Olive Oil Benefits as U.S. Food Brands Rethink Seed Oils

Summary

Food com­pa­nies in the United States are shift­ing away from seed oils in their prod­ucts, with olive oil emerg­ing as a ben­e­fi­ciary due to ris­ing con­sumer demand and polit­i­cal pres­sure. Retail data shows a sig­nif­i­cant increase in sales of Seed Oil Free Alliance-cer­ti­fied prod­ucts, with olive oil being used as a seed oil replace­ment in var­i­ous food items.

Food com­pa­nies in the United States have made a flurry of announce­ments over the past 18 months pro­mot­ing a shift away from seed oils in their prod­uct for­mu­la­tions, with refined olive oil emerg­ing as a ben­e­fi­ciary.

A com­bi­na­tion of retail data and anec­do­tal evi­dence sug­gests that some of these refor­mu­la­tions have been dri­ven by ris­ing con­sumer demand. However, the trend has also been rein­forced by polit­i­cal pres­sure from the admin­is­tra­tion of President Donald J. Trump and his health sec­re­tary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

According to data from con­sumer pack­aged goods ana­lyst firm SPINS, sales of Seed Oil Free Alliance-cer­ti­fied prod­ucts rose 216 per­cent in the first quar­ter of 2025 com­pared to the same period a year ear­lier. A sep­a­rate sur­vey found that 28 per­cent of U.S. con­sumers are actively avoid­ing seed oils.

While Jonathan Rubin, chief exec­u­tive of the Seed Oil Free Alliance, said the shift away from seed-derived edi­ble oils began around 2016, he noted that the num­ber of pub­lic refor­mu­la­tion announce­ments has surged since Kennedy’s appoint­ment at the start of 2025.

The Make America Healthy Again advo­cate has long been a critic of seed oils, includ­ing what he calls the ​“hate­ful eight” — corn, canola, cot­ton­seed, soy, sun­flower, saf­flower, rice bran and grape­seed — once describ­ing them as ​“one of the worst things you can eat.”

Decades of research have found that plant-based oils, includ­ing seed oils, are gen­er­ally health­ier than ani­mal fats because they are higher in unsat­u­rated fats. However, Rubin said many con­sumers are increas­ingly con­cerned that the high lev­els of omega‑6 fatty acids, par­tic­u­larly linoleic acid, found in seed oils may be linked to inflam­ma­tion.

According to Rubin, olive oil has been one of the pri­mary ben­e­fi­cia­ries of the shift away from seed oils. ​“Food com­pa­nies are start­ing to use olive oil in chips, pro­tein bars and pop­corn, and it’s becom­ing a pop­u­lar call-out,” he told Olive Oil Times.

The Seed Oil Free Alliance has cer­ti­fied 55 brands, seven of which use olive oil as a seed oil replace­ment. California Olive Ranch has also received cer­ti­fi­ca­tion for its extra vir­gin olive oil, avo­cado oil, fla­vored olive oils and olive oil-based vinai­grettes and mari­nades.

Separate data from mar­ket research firm Mintel found that prod­uct launches fea­tur­ing a ​“made with olive oil” claim increased by 150 per­cent between 2019 and 2023.

By com­par­i­son, ​“made with avo­cado oil” claims rose 825 per­cent over the same period, high­light­ing the lim­i­ta­tions olive oil faces as a seed oil alter­na­tive in the pack­aged food sec­tor.

“Products refor­mu­lated with alter­na­tive oils like avo­cado oil and olive oil can improve prod­uct per­cep­tions, mak­ing higher price points more accept­able to con­sumers,” Mintel food and drink ana­lyst Julia Mills told Nosh in 2024.

However, she added that these alter­na­tives still account for only a small share of over­all launches, indi­cat­ing that the shift remains lim­ited.

Alongside olive oil and avo­cado oil, Rubin said beef tal­low — Kennedy’s pre­ferred dietary fat — algae oil, coconut oil and palm oil are also being used to replace seed oils in pack­aged foods.

Rubin added that some brands are cau­tious about using avo­cado oil due to con­cerns about adul­ter­ation, esti­mat­ing that about ten per­cent of Seed Oil Free Alliance-cer­ti­fied brands rely on it.

“Fewer are using avo­cado oil because of that high adul­ter­ation rate — close to 70 per­cent of the sam­ples we’ve tested,” Rubin said, adding that only one olive oil sam­ple tested by the alliance was found to be adul­ter­ated.

“When you buy a bag of chips made with olive oil, it’s more expen­sive than soy­bean oil chips,” Rubin said. ​“We test all added oils for purity to ensure con­sumers are get­ting what they’re pay­ing for.”

Among recent exam­ples of brands switch­ing from seed oils to olive oil are Saffron Road and Hoboken Farms.

Rubin con­firmed that Saffron Road, which pro­duces frozen entrées, replaced soy­bean oil with coconut oil and refined olive oil. Hoboken Farms, mean­while, has sub­sti­tuted seed oils with extra vir­gin olive oil in its tomato sauce.

According to Nosh, Hero Bread has also replaced canola oil with olive oil, cit­ing con­sumer pref­er­ence for seed oil alter­na­tives.

Other exam­ples include restau­rant chain Sweetgreen, which intro­duced a seed oil-free menu using extra vir­gin olive oil in its salad dress­ings instead of sun­flower or soy­bean oils.

The fast-casual chain said it would also use olive oil exclu­sively for cook­ing, but later dis­con­tin­ued its rip­ple fries, cit­ing neg­a­tive con­sumer feed­back on taste and increased sup­ply chain com­plex­ity.

Olive oil has not ben­e­fited in every case. Real Good Foods report­edly chose to replace seed oils with beef tal­low rather than olive oil in some breaded frozen meat prod­ucts, cit­ing lower costs and a more com­ple­men­tary fla­vor pro­file.