Cheap vs Expensive Olive Oil: Which Ones Failed the Purity Tests

A $6 olive oil matched a $22 bottle in Consumer Reports' taste test. Why do big brands keep failing? We go through 15 years of published tests on extra virgin olive oil: UC Davis, Consumer Reports, the National Consumers League and an industry-funded study from 2025. You'll see what "extra virgin" really means, which well-known brands failed these tests, which store brands came out on top, and how to spot a bottle that has gone bad. Most of these studies are more than a decade old, and we flag every date. We only report tests that were already published; we did not run any ourselves. Subscribe to Before You Pay for more cheap vs expensive comparisons, using only published independent tests, before you load your cart. Have you ever opened an expensive bottle of olive oil and found it smelled stale? Tell us in the comments. #OliveOil #ExtraVirginOliveOil #OliveOilTest #ConsumerReports #StoreBrand #TraderJoes #GroceryShopping