virgin | Yes (hexane) | Deep-frying, catering, food industry, soap |
Note the difference between “refined olive oil” and “pomace oil” — a common point of confusion. Both are refined, but refined olive oil starts from actual olive juice (a virgin oil that had faults), whereas pomace oil starts from the solid waste and needs solvents to get any oil out at all. That’s why pomace sits a rung lower.
What pomace oil is good for
None of this makes pomace oil bad — it just makes it a workhorse rather than a showpiece. Because it’s refined, it has a high smoke point (roughly 220 °C, give or take, depending on the batch) and a neutral flavour, which is exactly what you want for deep-frying, roasting at high heat, or greasing tins where you don’t want any olive character coming through. Restaurants and caterers use a lot of it for precisely this reason: it behaves reliably under heat and costs less than virgin grades.
It also has a long history beyond the kitchen. Traditional olive-oil soaps — the famous Marseille and Aleppo soaps among them — have long leaned on pomace oil, and it still turns up in cosmetics, lubricants and animal feed. If you see a bottle simply labelled “pomace” at a cash-and-carry, it’s usually destined for a fryer, not a salad bowl.
What you shouldn’t do is use it where flavour and freshness are the point. For drizzling over tomatoes, finishing a soup or dipping good bread, reach for a proper extra virgin instead — that’s where the fruitiness, the peppery kick and the antioxidants live. If you’re still getting your bearings across the range, our guide to olive oil grades lays out the whole ladder from extra virgin down.
Pomace olive oil: common questions
Is pomace olive oil safe to eat?
Yes. Reputable, properly refined olive pomace oil sold for food use is safe and legal, and the hexane used in extraction is evaporated off during processing to trace levels within regulated limits. The occasional past scares involved contamination or mislabelling, not the grade itself. That said, this isn’t medical advice — if you have specific dietary concerns, speak to a professional.
Is pomace oil the same as “pure” or “light” olive oil?
No, though they’re easy to muddle. “Pure,” “light” and plain “olive oil” on a label usually mean refined olive oil blended with virgin — made from olive juice, no solvents. Pomace oil is a separate, lower grade extracted from the solid waste with solvents. Check the wording: it must say “olive pomace oil” if that’s what it is.
Why is pomace oil so much cheaper?
Because it’s made from what would otherwise be waste, and squeezes extra yield out of each harvest. That efficiency keeps the price down, which is exactly why it’s popular for high-volume frying and catering rather than sold as a premium bottle.
Can I use pomace oil for cooking at home?
Absolutely — it’s well suited to frying, roasting and baking thanks to its high smoke point and neutral taste. Just keep a bottle of extra virgin alongside it for anything raw or finishing, where the flavour actually matters.