Sixteen years ago, Nate Bradley was working as a substitute teacher in his hometown of Castro Valley and preparing for a career in teaching, when his dad asked him to help out with the family olive oil company by hosting a demo at a local grocery store one day. He reluctantly said yes, but confesses, “I had no idea what I was doing.”
That day changed everything.
Veronica Foods is a century-old, family-run olive oil importing business that dates back to 1924, when Bradley’s great-grandfather, Salvatore Esposito, first opened its doors in New York City. The family moved the business to Oakland in the 1930s, and it remains the oldest continuously-owned olive oil company in the U.S. You may not have heard of it, because the company primarily does private label work for about 900 independent olive oil stores across the U.S., Bradley says.
The olive oil demo all those years ago inspired Bradley to learn more. He began accompanying his dad to farms around the world to meet with olive oil producers.
“I just fell in love with it,” he says.
About a year later, he and his sister, Claire, joined forces to co-manage the family’s first olive oil shop, Amphora Nueva, in Berkeley. The brand has since expanded to locations in Lafayette, San Anselmo, the Castro Valley Marketplace and most recently Danville.
“I just decided to become an expert on it and make it kind of my life,” Bradley says.
People have consumed olive oil for millennia, but new information about its health benefits continues to emerge, he says. Today, the company measures the antioxidants, polyphenols and several other chemical parameters of their olive oils.
The company also draws its name, Amphora Nueva, from a blend of old and new: an amphora is a ceramic storage jar used for holding oil and other materials since ancient times, and nueva means new in Spanish. These days the company stores its olive oil in stainless steel vessels called fustis, imported from Italy — not amphorae.
The retailer also offers about 20 varieties of aged balsamic vinegars in flavors like elderflower, grapefruit and lychee, which are less acidic than many balsamic vinegars on the market and can be used not only in salad dressings but as mixers with carbonated water or in cocktails, Bradley says.
Teaching about olive oils
Now, Bradley puts his teaching skills to use educating community members about the merits of fresh olive oil – which can be surprisingly hard to come by.
An often-cited U.C. Davis study found that many brands of extra virgin olive oil don’t meet international extra virgin olive oil standards. Additionally, many olive oils that are sold are already rancid and have oxidized long before their expiration date, Bradley explains.
In fact, he says, the study found that in a blind tasting, most Americans preferred the rancid olive oil over the fresh olive oil, because that’s what they’re used to.
“If you’ve ever bought like a $5.99 bottle of olive oil in a plastic bottle, you bought probably something that wasn’t extra virgin,” he says.
Bradley offers monthly “Olive Oil 101” classes at the new Danville location, teaching attendees about how to identify fresh olive oil. The class typically includes a blind tasting between old and fresh olive oil.
“Fresh olive oil should have a beautiful, fresh, lively flavor. If it just tastes like liquid fat, it’s probably devoid of any of the health benefits you should be getting in your olive oil,” he says.
In-store classes often fill up two or three weeks before each monthly session, he says. Email him at [email protected] or call the store to sign up. He also teaches private group classes about olive oil for corporations, book clubs and more.
Bradley’s tips for identifying fresh olive oil:
- Look for the harvest date to assess freshness, rather than the best by date.
- Look for single varietal extra virgin olive oils.
- This is often harder to find on a label, but see if it contains polyphenols – the main health component of extra virgin olive oil that gives it a bitter, peppery, slightly grassy taste.
- Many vendors say their olive oils are “first cold pressed,” but the label isn’t very meaningful, Bradley says. “That should for the most part be assumed. If you’re buying a decent olive oil, it’s first cold pressed.”
- If you can taste the olive oil, you should. Otherwise, he says, “You really have no idea what you’re getting.”
Amphora Nueva has five Bay Area locations:
- 2928 Domingo Ave., Berkeley, 510-704-9300
- 429 San Anselmo Ave, San Anselmo, 415-459-8832
- 3295 Castro Valley Blvd, Castro Valley, 510-586-0183
- 7 Fiesta Ln, Lafayette, 925-310-4681
- 401 Hartz Ave, Danville, 925-208-1816
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