Nine Olive Oils That Offer an Alternative to Supermarket Brands

Not all olive oils are created equal. Plenty of the oils in supermarkets are old, rancid from sitting on shelves or in warehouses for too long, and blend oils from multiple different countries meaning any sense of terroir is completely lost. “We started … after realising the olive oil we'd been buying from supermarkets – even the expensive stuff – was old, stale, and not very nice,” Thomas Cohn, co-founder of olive oil brand Glug, tells Broadsheet.

According to Frideswide O’Neill, brand manager of London-based olive oil subscription service Citizens of Soil, there are a few ways to spot a good olive oil. First, look out for oil stored in dark glass, a ceramic vessel or a pouch. “Light degrades oil quality overtime, and certain plastics can leach or cause oxidation faster.” Then, you want to find out the precise month the olives were harvested; ideally you don’t want an oil harvested more than 18 months ago. “Lower-grade olive oils will generally only show you a ‘best before’, which gives you no indication of when it was actually harvested,” she says.

Other things to look out for? A good olive oil will cite the specific region it comes from, as well as the olive varieties it’s made with – a signal that there is respect for supply chain and a connection to land. High polyphenols – antioxidants that come from plants – are also a good indication of the intensity of flavour. “Ultimately tasting it is the best way to tell a good extra virgin olive oil [Evoo],” O’Neill says. “It should smell fresh, alive with green aromas, and have a good balance of bitterness and a peppery kick.”

If you want better olive oil – oil that tastes of where it’s grown and that is reliably fresh and thoughtfully made – we’ve found nine quality drops. They range from familiar brands to independent, burgeoning producers.

Michael and Sarah Vachon started Citizens of Soil in 2020. It sources its high-polyphenol oils, which are linked with good heart health and have anti-inflammatory benefits, from a network of regenerative producers across Greece, Italy, Spain and Croatia that are at least 50 per cent female-led, and produce oil that tastes of the place it came from. Sarah is an olive oil sommelier who sources and tastes every oil sold by Citizens of Soil – and hosts masterclasses to teach the general public how to taste different oils and their profiles. Crucially, it pays producers above market price for their oils. Sign up to its subscription service to get a new oil delivered every month.
citizensofsoil.com

The Dusty Knuckle, Quality Wines, Crisp Pizza and loads of other London restaurants and cafes use Honest Toil’s Evoo in their kitchens. You can follow suit – expect an oil the team describes as “intensely green and peppery, with that fresh throat-catching kick you only really get from real olive oil”. It was founded by Tom Woodgate and Juli Laki – respectively from the UK and Hungary – who moved to Kyparissia, a coastal town in in Messinia, south-west Peloponnese, Greece. They were roped into helping with the olive oil harvest and pressing, and were impressed by the resulting flavour, which they say was “full of life”. They started selling to their friends to fund their travels, and Honest Toil grew from there. The final result isn’t filtered or blended, and it’s packaged in eye-catching bottles, boxes and tins covered in designs by their artist friends like Dóra Berczi and Enikő Eged.
honest-toil.co.uk

The evocatively named Glug stemmed from the desire of founders Thomas Cohn and Katia El-Fakhri to sell punters good-quality Evoo at a reasonable price (a 750 millilitre bottle starts from £14). They’re keen on encouraging home cooks to use premium oil every day, rather than saving it for a special occasion, so it comes in two modes: a drizzling oil, for adding an extra punch to finished dishes, and a cooking oil. Both use olives from Jaén in Spain – Spanish olives tend to have more punch than those from Greece, says Cohn; the drizzling oil is single-estate, 100 per cent picual olives, while the cooking oil uses olives from a co-op. For utility purposes it comes in squeezy bottles, with refill tins. As for the taste? The drizzling oil is “strong, punchy, grassy, fruity, peppery, with a bit of spice” and the cooking oil is softer, milder and a bit more versatile.
getglug.com

London-based writer Georgia Spanos’s father has been selling olive oil made by family friends on Crete for more than 40 years. In 2025 she took over operations and rebranded as Korontini – while retaining the quality oil that’s been handpicked, pressed and bottled by the same family for five generations. Sold in tins splashed with red type, it’s made from koroneiki olives, one of the smallest olives in Europe, which benefit from the island’s long sunny days, mountain air and proximity to the sea. While Evoo requires below 0.8 per cent acidity, Korontini’s sits below 0.25 per cent acidity for a pure oil that’s slightly grassy and peppery.
korontini.com

In 2023 Adam Hyman, the founder of Code Hospitality, bought a “run-down agriturismo [farm]” 10 kilometres south-west of Siena in Tuscany, an area of Italy he’s been visiting for 20 years. It was home to 1400 olive trees, many of which had been abandoned. Since then, Hyman has been bringing them back to life. In 2024 he produced his first oil – a passion project rather than a commercial venture. The iron-rich, stony soil of Tuscany combines with warm summers and mild winters to “stress” the olives into producing a deep peppery flavour – though Hyman says this is changing due to climate change, and the 2025 harvest was “not good”. A farmer who’s been working on these groves for more than 30 years picks the olives and they’re pressed within 48 hours. Hyman sells the oil upon application only, via email at adam@codehospitality.co.uk.

There are some big names behind just-launched Krude: Gordon Ramsay, and Ben and Elle Caring, who are behind Lady A wine, which was originally as Soho House’s house drop. The range spans a number of “nude” oils for cooking, finishing and spraying, as well as oils infused with basil, lemon, chilli and garlic. “Krude takes a chef-led approach – built around how oil is actually used in real kitchens, not just how it’s sold on shelves,” Elle tells Broadsheet. The oil is made from early-harvest olives that are sourced from sustainable Spanish farms which have been worked by the same families for generations. It’s cold extracted for a clean, vibrant flavour, and stored in UV-protected cans with easy-pouring spouts to preserve freshness and taste.
krudeoliveoil.com

A brand known for bedding and clothes may not strike you as a natural spot to source your kitchen essentials – but Rise & Fall’s mission is to make key items that improve your everyday life, and olive oil definitely ticks that box. Its Evoo is bright and zingy thanks to hojiblanca olives grown on a single biodynamic estate in Bobadilla, Spain, and cold-pressed within an hour post-harvest. The oil comes in a sculptural dark-glass bottle (which is a handsome addition to your kitchen counter) with a nifty pourer that prevents mess and is perfect for drizzling. It’s also available in two-litre cans for refilling.
riseandfall.co

You know Perello olives – so why not take the next step and try its Evoo, which it released in June 2025? It’s made with fruity arbequina and empeltre olives from Navarra, Spain, which are picked at peak ripeness, then cold extracted within 12 hours. The soft and smooth result has whispers of walnut and almond, with a peppery note, and – like Perello olives – is sold in tins, which also helps keep the oil fresh and zesty.
brindisa.com

Puglian olives go into this fruity and balanced Evoo by husband-and-wife team Tony and Maureen Papas – who co-founded an artisan bread company in Sydney and helped bring Allpress coffee to Europe. They work with local farmers to care for 1000 ancient olive trees, and the grove’s location in an area with long, hot summers, high altitude and proximity to the sea equals oil that has a pleasingly bitter profile. Each bottle has the date it was harvested and lot number handwritten on the back.
trulli-ulivi.com