EU Audit Finds Gaps in Olive Oil Controls Despite Strong Regulatory Framework

Summary

The European Court of Auditors found that while E.U. reg­u­la­tions on olive oil qual­ity and safety are ade­quate, enforce­ment by Member States is uneven, lead­ing to gaps in con­trols for con­t­a­m­i­nants and pes­ti­cide residues. The audit revealed weak­nesses in trace­abil­ity checks and lab­o­ra­tory analy­ses, with most non-com­pli­ance cases attrib­uted to degra­da­tion rather than inten­tional fraud, prompt­ing rec­om­men­da­tions for improved Commission over­sight, clar­ity on blend­ing and labelling rules, and enhanced guid­ance on con­t­a­m­i­nant checks and trace­abil­ity reg­is­ters.

More needs to be done to ensure that olive oil mar­keted, con­sumed and traded within and by the European Union fully com­plies with E.U. qual­ity and safety stan­dards.

A spe­cial report pub­lished by the European Court of Auditors (ECA) exam­ined the effec­tive­ness of the E.U. reg­u­la­tory frame­work by assess­ing its appli­ca­tion in selected coun­tries between 2018 and 2023.

The audit found that exist­ing reg­u­la­tions ade­quately address issues of olive oil authen­tic­ity, qual­ity and trace­abil­ity.

However, the report con­cluded that these rules do not always trans­late into effec­tive con­trols on the ground, largely due to uneven imple­men­ta­tion by Member States.

According to the Court, the prin­ci­pal weak­ness lies not in the absence of rules, but in how they are enforced, mon­i­tored and reported. Follow-up actions after non-com­pli­ance — such as reclas­si­fi­ca­tion, with­drawal or sanc­tions — are not always applied promptly or con­sis­tently.

For the audit, Italy and Spain were selected as major pro­duc­ers, Greece as both a pro­ducer and trader, and Belgium as a key import­ing and dis­tri­b­u­tion mar­ket.

A sig­nif­i­cant vul­ner­a­bil­ity iden­ti­fied con­cerns con­t­a­m­i­nants and pes­ti­cide residues. The Court noted that con­trols in this area remain uneven across the E.U., largely due to reg­u­la­tory gaps.

While pes­ti­cide residues are cov­ered by a clear frame­work and rou­tinely checked through risk-based sam­pling, other con­t­a­m­i­nants — includ­ing min­eral oils and plas­ti­ciz­ers — are sub­ject to fewer E.U. require­ments.

Such sub­stances can enter olive oil through con­tact with pro­cess­ing equip­ment, lubri­cants used in mills or har­vest­ing machin­ery, pack­ag­ing mate­ri­als, stor­age tanks, or trans­port con­tain­ers.

Because E.U. rules do not con­sis­tently set lim­its or min­i­mum checks for these con­t­a­m­i­nants, Member States apply diver­gent approaches, often with­out doc­u­mented risk analy­sis.

Although the E.U. imports roughly 9 per­cent of its olive oil, the audit found that checks for con­t­a­m­i­nants and pes­ti­cide residues in imported oils were lim­ited or absent in the coun­tries exam­ined.

Shortcomings were also iden­ti­fied in trace­abil­ity, a core pil­lar of olive oil safety and authen­tic­ity. While E.U. leg­is­la­tion requires basic trace­abil­ity, it does not spec­ify how checks should be con­ducted, lead­ing to diver­gent national inter­pre­ta­tions.

In some cases, author­i­ties did not ver­ify whether the ori­gin declared on labels could be traced through­out all stages of the sup­ply chain.

The ECA added that dif­fer­ences in data col­lec­tion meth­ods and report­ing for­mats pre­vent mean­ing­ful com­par­i­son of trace­abil­ity checks across Member States, lim­it­ing the European Commission’s abil­ity to assess over­all sys­tem per­for­mance.

In one trace­abil­ity case study, audi­tors found that some prod­ucts could not be fully traced back to their declared ori­gin, par­tic­u­larly when sup­ply chains involved mul­ti­ple Member States or non‑E.U. sources.

Despite these issues, the Court noted that Spain and Italy imple­ment a wide range of mea­sures broadly aligned with E.U. require­ments.

In Italy, the min­i­mum num­ber of cat­e­gory checks was met in all audited years except dur­ing the COVID-19 period of 2020 – 21. Authorities also con­ducted sig­nif­i­cantly more labelling checks than required. In Spain, min­i­mum cat­e­gory checks were not con­sis­tently achieved after 2020, but this was par­tially off­set by tar­geted con­trol cam­paigns and addi­tional inspec­tions.

Greece con­sis­tently remained below min­i­mum inspec­tion thresh­olds, while Belgium gen­er­ally met them.

The audit also iden­ti­fied weak­nesses in lab­o­ra­tory analy­ses. Full con­for­mity checks require test­ing 15 physico-chem­i­cal para­me­ters that assess qual­ity, fresh­ness and authen­tic­ity, includ­ing free acid­ity, per­ox­ide value, ultra­vi­o­let absorp­tion indices, fatty acid com­po­si­tion, sterols, waxes and alkyl esters.

According to the report, only Spain con­sis­tently ana­lyzed all 15 required para­me­ters through­out the audited period. While Italy, Greece and Belgium reported con­duct­ing com­plete con­for­mity checks, lab­o­ra­to­ries in prac­tice did not always test all para­me­ters for each sam­ple.

The ECA said this dis­crep­ancy high­lights a struc­tural gap between admin­is­tra­tive report­ing and actual lab­o­ra­tory activ­ity, com­pounded by uneven lab­o­ra­tory capac­ity, accred­i­ta­tion gaps and delays in test­ing.

As a result, some olive oils may for­mally appear com­pli­ant while avoid­ing deeper scrutiny.

One of the audit’s most sig­nif­i­cant find­ings is that most non-com­pli­ance cases stem from degra­da­tion rather than delib­er­ate fraud.

The Court found a clear diver­gence between lab­o­ra­tory results and sen­sory eval­u­a­tions. While 93 per­cent of sam­ples com­plied with their declared cat­e­gory based on chem­i­cal analy­sis, only 68 per­cent met the same stan­dard in organolep­tic assess­ments.

Many oils failed sen­sory eval­u­a­tion due to degra­da­tion, aging or poor stor­age, which can gen­er­ate defects with­out breach­ing chem­i­cal thresh­olds. As a result, con­sumers may pur­chase oils that do not meet cat­e­gory expec­ta­tions even in the absence of inten­tional fraud.

The ECA high­lighted best prac­tices in Italy and Spain, where sen­sory panel eval­u­a­tions are sys­tem­at­i­cally inte­grated into con­for­mity checks and trig­ger fol­low-up actions when non-com­pli­ance is detected.

Both coun­tries also apply risk-based inspec­tion strate­gies, pri­or­i­tiz­ing higher-risk oper­a­tors based on vol­umes han­dled, mar­ket place­ment and com­pli­ance his­tory, with con­trols span­ning the entire sup­ply chain.

Italy and Spain were fur­ther cited for hav­ing more deter­rent sanc­tion sys­tems, with penal­ties that reflect prod­uct vol­umes and eco­nomic gains from mis­la­belling. Italy, in par­tic­u­lar, was praised for rel­a­tively swift enforce­ment and its manda­tory elec­tronic trace­abil­ity reg­is­ters, which enable mass-bal­ance checks that exceed E.U. require­ments.

Finally, the Court con­cluded that European Commission over­sight remains insuf­fi­cient, as annual reports sub­mit­ted by Member States are often incom­plete and not com­pa­ra­ble.

According to the ECA, the Commission lacks detailed insight into national risk analy­ses, con­trol plans and oper­a­tional prac­tices, mean­ing some enforce­ment gaps are only iden­ti­fied through audits.

The Court there­fore rec­om­mended strength­en­ing Commission over­sight, clar­i­fy­ing blend­ing and labelling rules, improv­ing guid­ance on con­t­a­m­i­nant checks — includ­ing imports — and sup­port­ing the devel­op­ment and inter­op­er­abil­ity of trace­abil­ity reg­is­ters across the E.U.