How Much Olive Oil Does a Restaurant Kitchen Use?

There is no single figure: a restaurant's olive oil use depends on covers, menu style and whether extra virgin is used for cooking, finishing or both. The reliable way to know is to measure one normal week, split by job, and order from that.

Olive oil is one of those ingredients that quietly disappears. It goes into pans, dressings, marinades, bread service and the final drizzle on a plate, and few kitchens track it as closely as proteins or wine. That makes it hard to budget for, and easy to run out of on a busy Saturday. Here is how to get a clear picture.

Why does olive oil usage vary so much between restaurants?

Two kitchens with the same number of covers can use very different amounts. The main factors are:

• Cuisine. Italian, Spanish, Greek and Middle Eastern menus lean heavily on olive oil in almost every dish. A grill-led or French-style kitchen may use more butter and neutral oil.
• Bread service. If every table gets bread with a dish of oil, that alone can account for a large share of your usage.
• Cooking oil choice. Some kitchens fry and sauté in extra virgin; others keep a cheaper oil for heat and save extra virgin for finishing.
• Dressings and marinades. Salad-heavy menus and kitchens that marinate meat, fish or vegetables in oil get through far more.
• Waste. Oil left in open tins, spilled when decanting or tipped away from bread dishes all adds up.

How do you work out how much olive oil your kitchen uses?

The simplest method is a one-week audit:

1. Count your opening stock of every olive oil container on a Monday morning.
2. Log every new bottle or tin opened during the week, by section if you can (pass, larder, grill, pastry).
3. Count closing stock the following Monday.
4. Divide total litres used by covers served to get a litres-per-100-covers figure.

That last number is the useful one. Once you know it, you can forecast for a quiet January or a packed December simply by multiplying by expected covers. Repeat the audit every few months, and whenever the menu changes significantly.

As a purely illustrative example: if a kitchen pours roughly 15 ml per table for bread and serves 60 tables a night, bread service alone is close to a litre a night before a single pan has been oiled. Plug in your own numbers, as portion sizes vary enormously.

Should restaurants use extra virgin olive oil for cooking or only for finishing?

Both approaches are common, and neither is wrong. Extra virgin olive oil is perfectly suitable for most everyday cooking, as we explain in Can You Cook with Extra Virgin Olive Oil? Many kitchens nonetheless split their oil into two roles:

• A workhorse oil for sautéing, roasting and confit, where the flavour is less prominent and volume is high.
• A finishing oil for bread service, raw dishes, crudo, burrata, soups and the final drizzle, where guests actually taste it.

Splitting usage this way usually means the finishing oil is a smaller share of total volume, which makes a high-quality, characterful extra virgin much easier to justify on cost. It is also the oil guests notice and ask about.

How should a restaurant buy and store olive oil?

Once you know your weekly figure, buy in quantities you will use within a sensible window. Olive oil does not improve with age, and once a large container is opened, light, heat and air all start to work on it. A few practical points:

• Keep stock away from ovens, grills and windows.
• Decant into smaller, dark or opaque bottles for the pass, and keep the bulk container sealed.
• Rotate stock: first in, first out.
• Ask your supplier for a recent lab analysis so you know the oil started fresh.

If you are weighing up suppliers, our guide to choosing an olive oil supplier for your restaurant covers the questions worth asking.

How ours compares

We supply restaurants, delis and shops across the UK by the litre with a single-estate, Coratina-led extra virgin olive oil from the hills between Puglia and Basilicata. It is cold pressed, unfiltered and bottled at source, and our latest independent lab report (Studio Analisi Chimiche e Ambientali, January 2026) shows 687 mg/kg polyphenols and 0.36% free acidity, well inside the extra virgin limit of 0.8%. You can read the full figures on our lab results page.

Its bold, peppery character makes it a natural finishing and bread-service oil. For trade pricing and volumes, see our wholesale page or email thepugliancollective@gmail.com with your rough weekly usage. If you would like to taste it first, our 500ml, 750ml and 3L bottles are available to order online.

Quick answers

What is the easiest way to estimate restaurant olive oil usage?
Count stock at the start and end of one normal week, then divide litres used by covers served.

Do restaurants use extra virgin olive oil for frying?
Many do for everyday cooking, while others keep extra virgin for finishing and bread service where its flavour matters most.

How often should a restaurant reorder olive oil?
Often enough that opened containers are used up quickly. Your weekly usage figure tells you the right order size and frequency.