Italian Police Seize €170,000 of Mislabeled Olive Oil

Italian author­i­ties have com­pleted one of the country’s most exten­sive oper­a­tions against the sale of mis­la­beled olive oil.

Supported by the experts from the Ministry of Agriculture, the tech­ni­cal depart­ment of the Financial Police inves­ti­gated 183 com­pa­nies involved in olive oil imports and com­mer­cial­iza­tion.

Police offi­cers seized olive oil sam­ples in many loca­tions to ver­ify that the con­tents matched the labels on bot­tles and con­tain­ers.

More than 27 per­cent of sam­ples failed the test. Officers said 2.3 mil­lion liters of olive oil ready to be intro­duced into the mar­ket vio­lated European and Italian laws gov­ern­ing olive oil qual­ity, bot­tling and com­mer­cial­iza­tion.

According to the min­istry’s Central Inspectorate for Quality Protection and Fraud Prevention of Agri-Food Products (ICQRF), 102 olive oil sam­ples were exam­ined dur­ing oper­a­tion Verum et Oleum (Real and Oily, in Latin).

“Among those, 25 showed irreg­u­lar­i­ties due to the lower qual­ity of the olive oil, which was labeled as extra vir­gin olive oil but proved to be vir­gin olive oil,” the offi­cers said.

According to Commission Regulation EEC No 2568/91, extra vir­gin olive oil must be pro­duced solely through mechan­i­cal processes at tem­per­a­tures not exceed­ing 27 ºC.

Furthermore, extra vir­gin olive oil also must bear spe­cific chem­i­cal and organolep­tic qual­i­ties, with free fatty acid con­tent, expressed as oleic acid, never exceed­ing 0.8 grams per 100 grams.

Virgin olive oils – char­ac­ter­ized by a rea­son­ably good fla­vor and odor and a free fatty acid con­tent of less than 2 grams per 100 grams – are often mixed with refined olive oils to cre­ate lower qual­ity prod­ucts to sell at con­sid­er­ably lower prices than extra vir­gin olive oil.

Olive oil coun­ter­feit­ers often re-label vir­gin and refined olive oil prod­ucts that do not clas­sify as extra vir­gin to sell them at the higher prices nor­mally com­manded by extra vir­gin olive oil.

According to International Olive Council data, extra vir­gin olive oil cur­rently sells for €430 per 100 kilo­grams in Bari, the bench­mark Italian mar­ket, 7.5 per­cent lower than dur­ing the same period last year. However, extra vir­gin olive oil prices remain 2.5‑percent above the aver­age of the past decade.

Coldiretti, a farm­ers’ asso­ci­a­tion, said most of the olive oil seized in the oper­a­tion was imported. In a note, the asso­ci­a­tion cheered the oper­a­tion which is con­sid­ered essen­tial to defend the legit­i­mate mar­ket of the high-qual­ity extra vir­gin olive oils.

“In 2021, Italy has seen the arrival from abroad of more than 540 mil­lion kilo­grams of olive oil, almost twice the national pro­duc­tion,” Coldiretti said.

The fake bot­tles, the asso­ci­a­tion added, ​“got into the coun­try through oper­a­tors present through­out the whole nation and through the usual access points for raw mate­ri­als. Fraud does not only deceive cit­i­zens, but it also causes the prices of qual­ity prod­ucts to col­lapse.”

Operation Verum et Oleum also reached Puglia, the south­ern Italian region respon­si­ble for the largest por­tion of the country’s olive oil pro­duc­tion.

The local chap­ter of the Italian Agricultural Confederation (CIA) warned how olive oil fraud can dam­age thou­sands of legit­i­mate high-qual­ity olive oil pro­duc­ers.

“The strug­gle [against coun­ter­feit­ing] sees CIA and olive oil pro­duc­ers work side by side with the judi­ciary and the police depart­ment,” said Gennaro Sicolo, CIA Puglia’s regional direc­tor.

“Food fraud does not only rep­re­sent crim­i­nal oper­a­tions which affect cit­i­zens’ health and the econ­omy, they also rep­re­sent a huge dam­age to the rep­u­ta­tion of Puglia’s pro­duc­ers,” he added.

At the end of the oper­a­tion, 10 peo­ple were reported for pos­si­ble vio­la­tion of trade laws, 33 were fined for vio­la­tions in account­ing records and for not hav­ing main­tained the trace­abil­ity require­ment for the han­dling of olive oil.

The police seizures of prod­ucts worth more than €170,000 con­tributed to a total of €10 mil­lion in admin­is­tra­tive fines.

In its note, Coldiretti sug­gested that Italian con­sumers always look for the national prod­uct and learn how to read the labels.

“On extra vir­gin olive oil bot­tles com­ing from abroad, in most cases, it is almost impos­si­ble to read the manda­tory dec­la­ra­tions such as ​‘mix of E.U. olive oils,’ ​‘mix of non‑E.U. olive oils or ​‘mix of E.U. and non‑E.U. olive oils,’ ” the asso­ci­a­tion wrote.

“[That hap­pens] because they are writ­ten in very small char­ac­ters, placed on the back of the bot­tle and in a posi­tion on the labels which is hard to spot,” they added.

“Moreover, con­sumers need to be wary of prices that are too low and pos­si­bly buy directly from the pro­duc­ers, from the mills or the Campagna Amica mar­kets, where extra vir­gin olive oil can be tasted before buy­ing it and its char­ac­ter­is­tics rec­og­nized,” Coldiretti con­cluded.

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• Coldiretti Liguria
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