Squeeze bottles are everywhere.

Walk through a food hall, browse social media or look at some of the newest olive oil brands and you'll see them: soft-sided plastic bottles, pointed nozzles and olive oil designed to be squeezed dramatically over almost everything.

They're convenient. They're inexpensive to transport. They're easy to use. And right now, they're fashionable.

But convenience and fashion aren't the same thing as protecting Extra Virgin Olive Oil.

And that distinction matters enormously if the oil inside is being promoted because of its quality, freshness, provenance, flavour or naturally occurring polyphenols.

At ONSURI, our position is straightforward: we can't follow a packaging trend if we believe doing so provides less protection for the oil we've worked so hard to produce.

Why has the olive oil squeeze bottle become so popular?

The squeeze bottle itself isn't an innovation created for olive oil preservation.

Professional chefs have used plastic squeeze bottles for decades because they're fast, precise and convenient during service. In a busy kitchen, a bottle may be filled and emptied within days.

That's a very different proposition from taking the same general format and turning it into the long-term retail packaging for Extra Virgin Olive Oil.

Retail olive oil may spend weeks or months in storage, distribution and eventually the customer's kitchen.

Suddenly, the job of the container isn't simply to make the oil easy to squeeze.

It has to protect it.

The squeeze bottle is a trend. The chemistry of olive oil isn't.

Packaging trends change.

What causes olive oil to deteriorate does not.

Oxygen. Light. Heat. Time.

These are some of the principal factors producers are trying to control once an Extra Virgin Olive Oil has been made.

EVOO doesn't improve indefinitely in storage. Oxidative reactions gradually alter the sensory and chemical characteristics of the oil. Heat and light can accelerate those changes, while exposure to oxygen also matters throughout storage and handling.

That means packaging isn't merely branding. For serious Extra Virgin Olive Oil, packaging is preservation equipment.

Why promote exceptional quality and then choose packaging that protects it less?

This is where we struggle with the squeeze-bottle trend.

Premium olive oils are increasingly marketed around early harvesting, polyphenols, freshness, provenance, awards and health-related characteristics.

Those things can take an extraordinary amount of work to achieve.

So why spend an entire growing season trying to produce an exceptional Extra Virgin Olive Oil and then make the final packaging decision primarily because a particular bottle is convenient, inexpensive or fashionable?

Imagine buying a fine wine because of its vineyard, vintage, winemaker and quality — and then deliberately storing it somewhere hot despite knowing that elevated temperature will accelerate its deterioration.

Why would you?

The principle with premium olive oil is no different.

If quality is the claim, protection should be part of the proof.

Is plastic bad for olive oil?

It isn't scientifically helpful to reduce the discussion to “plastic bad, glass good”.

Different polymers, colours, wall thicknesses, barrier technologies and closure systems behave differently.

But conventional PET does have different barrier properties from glass and metal.

Research comparing olive oil stored in different materials has demonstrated that packaging permeability, light transmission, headspace, storage temperature and time can all influence EVOO quality.

Studies comparing glass and plastic packaging have found meaningful differences in quality retention under different storage conditions. The broader lesson is important: the material surrounding the oil matters.

Is a squeeze bottle bad for olive oil? The pointed nozzle isn't the problem.

There's another characteristic of the conventional squeeze bottle that deserves more attention.

It's not simply what the bottle is made from.

It's what happens every time you use it.

When you squeeze the bottle, you force oil out. When you release it, the bottle has to refill itself with something.

That something is air.

As the flexible walls return towards their original shape, air is drawn back through the nozzle and into the bottle. That incoming air contains oxygen — precisely one of the things olive oil producers normally work hard to control once an EVOO has been made.

Oxygen in the headspace above olive oil can contribute to oxidative deterioration. The amount of oxygen present, together with temperature, light, time and other storage conditions, can therefore influence how well an oil retains its characteristics.

So with a conventional squeeze bottle there is an irony: the very action that makes the packaging convenient also replenishes the air inside it.

You squeeze oil out — and draw fresh oxygen back in.

The issue becomes increasingly relevant as the bottle empties because progressively more of its internal volume is occupied by air rather than oil.

That is fundamentally different from packaging systems specifically engineered to minimise the introduction of oxygen as their contents are dispensed.

To us, that creates a difficult contradiction.

Why produce or promote an EVOO because of its freshness, flavour and polyphenol content, then put it into a package whose normal method of use repeatedly introduces fresh air into the headspace?

For ONSURI, convenience isn't enough of a reason to accept that trade-off.

But the packaging debate starts too late.

Here's the part of the conversation that receives far less attention.

The best bottle, tin or protective package in the world can only protect an olive oil from the moment the oil enters it.

So before asking whether the final retail package protects the oil, we think consumers should ask another question:

What happened to the oil before it reached that package?

Olive oil brand or olive oil producer? There's a difference.

Not every olive oil brand grows olives.

Not every olive oil brand owns a mill.

And not every olive oil brand bottles its oil where that oil was actually produced.

Many businesses legitimately source oil from independent farms, public mills, cooperatives or larger suppliers and subsequently sell that oil under their own brand.

That does not automatically make the resulting oil poor quality.

But it can create a very different supply chain — and considerably more distance between the person growing the olives and the person putting the finished oil into its retail packaging.

Why the time between harvest and milling matters.

Preservation actually begins before there is any olive oil to package.

Once an olive leaves the tree, time matters.

Delaying processing after harvest can negatively affect the physicochemical, sensory and nutritional characteristics of the resulting olive oil.

That is one reason we place such importance on controlling the milling process ourselves.

Our mill isn't somewhere we send our olives. It's part of our farm.

ONSURI's olives are grown on our family's single estate in Jordan.

When we harvest, we don't need to load the fruit onto a vehicle, transport it to a public mill and wait for another operator to fit us into their production schedule.

Our mill is on our estate.

That enables us to move freshly harvested olives into milling rapidly and gives us direct control over processing conditions.

Owning a mill doesn't magically guarantee exceptional olive oil. But it removes one of the biggest variables in the process: having to hand control of your freshly harvested fruit to somebody else.

What happens when olive oil is transported in bulk?

Oil sourced from another producer may remain in bulk storage before being transported to an importer or bottling operation.

It may be transferred from storage tanks into bulk transport, discharged again, pumped between tanks, filtered, blended or moved through additional handling stages before finally entering the package you buy.

Those processes can be managed extremely professionally.

But they are still additional operations that have to be controlled.

Research monitoring dissolved oxygen during olive oil production, storage and handling has shown that transfers and other operations can introduce additional oxygen into the oil.

That doesn't mean bulk transport automatically ruins an olive oil. It means every additional handling stage is another stage that needs managing correctly.

Why bottling at source matters.

The same principle continues after milling.

Our oil remains under producer control and is bottled at source in Jordan.

We don't buy somebody else's finished oil, ship it internationally in bulk and then ask a third-party fulfilment or contract-packing centre to put ONSURI packaging around it in the UK.

Third-party bottling can of course be done very well.

But from our perspective, if we can retain control ourselves, why deliberately introduce another handover?

Bottling isn't where our branding starts. It's where our production process finishes.

The harvest date doesn't tell you the whole story.

We're delighted that more consumers now look for an olive oil's harvest date.

But a harvest date tells you when the story began.

It doesn't necessarily tell you what happened afterwards.

Ask your olive oil brand two questions:

When was the oil harvested?

When — and where — was it bottled?

If there is a significant period between those dates, ask how the oil was stored and transported in between.

It's a simple question, but one that can tell you considerably more about the supply chain behind the bottle.

Why much of ONSURI is currently packaged in tins.

Our current use of fully opaque metal tins wasn't simply a design decision.

The first consideration was protection.

Light cannot pass through the metal wall of the tin. That means the oil receives complete protection from incoming light while it remains inside the container.

Metal also provides an extremely effective barrier between the oil and the external environment.

But quality preservation wasn't the only factor.

What about the carbon footprint of olive oil packaging?

Packaging sustainability is much more complicated than saying one material is always environmentally superior to another.

Glass is chemically inert, widely recyclable and can provide excellent olive oil protection when appropriately designed.

But glass is also heavy and fragile.

That additional weight matters when packaging is being manufactured, moved, palletised and transported internationally. Fragility can also require additional secondary packaging to prevent breakages.

Life-cycle studies of olive oil packaging show that packaging weight, manufacture and distribution can materially influence environmental impact.

For ONSURI, producing in Jordan and supplying finished product internationally means transportation efficiency has to form part of our packaging decision alongside oil protection.

Does that mean we'll always use tins?

No.

We aren't wedded to a particular packaging material.

Packaging technology develops. Materials improve. Consumer needs change. Environmental considerations change too.

What won't change is the test we apply to any packaging format:

Does it appropriately protect the oil?

If it doesn't, then however fashionable, inexpensive or convenient it may be, it isn't the right package for us.

What should you look for when buying Extra Virgin Olive Oil?

Don't let the packaging make the decision for you.

Instead, ask:

• Who actually grew the olives?
• When were the olives harvested?
• Where were they milled?
• How quickly did the fruit reach the mill?
• Was the oil transported internationally in bulk?
• When was it bottled?
• Where was it bottled — at source or by a third party?
• Does the producer publish acidity and other quality parameters?
• If polyphenols are being promoted, are the actual laboratory results published?
• What does the final packaging actually do to protect the oil?

Why this matters particularly with high-polyphenol olive oil.

ONSURI has become particularly well known for producing Extra Virgin Olive Oils with unusually high measured polyphenol levels.

Some of our oils from recent harvests have exceeded 1,500 mg/kg total polyphenols.

We publish those results because we believe customers deserve to know what they're purchasing.

But publishing the number creates a responsibility too.

If we're going to tell you how exceptional the oil was when it was produced, we also need to care about protecting it afterwards.

Otherwise the laboratory number becomes a marketing claim rather than part of a complete quality system.

Don't just look at the bottle. Understand the journey before it.

The squeeze bottle debate is useful because it forces consumers to think about packaging.

But we'd encourage you to go further.

An olive oil's quality isn't determined by one decision.

Grow → Harvest → Mill → Store → Analyse → Bottle → Transport → Store → Pour.

Every stage can either protect what came before it or compromise it.

That's why we don't see packaging as an isolated design decision.

It's the final stage in a much longer chain of quality control.

The bottom line: the oil comes first.

Squeeze bottles are clever.

They're convenient.

They've been commercially successful.

And they've unquestionably become a trend.

But ONSURI isn't prepared to put one of the highest-calibre oils we know how to produce into a particular container simply because that format happens to be fashionable.

Our oils are internationally judged and awarded. They're known for their provenance, quality and exceptionally high polyphenol levels.

We control the fruit.

We control the mill.

We control storage.

We bottle at source.

And when it comes to packaging, we'll continue asking exactly the same question:

What is best for the oil?

Not what's cheapest.

Not what's trending.

Not what produces the most satisfying social-media drizzle.

The oil comes first.