In the short time since Grazas 2022 launch, the wunderkind olive oil slinger has become a standout in a crowded market with its dynamic duo of extra-virgin olive oils: Sizzle for cooking and Drizzle for finishingcleverly packaged in matte-green squeeze bottles.
On Tuesday, Graza introduced its third product to the lineup, the high-heat cooking oil Frizzle. Its being sold online as well as in select Whole Foods locations nationwide in squeeze bottles and a company-first nonaerosol spray bottle.
Made from the remaining pressed olives from Grazas flagship oils, Frizzle is extracted and refined without the use of chemicals or solvents. The natural refinement process results in a neutral taste and high smoke point, making it a wholly olive-based alternative to seed oils (those being the latest boogeyman of the wellness-industrial complex). Entering the neutral oil market has also allowed Graza to play around with new packaging, something the brand explored last year with its olive oil refill cans.
[Photo: Graza]
A new spin on neutral oil
Graza cofounder and CEO Andrew Benin was well aware of the risks of tinkering with the brand. Why mess with something that’s working? he says. Frizzle may be the new kid on the block, but the products conception is as old as Graza itself. The Graza braintrust had always envisioned three use cases for its oil: frying and high-heat cooking, sautéing, and raw finishing.
Frizzle is still made from olives, but dont call it olive oil. Per regulations of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, that title is reserved for the substance directly extracted from the olive fruit (such as Grazas Drizzle and Sizzle). Frizzle, on the other hand, is technically an upcycled by-product made from the spent olives. But unlike some other cooking oils, it isnt chemically refined.
After spinning the pressed olives in a high-speed centrifuge, a tapenade-like slurry of flesh, pits, and peels known as pomace is left behindwhat the Graza team lovingly calls olive mush. Once the oil is extracted, the product is naturally refined through multistep filtration and gradual heating, which removes impurities without the use of hexanes, solvents, or deodorants.
[Photo: Graza]
No seeds, no problem?
These common refinement techniques are at the center of an ongoing push against seed oils, the detractors of which range from gently concerned at best to conspiratorial at worst. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the new secretary of Health and Human Services, has been a particularly vocal skeptic of seed oils, suggesting Americans are being “unknowingly poisoned by them. Nutrition experts insist such concerns have been exaggerated.
Benin is quick to point out that neutral seed oils have a role to play. By diminishing them, you’re diminishing the people who need to consume them as a functional ingredient in their diet, he says, alluding to the presence of dietarily necessary omega-6 fatty acids that occur in corn oil, sunflower oil, canola oil, and the like.
To lump all seed oils into one category, he continues, is as overly generalizing as presuming all olive oil meets the same quality standards. Still, Benin will go to bat for Graza any day of the week. This is a superior product than canola oil because we can back it up with lab data, and taste, he says. But we’re not going to be bashing seed oils as part of our brand.
[Photo: Graza]
Standing out by blending in
Despite conventional wisdom, Benin says, you can fry with extra-virgin olive oil. In fact, he notes that you can fry more, repeatedly, in EVOO than you can in other types of oils. But its capabilities top out around its smoke point of 410 degrees. At that temperature, youre essentially refining the oil yourself, and all of those lovely grassy, bitter notes flame out, making way for an acrid-tasting substance called acrolein.
[Photo: Graza]
Frizzles 490-degree smoke point makes it optimal for wok cooking, grilling, or searing in a ripping-hot cast iron. But Benin says those capabilities presented some new challengs for the oil aficionados at Graza. How do you sell a product whose defining characteristic is neutrality? Extra-virgin olive oil is known for its variety of tasting notes, whether grassy, peppery, or fruity, due to EVOOs high percentage of antioxidant-rich polyphenols.
The refining process breaks down polyphenols, resulting in more neutral-tasting oil. Graza adds 7% of its Sizzle formula to Frizzle post-refinement, replacing some lost polyphenols and adding a soupçon of buttery flavor that Benin says eludes other neutral oil options. “Adding [EVOO] after the Frizzle has been refined means that all the antioxidants from the Sizzle are not affected as part of the refining process,” he says. “We’re adding in the health benefit afterwards.”
New oil, new packaging
One advantage of refined oil is its longer shelf lifeapproximately three years as opposed to extra-virgin olive oils two (or even one, in some instances). That wiggle room allowed Graza, which has limited its refills to single-use sizes, to introduce a new suite of packaging volumes, all decked out in a lemon-yellow color scheme.
Frizzle can be bought in Grazas first at-home jug, a 2-liter vessel with an ergonomic handle that retails for $29.99 exclusively on the companys website. Frizzle also comes in a nonaerosol spray bottleanother Graza firstfor grilling and baking ($6.99). And it wouldnt be Graza without the signature squeeze bottle that put the brand on the map, available in the same 750-milliliter bottle as Sizzle ($14.99).
Benin and company have no doubt that Frizzle will stand up to Grazas flagship oils, even if it means expanding its lexicon to include the word neutral. We’re trying to push it, we’re trying to innovate, we’re trying to prove it in our products, he says. It’s been exciting and difficult to orient a company around a new word.”
