The olive oil in your house might be fake
In 2015 , Time came out with a story whose headline looked ominous in big black font: “This Is The Big Lie About Your Olive Oil.” The piece goes straight to the point — that when the National Consumers League (NCL) conducted tests on 11 different olive oils purchased at different supermarkets, six of them — that’s more than half — weren’t actually “extra virgin” as they claim on the label.
Just the year before, the New York Times (NYT) released an interactive feature on olive oil, which revealed the same thing the NCL discovered — and even more. Among these discoveries are that much of the olive oil marketed as Italian olive oil actually comes from Spain, Morocco and Tunisia; and that the oil from the crushed olives of these areas are then shipped off to Italy, where cheaper oil is smuggled into the same port. The importance of these facts will be discussed in the next section.
These are just a few of the instances that fake and substandard olive oil have taken the spotlight. According to the Elliot Review, the most referenced document that looks into the global problem of food fraud, olive oil belongs to the list of food products most susceptible to fraud.
How do you fake olive oil?
In order to determine what is real and what is fake olive oil, we have to define what makes olive oil “extra virgin” first. Extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) is made by crushing the olives soon after they are picked. The process should involve no chemicals, heat or industrial refining for it to merit the “extra virgin” label. Virgin olive oil, while going through a similar process, will involve the latter part — it is a blend that goes through temperature changes and industrial refining; it is cheaper and generally more acidic.
Going back to the NYT interactive feature, one of the ways olive oil is falsified was revealed: misrepresentation in the form of claiming Italian olive oil is, in fact, from Italy when it really isn’t. Another way is to sell substandard oil — the feature revealed that some refineries in Naples take the smuggled cheaper oil and mix them with olive oil to create a cheaper alternative while still selling the product as “extra virgin” olive oil.
Even worse than refineries cutting the olive oil is when they pass off a much cheaper, different oil variety as extra virgin olive oil. They do this by mixing vegetable oil with beta carotene to disguise its flavor, and chlorophyll to replicate the color of authentic extra virgin olive oil. These are then also labeled “extra virgin” and “Packed in Italy” or “Imported from Italy” — both of which are legal in the country, despite the fact that refineries are supposed to include the source countries on the label.
It was also in 2015, following the Time article, that it was reported that the Italian customs agency tested 20 different brands of olive oil for substandard and fake products — and nine were found to be lower quality oil. Among these nine are some big brands such as Bertolli, Primadonna and Santa Sabina, which are being sold through supermarket chain Eurospin; Carapelli, Coricelli and Sasso.
What’s being done about it?
The nonprofit organization International Foundation for the Conservation of Natural Resources (IFCNR) listed some of the steps being taken to fight the spread of fake and substandard olive oil, specifically the extra virgin variety. This includes the European Union setting regulatory framework and standards to combat fraud as early as 1991; federal agents in the US tracking down fake EVOO made of soybean oil; the North American Olive Oil Association (NAOOA) filing a suit against Capatriti olive oil for selling “pomace oil” as “100% pure olive oil” in 2013.
The Italian government, who deals with a large amount of substandard olive oil marketed as “extra virgin,” uses a special branch of the Italian Carabinieri trained to detect substandard oil based on smell. They also raid refineries regularly to make sure the industry stays regulated.
However, cases like the one filed by the NAOOA are rare, and companies involved in the falsification of olive oil are rarely prosecuted. This is because it’s hard to prove that the owners and executives had prior knowledge of the fraudulent activities in their refineries. What would help is to have a supply chain tracking system that clearly shows their approval of all the process across their production chain, making it easy to track and prosecute the people truly involved in the manufacture, distribution and retail of substandard oil. Until then, the olive oil industry just might keep suffering — olive oil has been largely devalued because of the spread of substandard products in the market.
Other than that, with the continuous development of the blockchain technology, it is seen as a solution to address the ongoing food fraud. Its features — the secure verification system, decentralized information block creation, easy access, scalability and development options — make it an ideal solution for tracking the food supply chain efficiently and cost-effectively.
Our very own SparX is one among the few that use this technology to revolutionize and add another layer of security to the food supply chains. You can learn more about how we track food sources using decentralized blockchain technology at SparXchain.io.
