Pomace Olive Oil for Cooking: What It Is and When to Use It
If you are weighing up pomace olive oil for cooking, the honest first thing to know is that it sits at the very bottom of the olive oil ladder. It is cheap, it tolerates heat well, and it turns up in a lot of restaurant kitchens and supermarket own-label bottles. None of that makes it a bad oil for a hot pan — but it is a very different product from the cold-pressed extra virgin oil most people picture when they hear "olive oil". Understanding how pomace oil is made is the quickest way to decide whether it belongs in your kitchen, and for which jobs.
For our own oil, see our cold-pressed organic Marrakech olive oil.
The Short Answer
- Pomace olive oil is the oil recovered from the leftover olive paste after the first pressing, using chemical solvents and refining. It is the lowest olive oil grade.
- It is genuinely usable for cooking. It has a high smoke point and a neutral flavour, and in published frying tests it has held up well against common vegetable oils.
- What it lacks is the flavour, aroma, and polyphenols that make olive oil worth choosing in the first place — refining strips most of those out.
- It is safe to cook with when properly produced and sold as food-grade. A past contamination scare prompted tighter regulation, which still applies today.
- For frying on a budget where you want a neutral oil, pomace does a competent job. For flavour, finishing, or the health story people associate with olive oil, it is the wrong bottle.
- If you want the actual virtues of olive oil, cold-pressed extra virgin — single-estate where you can find it — is a different product entirely.
What Pomace Olive Oil Actually Is
When olives are pressed for oil, the first mechanical extraction does not get everything. What is left behind is a damp, solid paste of skins, pulp, and crushed stones — the pomace. It still holds a small amount of oil, roughly two per cent of its weight, but you cannot squeeze that out with a press. Getting it requires a different method altogether.
That method is solvent extraction. The dried pomace is treated with a food-grade solvent — almost always hexane — which dissolves the remaining oil into a mixture the industry calls miscella. The solvent is then distilled off and recycled, leaving a crude pomace oil. This crude oil is not fit to eat as it is. It has to be refined: deodorised, neutralised, and stripped of impurities at high temperature. The oil sold on shelves as "olive pomace oil" is usually this refined pomace oil blended with a little virgin olive oil to give it back some colour and taste.
This is worth sitting with for a moment, because it is the heart of the matter. Hexane extraction is a standard industrial process — it is the same approach used to pull oil from soybeans, rapeseed, and sunflower seeds, and there is nothing unusual or alarming about it in itself. But it is a long way from the image of olives crushed under stone. Pomace oil is an industrial product made from a by-product, and the International Olive Council classifies it as its own category, separate from virgin and extra virgin grades.
Is Pomace Olive Oil Good for Cooking?
For cooking specifically, pomace oil has real practical strengths, and it would be dishonest to pretend otherwise. The first is its smoke point. Estimates vary quite a bit between sources — you will see figures anywhere from around 390°F to 460°F (roughly 200°C to 240°C) — but the broad point holds: pomace oil tolerates heat better than most extra virgin oils. That is precisely because it has already been through a high-heat refining process. Whatever changes heat might cause have largely happened already, so a hot pan does not damage it the way it can damage a delicate unrefined oil.
The second strength is neutrality. Refining removes most of the flavour, which sounds like a loss — and for finishing a dish it is — but for cooking it can be a feature. If you want an olive oil that will not impose a strong taste on a curry or a batch of roast vegetables, pomace gives you an olive-derived fat with a mild profile and a sensible price.
There is research to back the cooking performance up. A 2021 study published in the journal Foods compared olive-pomace oils with standard and high-oleic sunflower oils across repeated frying. In domestic-style discontinuous frying — the kind you do at home, reusing oil across several sessions — the pomace oils showed the lowest rate of forming the polar compounds and polymers that signal an oil breaking down. In plain terms, they degraded more slowly than ordinary sunflower oil. So as a frying fat, pomace oil is not just acceptable; on that particular measure it tested well.
What You Give Up: Flavour and Polyphenols
Here is the other side of the ledger, and it is the reason pomace oil is the cheapest grade rather than a clever bargain. Refining does not only remove the bad bits — it removes the good ones too.
The compounds that give olive oil much of its value are its polyphenols: antioxidants such as oleocanthal, oleuropein, hydroxytyrosol, and tyrosol. These are the molecules behind the peppery catch at the back of the throat in a good extra virgin oil, and they are the focus of most of the published research on olive oil and health. The European Union even carries a registered health claim for olive oil polyphenols and the protection of blood lipids from oxidative stress — but that claim requires a meaningful quantity of those compounds to be present in the first place.
Refining, by its nature, strips most of them out. Pomace oil also loses the aroma and the colour that come with them. What is left is a functional cooking fat, but not the thing the research is actually about. When people talk about the Mediterranean diet and olive oil, they are not talking about refined pomace oil — they are talking about the unrefined, polyphenol-rich oil that comes straight from the fruit.
For a fuller walkthrough of what separates a good bottle from a poor one, see our guide to choosing a quality olive oil.
Is Pomace Olive Oil Safe?
This question comes up often, usually because of something people half-remember about a contamination scare. The honest answer is that pomace olive oil sold today as a food-grade product is safe to cook with — but the concern has a real history worth understanding.
In 2001, Spanish authorities pulled olive pomace oil from sale after batches were found to contain elevated levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs — in particular benzo(a)pyrene, a compound that can form when oil is exposed to excessive heat or to certain drying methods. The episode prompted the industry and regulators to set strict limits and standardised testing for these contaminants, and modern production is built around staying well inside them.
So the practical position is this: reputable, properly refined pomace oil on a shop shelf meets current safety standards. The thing to avoid is treating any refined oil as if it were indestructible — overheating any cooking oil past its smoke point is poor practice, pomace included. Buy from a source you trust, keep your pan at a sensible temperature, and pomace oil is a safe cooking fat. The 2001 scare is a reason for the rules that exist now, not a reason to fear a current bottle.
Why Sidr & Stone
None of the above is an argument against olive oil — it is an argument for knowing which olive oil you are buying, and why. Pomace oil has a job: cheap, neutral, heat-tolerant cooking. But if you are reaching for olive oil because of its flavour, its character, or the body of research that has grown up around it, refined pomace is not the oil delivering any of that. That is the gap Sidr & Stone is built to fill.
- Single-estate — one family-owned grove on the plains outside Marrakech, Morocco; no blending across origins.
- Rain-fed — no irrigation; the trees take what the season gives them.
- Organically grown — no synthetic fertilisers, pesticides, or herbicides.
- Single harvest — a small, limited batch, harvested only when the season says the fruit is ready, sometimes weeks later than neighbouring farms.
- Cold-pressed within hours of harvest — mechanical extraction with no added heat, which preserves the flavour, aroma, and polyphenols that refining destroys.
- Unfiltered extra virgin — minimally processed, and it may show natural sediment, which is normal for a genuine unfiltered oil.
- 100% natural — a single ingredient, olive oil, with nothing added.
- Dark glass with a gold label — protective packaging against the light that degrades polyphenols.
- Halal certified, with 10% of profits going to charity as a brand-wide commitment.
- Fulfilment in the UK, EU, and US.
We will not tell you Sidr & Stone is the best olive oil — that would be the very kind of bare claim this article is asking you to look past. What we will say is that our oil is single-estate Moroccan, rain-fed, organically grown, and cold-pressed within hours of harvest — the opposite of a solvent-extracted, refined pomace oil in almost every respect. The evidence of that care is in the taste, the colour, and the small size of each season's batch.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is pomace olive oil good for cooking?
Yes, for the right jobs. It has a high smoke point and a neutral flavour, and in frying tests it has performed well against common vegetable oils. It is a competent, budget cooking fat — just not one you would choose for flavour or for olive oil's polyphenol content.
What is the difference between pomace olive oil and extra virgin?
Extra virgin is the juice of the olive, cold-pressed mechanically with no heat or chemicals, and it keeps the oil's natural flavour and polyphenols. Pomace oil is recovered from the leftover paste using solvents and high-heat refining, which strips most of those out. They are different grades, made very differently.
What is the smoke point of pomace olive oil?
Sources differ, citing figures from roughly 390°F to 460°F (about 200°C to 240°C). It is higher than most extra virgin oils because the oil has already been refined at high temperature. As with any oil, heating it past its smoke point is best avoided.
Is pomace olive oil safe to eat?
Properly refined, food-grade pomace oil sold today is safe. A 2001 contamination scare involving PAHs led to strict limits and standardised testing, which modern production is designed to meet. Buy from a reputable source and cook at sensible temperatures.
Why is pomace olive oil so cheap?
Because it is made from a by-product — the spent paste left after the first pressing — using industrial solvent extraction and refining rather than careful mechanical pressing. It is the lowest grade in the olive oil category, which is reflected in the price.
Can I use pomace olive oil for deep frying?
It is one of the more practical olive-derived oils for deep frying, thanks to its high smoke point and slow rate of breakdown in repeated-use frying tests. If you specifically want a neutral, heat-stable, affordable frying oil, it is a reasonable choice.
Does pomace olive oil have any health benefits?
Far fewer than unrefined olive oil. Refining removes most of the polyphenols and antioxidants that the research on olive oil and health is concerned with. It is essentially a neutral cooking fat rather than a source of those compounds.
Is olive oil a medicine?
No. Olive oil is a food, not a medicine. It has a long traditional history — including being honoured in the Prophetic Sunnah — and a substantial body of modern research, particularly around polyphenols, cardiovascular health, and the Mediterranean diet pattern. It can be a worthwhile part of a healthy routine, but it does not cure diseases and is not a substitute for medical care. Be cautious of any olive oil marketed with specific disease-cure claims.
Final Thoughts
Pomace olive oil is not a scandal and it is not a swindle. It is an honest industrial product that does a specific job well: cheap, neutral, heat-tolerant cooking. If that is what you need from a bottle, it earns its place. The mistake is buying it expecting the things people associate with olive oil — the flavour, the green-gold colour, the peppery polyphenols, the health research — because refining has taken those out before the oil reaches you.
So the real question is not "is pomace oil any good", but "what do I actually want this oil to do". For a workhorse frying fat, pomace is fine. For everything that makes olive oil worth talking about, you want the unrefined, cold-pressed oil that comes straight from the fruit — and the closer it is to its source, the better.
Our cold-pressed organic Marrakech olive oil — single-estate, rain-fed, and unfiltered — is the opposite end of that scale, available now on pre-order from our first harvest, with fulfilment in the UK, EU, and US.
Pre-Order Sidr & Stone Organic Marrakech Olive Oil — Limited First Harvest →
Disclaimer: This article explains how pomace olive oil is made and used for cooking at the time of writing; production practices, safety regulations, and research findings may change, and readers should check current sources. Olive oil is a food, not a medicine, and is not a substitute for medical treatment of any condition. For any health concern, consult a qualified medical professional.
