SHREVEPORT, La. – Extra virgin olive oil is often linked to heart health and longevity, and researchers say much of that benefit comes from compounds called polyphenols. A local company is now working to extract and scale two of the most potent polyphenols found in olive oil.
If you’ve ever tasted a high-quality extra virgin olive oil and felt that peppery burn in the back of your throat, that sensation can be a clue you’re getting higher polyphenol content. Two specific polyphenols are found naturally in extra virgin olive oil, but the levels vary widely depending on quality, freshness, and how it’s stored.
“Those phenols are oleocanthal and oleacein. They’re only found in extra virgin olive oil and they’re very unique in the world of olive oil. You don’t know about them unless you’ve really had high quality extra virgin olive oil and high quality extra virgin oils just isn’t found on the grocery store shelves in America,” said Kiley Grant, CEO of biotechnology company Oleolive.
The key is not just buying olive oil; it’s buying the right kind and using it in ways that help preserve those compounds. Cooking at high heat can degrade the polyphenols faster, while using olive oil raw (like on salads) helps maintain the benefit.
“[Use an] amber container, generally, glass, although I don’t think that’s quite as important. But it needs to be oxygen impermeable if you can find it. And that’s pretty rare. But if you can find it top of the nitrogen, that’s primo,” Grant said.
Grant and his team took the naturally occurring olive polyphenols and developed a patented extraction process. Instead of relying on the variable amounts of phenols in olive oil, they have created a consistent ingredient that can be used in supplements, foods, or beverages.
Grant’s company has now partnered with Applied Food Sciences, a Texas-based functional ingredient company to help on the distribution and product-development side.
“On the distribution side, they’ll take our ingredient that we make and present it to all of the brands that they have relationships with and then work on developing the ingredient beyond what we can do,” Grant said.
The goal is the get their olive polyphenol ingredient in front of more brands to be formulated into things like capsules, tablets, drinks, and food products. Also, on the clinical side to put the ingredient through clinical trials to test the therapeutic effects.
“One of the things that’s really important to us is that we say made in the us, we’re still small company, we’re less than 10, and we intend to keep it that way. And I don’t foresee any reason for us to move to, say, Louisiana has been wonderful to us from an economic incentive perspective,” Grant said.