Intertek Sustainable Olive Oil
VERIFICATION
CONFIDENCE MEDIUM · ANALYSIS ONLY, NOT AN AUDIT OR CERTIFICATION
Our read
Establish the authorship first, because the mark's name obscures it. Deoleo wrote this standard. Intertek audits against it. Intertek is a serious independent assurance company and there is no reason to doubt that the site assessments happen, but an independent auditor checking a company's own criteria is a different instrument from an independent auditor checking criteria a multi-stakeholder body set. Deoleo decided what it would be measured on, decided the tier structure, and assigns its own technicians to coach suppliers toward compliance. That is why this cannot rank with an open scheme even when the audit is genuinely independent. The content is broader than most private supplier programmes and the handbook is publicly downloadable, which is creditable. The substance is thinner than the breadth suggests. Requirements are graded Mandatory through Advanced and the entry condition is agreeing to gradually incorporate them, so the mark does not fix a performance level. The greenhouse gas section is a list of installable equipment with no baseline and no reduction target. The mark also cannot be used comparatively: only Deoleo suppliers can hold it, so it says nothing about Deoleo relative to any other olive oil company. Read it as evidence of a managed supplier improvement programme, not as a sustainability rating.
What it covers
- Eight requirement areas applied to both the olive mill and the olive grove: organisation and people, quality and food safety, water management and monitoring, energy efficiency management, soil management and conservation, biodiversity management, waste and by-product management, agrochemical management
- Requirements graded across four tiers — Mandatory, Basic, Intermediate and Advanced — so a verified supplier may sit at any tier above the mandatory floor
- On-site assessment by Intertek, a large independent testing and assurance company, of mills participating in Deoleo's supply chain
- A three-year supplier agreement with regular assessment during the term and an option to renew
- Digital traceability through the participating supplier's supply chain as a condition of participation
- Specific auditable line items including audited annual accounts, signed equality agreements, in-force ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and BRC/IFS/FSSC 22000 certificates, olive residence-time limits in hoppers, food-grade certificates and migration tests for contact materials
- Practice-level environmental items such as biomass boilers, solar panels on the mill, cover crops and conservation tillage for soil carbon, and reduced insecticide use to support insectivorous bird habitat
- Stated coverage since 2018 of more than 40,000 farmers and 70 mills, with 14,293 farming hectares visited by Deoleo technicians
- A publicly downloadable protocol handbook, which is more transparency than most private supplier programmes offer
What it leaves out
Not a criticism of the scheme. A standard is a scope, and this is where this one ends.
- The standard is written by the company being marketed on it; Deoleo chose which criteria it would be measured against, and no external or multi-stakeholder body governs the content
- Closed scheme: participation is limited to suppliers in Deoleo's own supply chain, so it cannot be used to compare Deoleo against a competitor
- No accreditation of the scheme; the protocol lists ISO FDIS 17065 and ISO 17011 only under publications consulted, and claims no accreditation under them
- The greenhouse gas section is a list of practices — biomass boiler, solar panels, electric vehicles, cover crops — with no emissions baseline, no reduction target and no measured threshold; a verified carbon footprint calculation appears as one optional line item
- The mandatory floor is not identifiable from the published handbook; the tier a given requirement sits in is shown graphically and cannot be read from the document text
- Entry condition is agreement to gradually incorporate the requirements, so verification at the point of joining does not establish a performance level
- No living wage requirement, no freedom of association requirement, and no explicit child or forced labour clauses located; the people section is framed around governance, training and equality commitments
- No published sanction, suspension or removal procedure, and no register of suppliers removed from the programme
- Deoleo assigns its own technicians to guide mills toward compliance with Deoleo's own standard, so the standard owner is also the advisor to the audited party
- No published audit frequency within the three-year term, and no statement on whether assessments are announced or unannounced
- No published fee schedule
- Does not address packaging, bottling, distribution emissions or the blending and origin-mixing questions that dominate olive oil quality disputes
The scheme
| Issued by | The standard is the Deoleo Sustainability Protocol, written and owned by Deoleo S.A., the Spanish olive oil company behind Bertolli, Carbonell, Carapelli, Hojiblanca and Koipe. Intertek is the third-party verifier and the mark is issued as Intertek's Sustainable Olive Oil Label. Deoleo authors the criteria; Intertek assesses against them |
|---|---|
| Where it applies | Deoleo's own supply chain only, centred on Spain. The protocol cites Spanish national legislation (Law 42/2007 on natural heritage and biodiversity) alongside EU food and olive oil marketing regulations |
| Audit and renewal | Three-year supplier agreement with regular assessment during the term and an option to renew at the end. Assessment frequency within the term is not published |
| Cost | Not published |
What we read
Deoleo Sustainability Protocol — The Handbook, English edition, 34 pages, hosted by Intertek. Launched 2018 and, in the protocol's own words, improved and refined in 2022. Read in full 26 July 2026
- Deoleo authored the standard; Intertek is the third-party verifier; three-year term; logo use — undergoing regular assessment from third-party verifier, Intertek. Suppliers commit to following the Sustainability Protocol for a three-year period, during which they will be regularly assessed to ensure ongoing compliance with Protocol cr
- launch year, 2022 revision, three sustainability areas — The Sustainability Protocol for extra virgin olive oil was launched in 2018 and has been improved and refined in 2022. Encompassing three key sustainability areas - Socio-economic, Environmental and Quality - we developed the Protocol in li
- entry condition is gradual incorporation of requirements — To become a partner, suppliers must agree to contribute to a sustainable supply chain for extra virgin olive oil. This involves gradually incorporating the requirements outlined in the Protocol
- Deoleo technicians advise the audited mills — each of the participating mills will work alongside a technician assigned by Deoleo who will offer specific guidance on how they can apply the Protocol requirements
- four requirement tiers applied to mill and grove — Mandatory / Basic level / Intermediate level / Advanced level ... Olive mill ... Olive grove
- GHG section is practice-based with no reduction target — 4.3 Reduction of greenhouse gas emission 4.3.1 The organisation has a biomass boiler. 4.3.2 The organisation has 100% biomass boilers. ... 4.3.4 There is a verified carbon footprint calculation.
- ISO 17065 appears only as a consulted reference, not as accreditation — Publications consulted ... ISO FDIS 17065 Conformity assessment - Requirements for bodies certifying products, processes and services
- scale of reach — Launched in 2018, our Sustainability Protocol for Extra Virgin Olive Oil Production has already supported more than 40,000 farmers and 70 mills
- Spain-centred legal scope — Law 42/2007 on the natural heritage and biodiversity
- the mark is Intertek-branded and the protocol is published via Deoleo — Nuestro Protocolo para la Produccion Sostenible de AOVE ... Sustainable Olive Oil Label
What we could not establish
The protocol document is public, which is the strongest single fact in its favour and the reason confidence is medium rather than low. What could not be established: which specific requirements sit at the Mandatory tier, because the tier markers are rendered graphically in the PDF and are not present in the extractable text; the audit frequency within the three-year term; whether assessments are announced or unannounced; who pays Intertek, Deoleo or the mill; the fee structure; how many suppliers currently hold the verification as opposed to the cumulative 40,000 farmers and 70 mills reached since 2018; whether the Intertek Sustainable Olive Oil Label appears on retail packaging or only in business-to-business documentation; and whether any supplier has ever been removed. No accreditation of Intertek for this specific scheme was located; the protocol cites ISO FDIS 17065, a draft-stage designation now superseded by ISO/IEC 17065:2012, only as a consulted publication. No independent critique, peer-reviewed assessment or NGO evaluation of this scheme was located, so no critique is attributed. Deoleo's use of the phrase accredited suppliers of sustainable extra virgin olive oil should not be read as accreditation in the ISO 17011 sense.
Who holds it
Scored companies carrying this mark, highest first. Holding it is not the same as scoring well — the mark is one input of six.
| Company | Scope held | YKO score |
|---|---|---|
| Bertolli (olive oil) | Deoleo Sustainability Protocol | 54.8 |
If you hold this certification, it is already on your record. What a buyer cannot see there yet is the evidence behind the parts this standard does not reach.