Customers have many different ways to try and increase the shelf life of Extra Virgin Olive Oil. Most of these ways are not necessary, do no harm, but may temporarily cause changes to the appearance of the oil.
A customer named Nancy M. recently sent this emailed question:
I am the only one using this oil so how long will it keep after i open the bottle..also do i refrigerate it after opening it…thanks, nancy
Seagate replied:
Just reseal it and keep it in a cool dry place, like a cabinet,once you begin using it. It is not necessary to refrigerate. In fact it is better that you don’t since it will make the oil temporarily cloudy as it cools. Extra Virgin Olive Oil is a strong natural antioxidant and does not need further preservation. Once you open it and handle it this way, it well keep for easily one year and possibly two.
Thank you
Seagate Customer Service
We receive this question all the time. In March, a customer in New Jersey mentioned that they were storing the olive oil bottles on their cement floor in their basement. They noticed that the oil was getting cloudy and solidifying on the bottom. Of course New Jersey in the middle of winter can be very very cold. The concrete floor in a basement will easily reach a temperature close to freezing. It only requires the temperature to drop below 65F for the fats in the oil to begin changing their viscosity, settling on the bottom of the bottle and hardening into a solid, similar to wax. This does not affect the oil other than a temporarily change in state to becoming solid. Once you bring the olive oil back to room temperature, its appearance will return to normal. This same effect occurs during the winter in the northern States when the olive oil is delivered by UPS or USPS trucks that have no heat.
A similar preservation question that we receive involves the question about why the Seagate Extra Virgin Olive Oil is not stored in tinted green containers in order to stop the effect of sunlight breaking down the oil. Real Extra Virgin Olive Oil is a very strong natural antioxidant. Unless you are storing and leaving the oil in direct sunlight, it will have no effect on the oil whether the oil is bottled in clear glass or tinted green glass. Seagate Extra Virgin Olive Oil below is naturally green in color and is bottled in clear white glass bottles. 
It should be mentioned that the slight green tinting found on some glass bottles of olive oil in this industry does nothing to help with preservation. The light green glass is used to make the oil appear light green, which is expected of Extra Virgin Olive Oil. However, so many olive oil products are so over-processed or diluted with other vegetable oils that they require a green-tinted glass in order to appear to be the real product. The dark green bottles in the top picture or olive oil stored in cans would be a better way to eliminate out all light.
One place where ambient light really is a factor is when you go deeper in the ocean. Within the first 30 feet, all but the green and blue light frequencies get absorbed by the water column. In order to maintain some color in the photo, strobe lighting must be used or else risk a blue or green picture. Because of the density of the water, the light released from the strobe is only effective to a distance of 5-8 feet from the camera. That is the main reason that this image above appears to be a darker blue in the background. In reality, there was almost 200 feet of visibility on that dive. The human eye is able to pick up all the light wavelengths and see a much clearer view underwater, far superior to any camera.
I have read articles that a lot of times extra virgin olive oil that you purchase in grocery stores are a lot of times rancid when you purchase them. My question is that is it because of the olive oil being diluted with other oils to cause it to become rancid or is it something else? Also does the olive oil capsules you sell have the same benefits as the regular olive oil? I am not a big fan of the taste of the extra virgin olive oil so I thought about trying the capsules for the omega 3 benefits. I also love the olive leaf extract for I have been taking this for around 10 yrs. now and have not had a cold or flu since I started with the extract. I do not live without it,thanks for some great products that you have.
Curtis
There can be a lot of reasons including:
a) Mixing in a lot of other vegetable oils into the olive oil (some reports have show upwards of 80% of the Olive Oils sold in the U.S. is not real olive oil) which don’t have such strong antioxidant properties.
b) The imported stuff some of the Europeans are sending is the junk they cannot sell in their own country, figuring that Americans have such poor knowledge of good quality, that they wouldn’t know the difference.
c) The oil is really olive oil but was so badly processed that it went rancid.
d) Big producers are selling last year’s or the year before left over old inventory.
There can be a lot of reasons for what you are seeing. We are glad you like the olive leaf extract. However, we cannot claim that it can prevent a cold or the flu.
Thank you