Labeling Practices Still Not Up to Par in France, Report Finds

Summary

The French DGCCRF con­ducted a study on olive oil qual­ity in 2016, find­ing that 48 per­cent of the 139 sam­ples col­lected failed to meet cur­rent stan­dards, with most of the defi­cien­cies relat­ing to prod­uct label­ing. The study revealed that label­ing dis­crep­an­cies were the pri­mary issue, with some com­pa­nies sell­ing prod­ucts under mis­lead­ing names or fail­ing to pro­vide accu­rate ori­gin infor­ma­tion, result­ing in warn­ings and injunc­tions.

The French Directorate-General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF) has released its find­ings from a study of olive oil qual­ity con­ducted ​“as part of its annual con­trol plan con­ducted in 2016,” accord­ing to a report pub­lished on the organization’s web­site.

The DGCCRF asserts that the con­trol plan is part of a larger mis­sion to mon­i­tor prod­uct safety and fos­ter the eco­nomic pro­tec­tion of the con­sumer. The results proved less than promis­ing, with 67, or 48 per­cent, of the 139 sam­ples col­lected fail­ing to meet cur­rent stan­dards.

This recent study stems from ongo­ing efforts made by the European Union to effec­tively estab­lish appro­pri­ate mar­ket­ing stan­dards for olive oil and other prod­ucts that incor­po­rate it into their com­po­si­tions.

Regulation (EU) Number 29/2012, passed on January 13, 2012, explains that the dis­tinct sen­sory and nutri­tional traits pre­sented in olive oil ren­der it unique among other veg­etable fats. The doc­u­ment explains that because agri­cul­tural prac­tices vary through­out dif­fer­ent regions, ​“qual­i­ties and tastes [are] remark­ably dif­fer­ent accord­ing to their geo­graph­i­cal ori­gins.” This ulti­mately results in ​“price dif­fer­ences within the same oil cat­e­gory that dis­rupt the mar­ket.” Such dis­tinc­tions dif­fer­en­ti­ate olive oil from other veg­etable prod­ucts, which vary less accord­ing to their coun­try of ori­gin.

The DGCCRF’s report fol­lows its 2015 olive oil con­trol plan, whose results were pub­lished in 2017. At that time, it was noted that adverse weather con­di­tions, the preva­lence of the olive fly and the pathogen Xylella fas­tidiosa had increased the commodity’s price, and that ​“this price pres­sure, which increases com­pe­ti­tion, is the cause of fre­quent fraud that results in high rates of non-com­pli­ance.” That report noted that 41 per­cent of tested prod­ucts did not com­ply with reg­u­la­tions.

The 2018 report states that ​“most of the defi­cien­cies observed by inves­ti­ga­tors relate to prod­uct label­ing.” Labeling dis­crep­an­cies found by the DGCCRF are essen­tially clas­si­fied into dis­putes of organolep­tic traits or ​“non-com­pli­ance with phys­io­chem­i­cal para­me­ters.” While analy­ses did find some mis­lead­ing label­ing relat­ing to sen­sory descrip­tions, the report focuses on incor­rect mar­ket­ing infor­ma­tion related to the ​“absence of an indi­ca­tion of the ori­gin,” and a ​“lack of oblig­a­tory men­tions of net vol­ume and the cat­e­gory of oil.”

Several spe­cific areas of con­cern made them­selves evi­dent through­out the study and could aid in the mod­i­fi­ca­tion of stan­dard­ized label­ing prac­tices. Strikingly, the DGCCRF deter­mined that ​“the rate of non-com­pli­ance” for offend­ing prod­ucts was ​“higher when the indi­ca­tion of ori­gin is not pre­cise and when the oil comes from coun­tries with the largest vol­ume of pro­duc­tion.”

Other offenses were found, includ­ing ​“a com­pany that mar­keted in the food cir­cuit an olive oil clas­si­fied lam­pante by the lab­o­ra­tory” and another that sold prod­ucts ​“under the name ​‘extra vir­gin olive oil,’ while analy­sis revealed that it was a mix­ture of veg­etable oils.” In total, this round of test­ing resulted in 71 warn­ings, 39 injunc­tions, and 3 ​“pre­fec­tural decrees of destruc­tion.”

The pro­por­tion of prod­ucts dis­play­ing anom­alies grew from 41 to 48 per­cent since the DGCCRF pub­lished its last report of this kind. However, this recent edi­tion states that ​“the rate of non-com­pli­ance found dur­ing the con­trols is not rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the real­ity of the mar­ket since the con­trols are ​‘tar­geted’ accord­ing to the infor­ma­tion avail­able to the inves­ti­ga­tors.”

It still stands to be seen whether the insights gained through the inves­ti­ga­tions will trans­late into appro­pri­ate mea­sures that can effec­tively stymie future trans­gres­sions.

• French Directorate-General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control


• The Local