`Seed Oil Blend Spearheads Deoleo’s Health Pitch - Olive Oil Times
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Seed Oil Blend Spearheads Deoleo’s Health Pitch

By Julie Butler
Jun. 13, 2014 08:32 UTC

A seed oil blend now on sale in Spain and soon to launch in the United States under the Carbonell name – usu­ally asso­ci­ated with olive oil – is part of Deoleo’s new gen­er­a­tion of prod­ucts.

Carbonell Olys is 98 per­cent refined seed oils – soy­bean, sun­flower and grape seed – and 2 per­cent refined fish oil, with added antiox­i­dants (toco­pherol extract and ascor­byl palmi­tate), thyme extract, and fla­vor­ings.

Deoleo, the world’s biggest olive oil bot­tler, is clearly mak­ing a health pitch with the prod­uct, which fea­tures a heart shape on front and the claims that ​“essen­tial fatty acids are needed for nor­mal growth and devel­op­ment of chil­dren” and ​“Omega 3 (DHA and EPA) fatty acids con­tribute to nor­mal car­diac func­tion.”

A side panel says Olys is a nutri­tious choice ideal for dress­ing, mar­i­nat­ing, fry­ing, stir-fry­ing and stew­ing food. A 1L bot­tle was on sale in one Spanish super­mar­ket this week for €2.95 ($4), beside a 1L bot­tle of Carbonell 0.4 olive oil for €2.99 ($4.05)

The hybrid oils health plat­form

In November, Deoleo flagged the launch of a new gen­er­a­tion of prod­ucts based on inno­va­tion in both its seed oils and olive oils and cap­i­tal­iz­ing on the fact that ​“health is the most impor­tant trend in food.”

Gregorio Jiménez López, Deoleo’s advi­sor on strat­egy and inno­va­tion, said then olive oil, as a monoun­sat­u­rated fat, is healthy as a replace­ment for but­ter or sat­u­rated fats, but lacks func­tion­al­i­ties,” there­fore we need to com­ple­ment it with essen­tial fatty acids, and above all with highly unsat­u­rated fats, polyun­sat­u­rated fats, of the omega 3 DHA type.”

“Fortunately we can incor­po­rate a mix of dif­fer­ent oils, that are cheaper than olive oil, because olive oil has a very high price.” Deoleo could there­fore not only gain value via the health seg­ment, but ​“with prod­ucts that are cheaper because they use cheaper raw mate­ri­als,” he said, ​“offer­ing oils of much more nutri­tional and health value and at a lower price.”

Concern in Spain

But there’s been crit­i­cism by some in the Spanish olive oil sec­tor. Olimerca, a Spanish olive oil pub­li­ca­tion, said ​“the world leader in olive oil should be also the lead­ing advo­cate of olive oil and extra vir­gin olive oil, espe­cially as a good EVOO is infi­nitely bet­ter than any fat prod­uct with Omega 3. An olive oil brand with wide con­sumer recog­ni­tion should not be used for mar­ket­ing seed oil, espe­cially to avoid con­fu­sion,” it said.

The Spanish Association of Municipalities of the Olive Tree (AEMO) said on its Facebook page that Deoleo was mak­ing a ​“resound­ing mis­take.” ​“Does Carbonell, world leader in olive oil sales, really need to launch a seed and fish oil prod­uct?” AEMO also queried use of the word ​‘Olys’ given its close­ness to the Latin root ​‘olea,’ mean­ing olive.

Cereal and fruit oil blend and a rice oil

Deoleo CEO Jaime Carbó said this week the com­pany is invest­ing heav­ily in mar­ket­ing, par­tic­u­larly in the U.S. and Italy, and its new prod­ucts will soon be launched in Germany, the U.S. and Brazil.

Olys is already on sale in Holland, where on Carbonell’s Dutch web site it joins a rice oil and a cereal and fruit oils blend under ​“New healthy Carbonell oils”. An Olys cereal and fruit oil – blend­ing wheat germ, corn, rice bran, wal­nut and black­cur­rant oils – has been mar­keted under fel­low Deoleo-owned label Carapelli in Italy and under Carbonell in New Zealand.

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