Olive Oil Divine Podcast

From Farm to Bottle: How Olive Oil Divine Stands Apart in Quality and Transparency

• Greg & Shirley Mueller • Episode 4

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What Makes Olive Oil Divine Different From Other Typical Olive Oil Stores?

Ever wondered what makes truly exceptional olive oil? Greg and Shirley Mueller of Olive Oil Divine pull back the curtain on an industry rife with misinformation and adulteration. This eye-opening conversation reveals how their independently-owned business works directly with twelve small family farms to deliver authentic extra virgin olive oils that stand in stark contrast to many grocery store options.

The shocking reality is that many household olive oil brands have been repeatedly fined for fraud—cutting their products with inferior oils like canola, sunflower, or even undisclosed peanut oil. Greg emphasizes their unwavering commitment to certification: "If the farm doesn't certify their oils, we won't even entertain it." This dedication to transparency extends to their comprehensive labeling, which includes complete nutrition information often missing from competitors' bottles.

Freshness emerges as another critical factor, with high-quality olive oils delivering optimal health benefits when consumed within 2-4 months after opening. The Olive Oil Divine team expertly guides customers toward high-polyphenol varieties for medicinal purposes or more suitable options for cooking applications. Their showroom features prominent display of press dates and daily tastings of their nearly 90 flavors—including unique offerings like bacon olive oil and dairy-free butter-flavored olive oil made with sweet potatoes.

To learn more about Olive Oil Divine visit:
https://oliveoildivine.com/
Olive Oil Divine
2517 N. Roan Street
Johnson City, TN 37601
423-707-7087

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Olive Oil Divine podcast, your go-to source for culinary inspiration. Join Greg and Shirley Muller, owners of Olive Oil Divine, as they share tips, stories and insights to make you a kitchen hero. From authentic extra virgin olive oils to rich-aged Italian balsamic vinegars, We've got everything you need to elevate your cooking. Live divine.

Speaker 2:

With so many places selling olive oil. What sets Olive Oil Divine apart from the rest? It's more than just a store. It's an experience rooted in quality, authenticity and passion. Welcome back everyone. Skip Maughan, here co-host, slash producer, back in the studio with Greg and Shirley Muller. Greg, shirley, how you guys doing Good morning Skip Doing great.

Speaker 4:

Good morning.

Speaker 3:

Skip.

Speaker 2:

Good morning. Hope you're doing well.

Speaker 4:

Doing well with this beautiful sunshine outside.

Speaker 2:

Amen, amen, love it. I'm loving it. Ready to warm up a little bit? So I wanted to ask, shirley, we'll start with you. You know, as the teaser said, there's a lot of different stores selling a lot of different kind of olive oil. What makes Olive Oil Divine, different from other typical olive oil stores?

Speaker 4:

There's several reasons. One of them is we're not a franchise. We're independently owned. We actually have about 12 growers that we deal with small mom and pop farms and we believe bringing the farm to the table. Everything that you taste in our store is hand-selected by Greg and I. We bottle everything in store. All of our oils and vinegars are bottled by us, our employees, our team. We believe in quality and before we bring that quality in, we actually do a taste test of every product in our store that is edible, because I have skin care too but everything has to meet our standards before we bring it into our store.

Speaker 2:

Very good. Now, speaking of standards, what kind of quality standards do you look for when you're selecting products for Olive Old Divine?

Speaker 4:

A lot of it is. Do we like the way it tastes? Because we always keep our customers in mind, is this the best quality that we can come up with, or can we also compare our growers? We do a side-by-side comparison with our growers on their oils and vinegars. Some oils taste better from other growers. Some balsamic taste better from other balsamic producers as well.

Speaker 3:

Skip. Let me add to that, though One of the main things that really is top of our standard list is all of our oils are certified extra virgin. If the farm that we're dealing with, or potentially dealing with, doesn't certify their oils, then we won't even entertain it, because we want to make sure that when our bottle says 100% real extra virgin olive oil, that we are assured of that, so we have the certificates for every oil that we have.

Speaker 2:

What other kind of stuff could be in there?

Speaker 3:

Well, it could be adulterated with an inferior oil, a cheaper oil, such as canola or sunflower or even, in some cases, peanut oil, unfortunately, Wow.

Speaker 3:

So we have to make sure we get the results. And it's sad because most of the olive oils on the grocery store shelves with exception to the stores that we're in, a lot of that oil is household names that everybody knows and has known for years. But yet we can go to the International Olive Oil Council newsletter and find that they've been fined again for fraud, for adulterating their oil. This company, that company and there are common names that I won't mention, but everybody would know oh, I've heard of that if I did so. It's really important that the customer, the consumer, knows that when they come into our store, why is our oils a little bit more than what they would buy at the grocery store price-wise? And that's because, well, it's the real thing and we're selling the real thing, unlike what they're going to get in a grocery store usually.

Speaker 2:

And I would imagine you could taste a difference in that too.

Speaker 4:

You can. Another thing, too, is they don't put everything in the oil on their label. That has been also a lot of research on that. I read a book called Real Food Fake Food. It talks about olive oils. It talks about the foods that we have in our country that's just processed and what's in it. It's a really good guide to go by and I like to give my customers quality. It's not quantity in this store, it's quality in this store customer's quality.

Speaker 3:

It's not quantity in this store, it's quality in this store. Let me add again one thing that we do differently, according to our standards, is our labels. You look at the back of our bottles and our label has a complete nutrition list. It has the complete ingredients list, so we're giving the consumer every piece of information that we can possibly get about that oil.

Speaker 3:

So for them to make a good choice, you go into other olive oil stores, specialty stores or grocery stores Usually most of what you think would be a specialty store. You look around the back and there's nothing there. Not to say that it's a bad product, but we believe in transparency. We want everybody to know what they're getting when they take it home.

Speaker 2:

Are the bottles dated? Is freshness an issue?

Speaker 3:

The bottles themselves are not dated unless we sell to a wholesale consumer. We're not required to do that, but we do have the stainless steel container that holds the oil that we bottle from. It's out there for display to the public and we have the press dates posted right there and we do say on the bottle to call us. We have our number on the back of each bottle that they can call and we'll give them the current press date, the polyphenol level, the acidity level and so forth, at any time. So, yes, it's full disclosure, and so they know what they're getting before they walk away from the shelf to purchase it and take it home.

Speaker 2:

Wow, and so freshness is a big factor, I guess, in the taste or healthiness of it.

Speaker 4:

Yes, it is when you do a high-quality olive oil for health benefits.

Speaker 4:

they recommend, once you've opened that bottle, that you use it within a two to four months time period, did not know that. And I have customers that will call me that say, oh, I've got a bottle of olive oil that's been in my shelf for a couple of years, is it still good? And I said well, you can taste and smell it and make sure that it does not have the rancid smell. You're more than likely going to lose those health benefits, but sometimes, if it's preserved correctly, it will be okay for a little while longer after that press date.

Speaker 2:

Well, speaking of that, how do you educate customers on choosing the best oil for their needs?

Speaker 4:

Well, if they're coming in for health benefits, we always take them to the high polyphenol oils, because that's where you're going to get most of your health benefits. The lower polyphenols. You're going to get some, but not as much as you would a higher polyphenol, and we actually ask them are you using it for medicinal purposes or are you doing it to cook with? And that kind of guides us on how to take our customers.

Speaker 3:

Our team is trained to work with the customer and ask questions and to find out what their needs are, whether it's for flavor, cooking or for medicinal reasons, and they're trained to educate them on our oils what makes them different, what makes them so much better. And then, of course, our website is just chock full of tons of information. Under our blog post and our article post, we have all kinds of articles that will lead you down a rabbit hole about the extra virgin olive oil and how to make sure you're getting the best for the money.

Speaker 2:

And just for the folks listening, what is your website address?

Speaker 4:

Oliveoldandvinecom.

Speaker 2:

Very good. I was hoping you would say yeah, we occasionally have tastings where you know you can come in and dip it in bread in it. You guys ever have tastings for customers.

Speaker 4:

Actually they have tastings every day. They can come in our store and we have communion cups that we will give them a taste of the oils and vinegars in with it.

Speaker 3:

Oh, wow, oh, tasting's a big part. If we let you taste everything in here, all the oils and vinegars, you can taste to your heart's content.

Speaker 2:

Wow, well, I know where I'm headed at lunch Because I tell you I go through a lot of olive oil. I've been cooking with olive oil for a very long time and I know that if you cook on high heat I've learned from Greg that that can take some of the health benefits away. But to me it just tastes better to cook with olive oil period.

Speaker 4:

I agree with you there.

Speaker 2:

There we go. Other than I used to before that, I would always cook with bacon grease, and that's probably not a good idea.

Speaker 4:

We have bacon, olive oil, skip yeah.

Speaker 2:

Really Bacon olive oil. Yes, we do, wow. And butter, butter-flavored, olive oil, it's dairy-free.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, oh, my goodness. One of Paula.

Speaker 2:

Deen's favorites. It's actually in the form of butter. It's not butter-flavored olive oil in a bottle. No, it's actually in the form of butter. It's not butter flavored olive oil in a bottle.

Speaker 3:

No, it's olive oil flavored butter. It tastes like the butter that you get in a movie theater but they put over the popcorn. It's similar to that, but it's flavored with the sweet potatoes, so it's totally dairy free. It's just olive oil and sweet potato and that's it. But it's incredible. It's addicting.

Speaker 4:

I bet it is. Oh, my excuse. Every day is a bottle of popcorn with butter on it. That can be my lunch, breakfast, dinner, it doesn't matter.

Speaker 2:

Oh yeah, I love popcorn, my daughter and. I absolutely love popcorn. Well, I've got to check that out and maybe in a future episode we can talk about different flavors, Because I'm intrigued. Oh yeah, okay.

Speaker 3:

Awesome.

Speaker 2:

You know almost 90 flavors between the olives and vinegars, so there's a lot to talk about All right sounds great.

Speaker 4:

It's a plan. We'll make you hungry.

Speaker 2:

Yes, you do every time we talk actually. So I appreciate it and we'll catch you guys in the next episode, when, hopefully, we'll talk about some different flavors.

Speaker 3:

All right, sounds good, skip, thanks a lot Thanks.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for tuning in to the Olive Oil Divine podcast. Don't forget to visit us online at oliveoildivinecom for our exceptional olive oils, aged balsamic vinegars and more. If you're local, stop by our store and discover how we can make you a kitchen hero. Until next time, live divine.