Olives. Why are they in sunflower oil?

[Whoamireally]

Too many times to count now, have bought olives from the supermarket and when I've looked at the list of ingredients, they are packed in sunflower oil.

Why? You just would have thought logically they'd be in olive oil but obviously not. Is this purely a cost thing? Or does it carry flavours/ preserve them better?

Just pondering really, am sure someone will know!

The only other reason I can think of is maybe the bottlers are heat treating the bottles. Sunflower oil has a higher burning point than olive oil so they could heat treat it without damaging the flavour.

Or maybe it's just cost. Sunflower oil is much cheaper.

They use it for 'fresh' olives too now as well. It has to be cost doesn't it?

It's the cost.

And alo, things that are preserved in oil, the oil just gets wasted doesn't it? So it would be pretty wasteful to pack them in olive oil.

Makes more sense to pack them in a cheap flavourless oil like sunflower oil.