Olive oil fraud has been around for thousands of years. But as rising demand transforms
EVOO into an increasingly valuable commodity and fraudsters find ingenious new ways of
counterfeiting it, the reasons why your olive oil is probably fake continue to grow. This
is why this fraud continues.
Surprisingly, Italy only makes 15 percent of the world's olive oil. Even so, as The
Guardian reports, it's the second largest exporter of olive oil after top producer Spain,
which dominates 45 percent of the global market, but with prices 60 percent cheaper than Italy's.
That makes "Made in Italy" designations both highly coveted and highly falsified. As The
New York Times warned,
"Much of the 'extra-virgin Italian olive oil' flooding the world's market shelves is neither
Italian nor virginal."
So, wait, what's going on here?
As Larry Olmsted, author of Real Food, Fake Food, notes, much of the oil that comes from
Italy is bottled but not produced there. In recent years, countless undercover operations
by the Italian police have uncovered massive scams in which tons of cheap, low-quality
oils from Syria, Turkey, North Africa, and Spain are being bottled and sold as authentic
Italian extra virgin to foreign markets. Among the biggest victims of this olive oil fraud
is the U.S., to which Italy exports around 30 percent of its olive oil.
In 2013, a report published by the European Parliament crowned olive oil as Europe's most
counterfeited agricultural product. Despite attempted legislation and crackdowns, a 2020
report by the U.S.'s American Botanical Council found that adulteration of olive oil is still
rampant. The report highlights two major reasons for the ongoing fakery: low availability of
high-quality olive oil and soaring demand.
Much more valuable and beneficial than other vegetable and seed oils, all-natural extra
virgin olive oil involves much more care, time, and effort to produce. Faking it amounts
to making it — in terms of money. The financial rewards have skyrocketed in keeping with demand.
According to Statista, in the last 20 years, Americans' olive oil consumption has increased
by 58 percent.
At the same time, Olive Oil Times reports that falling levels in Italy as well as other
Mediterranean olive-producing countries such as Greece, Portugal, and Tunisia mean that
worldwide production levels in 2020 are down at the same time as demand is soaring, particularly
for high-quality extra virgin olive oil.
A big reason for all the fake EVOO on supermarket shelves can be traced to the Italian mafia.
Or rather, the "Agromafia." With counterfeit olive oil offering profit margins as high
as 700 percent, organized crime has switched from drugs to more lucrative "yellow gold."
As one EU investigator observed in The New Yorker,
"Profits are comparable to cocaine trafficking, with none of the risks."
A 60 Minutes investigation found that authentic additive-free EVOO can sell for $50 a gallon,
fake olive oil costs a mere $7 to produce.
As Securing Industry explains, in Italy, the Agromafia has infiltrated every step of the
supply chain from farm to table. Organized crime influence extends from the price of
olive crops and the way the fruit is transported and sorted to doctoring oil and mislabelling
bottles. Even bottles stamped with Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) labels — which
certify the contents hail from a renowned Italian olive oil region where they were subject
to controls — have been subject to counterfeit.
The Agromafia even has control over supermarket chains, which helps explain why an estimated
50 percent of olive oil in Italian supermarkets is fake. In 2019, experts estimated the Agromafia's
annual turnover is around $29 billion.
One reason fakery is so common is due to countless myths and misinformation surrounding olive
oil. The Guardian journalist Alex Renton recounts conducting a blind EVOO tasting in which a
panel of "experts" — an olive oil importer, an Italian deli owner, and some renowned foodies
— were given a dozen products to rate.
The outcome was humiliating. The importer rated his own premium product "disgusting."
The deli owner praised a suspect "Italian extra virgin" oil purchased for $2.37 at a
discount store. And the foodies favored the scandal-tainted Bertolli brand, a leading
brand in the U.S.
In Extra Virginity, Tom Mueller describes how Bertolli succeeded due to a perverse twist
in European law that, until 2001, permitted any olive oil bottled in Italy to be sold
as "Italian olive oil." According to Mueller, around 80 percent of Bertolli's oil wasn't
from Italy at all, despite references on the label.
Moreover, like many of its competitors, Bertolli advertised its olive oils as being "smooth"
and "gentle," adjectives associated with low-quality and doctored olive oils. A characteristic
of authentic EVOOs are their bold flavors, often described as "bitter and pungent."
Consequently, many brands succeed at selling low-quality oils at high prices and producers
of authentic EVOO have difficulty selling the real deal, because ill-informed consumers
deem them to be overpriced and unpleasant-tasting.
"Didn't you lose a lot of money on that other investment, the one through email…"
"You know what, Toby, when the son of the deposed king of Nigeria emails you directly,
asking for help, you help."
While making high-quality extra-virgin olive oil is a complex, time-consuming, and expensive
process, as Tom Mueller points out, faking it is relatively easy, rapid, and cheap. One
of the most common counterfeit methods is to mix EVOO with lower grade olive oils from
other countries or with other oils such as canola, soy, and even hazelnut oil.
Counterfeit oil is also deodorized, which involves producing oil from actual rotten
olives. On its own, deodorized oil is inedible. However, after undergoing a gentle refining
process that leaves few telltale chemical traces, this neutral oil can be blended with
real olive oil and sold as "extra virgin." Today, deodorized oil accounts for a significant
portion of the fake olive oil that ends up on the world's supermarket shelves.
In recent years, quality inspectors have gotten increasingly wise to these deodorized oils.
However, as Mueller concedes, there are so many different — and increasingly sophisticated,
high tech — methods of deodorizing olive oil that the fraudsters are always seemingly
a few steps ahead of the authorities.
As methods of adulterating olive oil become more sophisticated, it's increasingly difficult
for olive oil specialists and law enforcement, let alone consumers, to detect a fake.
Such scams often operate at high-tech refineries, and the resulting product is difficult to
detect via chemical analysis. Recognizing that laboratory tests often fail to detect
fakes, in 1991, the European Union established strict taste and aroma requirements for all
grades of olive oil.
The E.U. also created official tasting panels certified by the U.N.'s International Olive
Oil Council.
Yet, the North American Olive Oil Association argues taste tests aren't accurate indicators
of purity because tasters can't always detect adulteration. While testers may be highly
trained, purity can only be measured in a laboratory. The problem with lab tests, however,
is the sheer scale involved with applying them to all potentially suspect oil. Bottom
line? It's still a major challenge to detect fraud.
While taste tests and lab tests have their pros and cons, the biggest problem with testing
olive oil's purity is that it often doesn't occur at all.
As a 2020 article in Food Control underscores, even the most sophisticated methods are only
applied to EVOO fraud incidents after the fact. So, while testing might reduce the impact
of a specific discovered fraud, they do little to prevent future incidents.
According to The New Yorker, Italian authorities rarely carry out panel tasting tests. If they
do, the tests only take place once the offending olive oil has already been bottled and sold.
And if an oil does fail a taste test, it's common for powerful oil producers to demand
a retest from a more favorable panel or to appeal the verdict by claiming the samples
were tampered with.
In 2015, the National Consumer League conducted a study, purchasing 11 popular olive oil brands
from major retailers — including Whole Foods, Safeway, and Giant — only to discover that
six out of the 11 weren't extra virgin at all. As Time reported, while NCL identified
the five oils that passed the test, those that failed were kept secret. As NCL's executive
director, Sally Greenberg, revealed, this was because the companies accused of faking
it "made a huge stink."
In 2019, the NCL conducted a follow-up study and discovered that half the bottles tested
still failed to meet international standards for EVOO.
Such findings are all too common. Forbes cites an investigation into seven reputed Italian
olive oil producers — among them Bertolli, Sasso, and Carapelli — that allegedly found
all guilty of selling adulterated olive oil as extra virgin "made in Italy."
Recently, Selo Olive published a list of offending labels embroiled in accusations of fraudulent
oil, and among them are some of the leading brands on America's supermarket shelves. As
olive oil expert/taster David Neuman stresses, after the press that olive oil fraud has received
over the years, supermarkets are aware of what they're stocking.
If some retailers turn a blind eye to potentially fraudulent oils so that they can compete for
customers with affordable prices, many consumers are only too willing to participate.
Seduced by bargain prices, well-known "reputable" brands, and meaningless industry buzzwords
such as "pure," "Italian", and "traditional," they ignore any misgivings as they head to
the check-out counter.
Neuman believes that over time, consumers have become conditioned to buying inexpensive
bad oils, even if they're ashamed to admit they're encouraging ongoing fraud. As he tells
Forbes,
"The chain stores keep buying because it sells and everybody has become addicted to the low
prices."
Because of this, there's no incentive for retailers to stock authentic EVOO that is
more expensive.
"May I help you?"
"Oh no thanks — just browsing."
Olive oil fraudsters are also encouraged by the absence of government control over olive
oil imports. As David Neuman confessed to Forbes, the U.S. is the, quote, "dumping ground"
for fraudulent olive oil, adding that it lacks the resources to monitor over 350,000 tons
of olive oil entering the country annually.
According to Larry Olmsted, the Food and Drug Administration has been aware about EVOO fraud
for decades. Yet, based on its failure to conduct consistent testing, it seemingly views
such fraud as relatively rare or an issue of little importance.
Tom Mueller cites an FDA official who says the agency prefers to focus on products where
there's an obvious public health issue. However, as a top European food fraud investor explained
to 60 Minutes, if you adulterate EVOO with seed oil, such as peanut or sunflower oil,
and contaminated bottles reach consumers who are allergic,
"You are sending them bombs."
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