Give your cooking a luxurious twist with Hojiblanca Extra Virgin Olive Oil

New Spanish oil offers premium quality at affordable price  

If you only ever crack out the extra virgin olive oil to drizzle over the odd salad or dress a dinner party dish, you might be surprised to learn that people across the Mediterranean use extra virgin oil for all their everyday cooking needs – from marinades and casseroles to shallow frying, and everything else in between.

And now British food lovers can also use extra virgin oil in their everyday cooking, thanks to the launch of Hojiblanca Extra Virgin Olive Oil – a  premium, single variety extra virgin oil coming soon to a Tesco store near you, offering great value for money compared to other extra virgin oils on the market.

Unlike blended extra virgin olive oils, which are created from a mix of different olive varieties, new Hojiblanca Extra Virgin Olive Oil from Andalusia in Spain is created using only the eponymous olive variety Hojiblanca – meaning ‘white leaf’ – so that it has a smooth, distinctive, high-quality taste and an extremely low acidity, guaranteed to be less than 0.3% (against a maximum of 0.8% for all extra virgin olive oils).

We are buying more and more extra virgin olive oil, but we still tend to keep it for special occasions because of its high price tag. However, at just £3.49 for 500ml, Hojiblanca Extra Virgin Olive Oil is affordable enough to be an everyday product – and what’s more, it’s better for you, better for your cooking and offers a superior taste to refined olive oils.

So-called pure and refined oils have undergone harsh chemical extraction and refining processes. High heat and strong chemicals are used to extract, de-gum, neutralise, deodorise and bleach the oil. The resulting denatured oil has virtually no smell or taste, and so a small amount of standard extra virgin is added to provide some minimal olive oil character. These ‘refined’ oils are sold in the UK at virtually the same price as extra virgin.

Spain is the world’s largest olive oil-producing country and Hojiblanca is Spain’s No.1 producer. The Hojiblanca Co-operative produces more extra virgin olive oil than the entire production of France and Portugal combined, and its output amounts to more than half of the real Italian production. Olive trees are tended by family growers in Andalusia and Castilla-La-Mancha and in many cases, traditional hand-collecting methods are still employed. Unlike brands which buy in and blend oils, Hojiblanca has complete control across growing, pressing and packing.

Hojiblanca is packaged in a unique award-winning glass bottle with an eye-catching design and a built-in pourer.

Hojiblanca Extra Virgin Olive Oil is now available in the UK in selected Tesco stores nationwide, with an RRP of £3.49 for 500ml.