Olive Oil a Leading Focus in Italy’s Crackdown on Food Fraud

Summary

Italy’s food fraud pre­ven­tion efforts in 2024 focused on olive oil, with more than 8,200 of 54,000 food inspec­tions tar­get­ing veg­etable oils, lead­ing to the dis­cov­ery of dis­crep­an­cies in nearly 15 per­cent of sam­ples taken. The national dig­i­tal olive oil reg­istry, com­bined with broad con­trols and a spe­cial­ized police force, played a key role in pre­vent­ing food fraud in the olive oil sec­tor, lead­ing to the seizure of large quan­ti­ties of non-com­pli­ant olive oil and safe­guard­ing the rep­u­ta­tion of ​‘Made in Italy’ prod­ucts.

A sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of Italy’s food fraud pre­ven­tion efforts in 2024 focused on olive oil.

According to the new report of the cen­tral inspec­torate for qual­ity pro­tec­tion and anti-fraud of agri-food prod­ucts (ICQRF), more than 8,200 of 54,000 food inspec­tions tar­geted veg­etable oils, with most of them related to extra vir­gin olive oil.

Using a net­work of lab­o­ra­to­ries main­tained by the inspec­torate and its part­ner uni­ver­si­ties, ICQRF found that in nearly 15 per­cent of the sam­ples taken, the declared con­tents of the con­tain­ers did not match the actual con­tents.

Overall, 23 per­cent of sam­ples yielded ​“irreg­u­lar results,” mean­ing the con­tents of the con­tainer did not match the labels or there was some other mis­take in iden­ti­fy­ing the prod­uct.

Inspectors found 19 per­cent of the oper­a­tors to be non­com­pli­ant with cur­rent reg­u­la­tions.

In 2024, 72 crim­i­nal reports, 896 admin­is­tra­tive sanc­tions, 843 for­mal warn­ings and 76 seizures cor­re­sponded to the olive oil sec­tor.

Altogether, author­i­ties con­fis­cated 455,000 kilo­grams of non-com­pli­ant olive oil val­ued at more than €4 mil­lion.

These fig­ures make olive oil one of the most heav­ily sanc­tioned sec­tors in the Italian agri-food sys­tem.

This focus is no coin­ci­dence. Olive oil is con­sid­ered a high-risk sec­tor due to its sus­cep­ti­bil­ity to fraud.

According to ICQRF, one of the keys to the anti-fraud oper­a­tions is the national dig­i­tal olive oil reg­istry (RTO).

The RTO is a sys­tem meant to trace the olive oil sup­ply chain at the national level. It allows author­i­ties to con­trol and mon­i­tor in real-time every move­ment of olives, olive oil and olive pomace oil.

All olive traders, olive oil mills, bot­tling com­pa­nies, bulk olive oil traders, refiner­ies and pomace deal­ers must main­tain an updated reg­istry for each of their facil­i­ties.

According to ICQRF, the national dig­i­tal olive oil reg­istry, com­bined with broad con­trols in the region and the deploy­ment of a spe­cial­ized police force to detect fraud, is a glob­ally unique fea­ture for pre­vent­ing food fraud.

In its report, ICQRF included sev­eral exam­ples of the numer­ous coor­di­nated oper­a­tions con­ducted by the agency and its spe­cial­ized police forces in 2024.

In Veneto, dis­crep­an­cies total­ing more than 72,000 kilo­grams were iden­ti­fied between phys­i­cal stock records and dig­i­tal reg­istry records.

In Umbria, author­i­ties uncov­ered a fraud­u­lent scheme involv­ing E.U.-origin oil passed off as Italian, along with blends of seed oils and lower-grade olive oils sold as pre­mium extra vir­gin olive oil.

In Tuscany, inves­ti­ga­tors shut down the sale of coun­ter­feit extra vir­gin olive oil made from seed oil and pomace, col­ored with chloro­phyll and beta-carotene.

In Campania, 8,000 liters of falsely labeled extra vir­gin olive oil were seized after tests revealed adul­ter­ation with sun­flower oil and syn­thetic col­orants.

One of the largest seizures occurred in Bari province, where 340,000 kilo­grams of unreg­is­tered, organic, vir­gin olive oil, worth approx­i­mately €3 mil­lion, were con­fis­cated.

In Liguria, 18,000 liters of E.U. olive oil were sold as high-value Taggiasco Italian oil, while €230,000 worth of prod­uct was traded off the books.

In the province of Rome, more than 100,000 liters of irreg­u­lar olive oil des­tined for restau­rants were taken off the mar­ket.

Some enforce­ment efforts extended beyond Italy’s bor­ders. Following a tip from French author­i­ties, Italian inspec­tors inter­cepted mis­la­beled extra vir­gin olive oil at the bor­der, lead­ing to the seizure of nearly 92 tons of veg­etable oils and more than 10,000 falsely branded pack­ages.

In 2024, agri-food exports from Italy exceeded €70 bil­lion, eight per­cent more than in the pre­vi­ous year.

As a whole, the agri-food sec­tor rep­re­sents 15 per­cent of the Italian Gross Domestic Product, with a turnover exceed­ing €200 bil­lion.

“This remark­able achieve­ment would not be pos­si­ble with­out an effec­tive con­trol sys­tem that ensures the authen­tic­ity and safety of our prod­ucts, safe­guard­ing the rep­u­ta­tion of ​‘Made in Italy’ and pro­tect­ing the work of pro­duc­ers who fol­low the rules,” Francesco Lollobrigida, min­is­ter of agri­cul­ture, food sov­er­eignty and forests, said dur­ing the pre­sen­ta­tion of the report.

“Controls play a cru­cial role along the entire sup­ply chain, from farm to table. Competent author­i­ties such as ICQRF are at the fore­front of ensur­ing that Italian prod­ucts meet high qual­ity stan­dards,” he added.

“In addi­tion to ter­ri­to­r­ial sur­veil­lance, ICQRF works in part­ner­ship with inter­na­tional bod­ies, e‑commerce plat­forms, and cus­toms offices to pre­vent the spread of fal­si­fied and coun­ter­feit prod­ucts, which threaten the rep­u­ta­tion of ​‘Made in Italy’ in global mar­kets,” Lollobrigida con­tin­ued.

“Thanks to these activ­i­ties, thou­sands of falsely labeled prod­ucts are seized each year, pro­tect­ing both con­sumers and pro­duc­ers who invest in qual­ity and authen­tic­ity,” he con­cluded.