IOC Trade Standard: How Olive Oil Is Classified and Controlled

When a purchase contract states "extra virgin olive oil compliant with the IOC trade standard in force," it points to a specific document: the International Olive Council's trade standard. That standard defines every grade, sets which parameters a laboratory must measure, and fixes the threshold at which a lot drops from one category to the next. Understanding it means you stop buying a label and start buying enforceable facts. Here is how the standard classifies and controls olive oil in international trade.

The International Olive Council in brief

The IOC is an intergovernmental organisation set up in 1959 under the auspices of the United Nations, headquartered in Madrid. Its members — the European Union plus around fifteen producing countries — account, according to the organisation, for more than 94% of world olive oil production. Tunisia is a founding member, alongside Spain, Greece, Morocco and Italy among others. The current legal framework is the 2015 International Agreement on Olive Oil and Table Olives.

For a buyer, the IOC does four concrete things:

• Standardisation: it issues the trade standard and the reference methods of analysis.
• Statistics: production, consumption and trade by country and by crop year.
• Recognised panels: it accredits the tasting juries qualified to assess olive oil.
• Promotion and research on olive growing and quality.

For trade, only the first mission is binding: the trade standard is the shared language of contracts.

The trade standard: scope and how it fits together

The standard is titled COI/T.15/NC No 3. It is revised regularly: the version in force is Revision 21, adopted in Madrid on 8 July 2025, which replaces Revision 20 of November 2024. It covers olive oils and olive-pomace oils: category definitions, quality criteria, purity criteria and the associated analytical methods.

The standard interacts with two other frameworks:

• The European Union rules. Since late 2022, EU marketing standards rest on Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2022/2104 and Implementing Regulation (EU) 2022/2105, which repealed the older Regulations (EEC) 2568/91 and (EU) 29/2012. The physico-chemical thresholds track the IOC closely, but the EU keeps only four retail categories: extra virgin, virgin, olive oil (a blend of refined and virgin oils) and olive-pomace oil — "ordinary virgin" and "lampante" are not EU commercial descriptions.
• The Codex Alimentarius (CODEX STAN 33-1981), developed jointly with the IOC, serves as a worldwide recommendation; some importing countries rely on it when they do not apply the EU framework.

Where these texts diverge, it is mostly nuances of thresholds and marketable categories, not the logic of classification. For the full taxonomy of grades and their uses, see our overview of olive oil grades.

Quality versus purity: the distinction almost everyone misses

The core of the standard rests on two families of criteria that must never be confused.

Quality criteria describe the state and freshness of the lot: free acidity, peroxide value, ultraviolet absorbances (K232, K270, ΔK) and the sensory assessment. They set the category and change over time: oil oxidises, its peroxide climbs, its fruitiness fades. An extra virgin lot at the start of a campaign can slip to virgin after poor storage. We break these down in our guide to acidity, peroxide value and K232/K270.

Purity criteria answer a completely different question: is the oil genuine, or cut with something else? They do not move with freshness. They are the fatty acid profile, the sterol composition (apparent β-sitosterol > 93%, campesterol < 4% of total sterols, total sterols > 1,000 mg/kg), the wax content, stigmastadienes, the ECN42 difference and trans fatty acids. A perfectly fresh oil can pass every quality test and fail on purity if it has been blended with sunflower oil, deodorised oil or pomace oil.

Put simply: quality tells you whether the oil is good, purity tells you whether it is real. A serious COA covers both registers. A certificate that shows only acidity and peroxide protects you from nothing on botanical origin.

Each purity test targets a specific fraud. The fatty acid profile and the ECN42 difference expose blends with cheaper seed oils; stigmastadienes and trans fatty acids flag the presence of refined or deodorised oil sold as virgin; wax content separates true virgin oil from pomace oil, which carries far more wax. This is why a lot that looks impeccable on acidity and peroxide can still be rejected: the adulteration hides in parameters most buyers never ask for. When you write specifications, name the purity criteria you require, not just the freshness ones.

The panel test: when tasting downgrades a lot

Sensory assessment is not a subjective formality: it is a standardised method (COI/T.20/Doc. No 15), run by a recognised panel of at least eight trained tasters. The jury rates the intensity of defects (rancid, musty, winey, fusty, muddy sediment…) and of fruitiness, then computes two medians:

• The median of defects (Md): intensity of the main defect perceived.
• The median of fruitiness (Mf): presence of the fresh-olive aroma.

The classification follows. An oil is extra virgin if its median of defects is equal to 0 and its fruitiness greater than 0; virgin if the median of defects stays at or below 3.5 with fruitiness present; beyond that it slides to ordinary virgin and then lampante, destined for refining. The decisive point: tasting can downgrade a chemically compliant lot. An oil at 0.4% acidity, flawless on paper, will be reclassified as virgin if the panel detects a defect. That is why disputes so often turn on the panel. To understand each defect and its cause, read our article on sensory defects and the panel test.

The standard's key thresholds

Criterion	Extra virgin	Virgin	Lampante
Free acidity (% oleic acid)	≤ 0.80	≤ 2.0	> 3.3
Peroxide value (meq O₂/kg)	≤ 20	≤ 20	no limit
K232	≤ 2.50	≤ 2.60	not defined
K270	≤ 0.22	≤ 0.25	not defined
ΔK	≤ 0.01	≤ 0.01	not defined
Median of defects (Md)	0	≤ 3.5	> 6.0
Median of fruitiness (Mf)	> 0	> 0	not required

Lampante has no UV threshold and no minimum fruitiness because it is not meant to be consumed as is: it goes to refining or technical use.

IOC, EU or the US market: which reference goes in your contract

The reference framework is not neutral: it decides which thresholds apply and how a dispute is arbitrated. Three cases arise:

• IOC / non-EU market. "Compliant with the IOC trade standard in force" is enough, provided you state the category and attach the lot COA. It is the most universal baseline.
• EU market. The European framework applies on import and at retail; it is stricter on labelling and on member-state conformity checks. The analytical thresholds stay aligned with the IOC.
• US market. The United States is not an IOC member and does not impose the standard. The FDA has no mandatory standard of identity for olive oil (petitions are pending); the USDA publishes voluntary grades modelled on IOC criteria, and states such as California maintain their own standard. To export to the US, you must spell out the chosen reference in the contract.

In practice, a solid contract fixes three things: the category, the reference framework (IOC, EU or USDA grade), and the arbitration procedure for conflicting analyses — sealed sampling, accredited laboratory, IOC-recognised panel. Without that up-front agreement, two divergent certificates turn a technical disagreement into a commercial dispute.

Securing your purchases with Virginia

Every lot we ship travels with its COA and can be traced back to its mill of origin, as part of our quality approach. You choose the reference — IOC, EU or USDA grade — and we document the category on the certificate. To build a specification aligned with the standard, request a quote or explore our bulk Tunisian olive oil offer.