Best Use By Date

Best use by date and best sell by date

Time olive oil has adopted the highest standards in the industry and relies on its consultants in Northern California.

Nancy Ash, Principal at Strictly Olive Oil, is familiar with our products; she has professionally blended olive oils that have won us awards in 2012 and 2013.

Nancy has written the article titled “To Date or Not to Date, Olive Oil Labeling” transcribed below http://www.oliveoilsource.com/article/date-or-not-date-olive-oil-labeling

Based on our 8-year experience, on the Northern Californian’s standards and on the witnessing of our Beladi olive oil production, we have decided to put both the harvest date and the best-use by date on our label.

The harvest date is obviously the date the olives are harvested, usually in November.

The olive oil is milled immediately in a press located less than 5 miles away and stored in stainless steel tanks with nitrogen-controlled vacuum. The region is very cold with snow until February. The olive oil is transported in March to our tanks in Austin where it stays stored at 68deg until orders are received, at which time they are bottled or filled in bag-in-boxes.

Although we felt comfortable with a best-use-by date of 27 months after harvest (23 months after shipping and less than 1 month after bottling), we will promptly follow Nancy’s 1/17/14 advice: “…I applaud you for putting the harvest date on your products. I believe that this is the trend with top quality evoos. However, I feel that 27 months after harvest for the best use by date is too long. Some companies are testing polyphenol levels at harvest (along with FFA, peroxides, etc.) and basing the best use date on this level (oils with higher polyphenols oxidize at a slower rate). The larger California producers are using the European model of 18 to 24 months; frankly I’ve tasted mild (low polyphenol) oils at 10 months in which I could already detect rancidity. Perhaps you would be open to a schedule of quality testing – this is something that you could use in marketing materials to promote your quality. Something like ”based on chemical and sensory testing performed before our bottling date of blank, this oil is best used by blank”

We will do so: Continuously test the quality our olive oil and, based on that, give the best used by date.

Our best sell by date is 2 months before the best-use-by date to give plenty of time to the buyer to enjoy the taste of our olive oil.

Our policy is to disclose it all to our consumers so they can decide for themselves. As always, we will fully refund unsatisfied customers.