Lemon Oil (Spain)

Lemon oil from all corners of the world is one of Ultra’s core products.

Lemon has a place in many culinary uses from soft drinks and cocktails to marmalade. However, it can also be used and found in household cleaning products since it can disinfect, deodorise, remove grease and dissolve wax and grime to name but a few uses.

Lemon is also used in aromatherapy to enhance moods and can be used for its anti-bacterial properties in other medicinal applications. In fragrances it gives a fresh uplifting and zesty note to any perfume, as it is highly volatile.

Interestingly the three top producers of fresh lemons in the world are not the countries we would associate with oil production; the top 3 being China, India and Mexico, which account for over 40% of the world production. The Spanish are the largest within Europe producing around 900,000 MT – 1,000,000 MT of fresh lemons in any given good year.

There are two seasons in Spain giving them around 9 months of harvesting during the year. The ‘Fino’ and ‘Primafiori’ type runs from November to March and the ‘Verna’ type from April to July. Depending on the year 20-25% of all lemons are further processed.

Today we associate lemon oil production with Italy and Spain (Europe), Argentina, Bolivia and USA (Americas) and even South Africa who are small producers on the global scale. 

Spain is Europe’s largest producer of fresh lemons and the largest producer of oil.

Lemon oil is obtained by cold expression or steam distillation of lemon’s peel.