Major Olive Oil Producer Loses $3M in Spate of Thefts

Summary

Tunisia’s largest olive oil pro­ducer, CHO Group, seeks North American olive oil com­mu­ni­ty’s help to inves­ti­gate a large-scale theft of its Terra Delyssa extra vir­gin olive oil, with inci­dents in Montreal and Houston lead­ing to a $3 mil­lion loss. The com­pa­ny’s blockchain trace­abil­ity tech­nol­ogy played a cru­cial role in the inves­ti­ga­tion, while they urge retail­ers to avoid pur­chas­ing and reselling stolen goods to pre­vent com­plic­ity in the crime.

Tunisia’s largest olive oil pro­ducer, CHO Group, is appeal­ing to the North American olive oil com­mu­nity for assis­tance in inves­ti­gat­ing a large-scale theft of its award-win­ning Terra Delyssa extra vir­gin olive oil.

On September 21^st, a truck loaded with pal­lets of Terra Delyssa bot­tles was stolen in Montreal, Canada, prompt­ing an ongo­ing inves­ti­ga­tion by local author­i­ties.

A few days later, Houston police began an inquiry after receiv­ing reports that a dis­count retailer was sell­ing CHO Group’s olive oil at unusu­ally low prices.

Using lot codes from the seized bot­tles, CHO Group tracked them back to a Houston ware­house oper­ated by a third party. The esti­mated loss from these inci­dents is around $3 (€2.8) mil­lion.

This is the third time thieves have tar­geted CHO Group’s extra vir­gin olive oil, though the com­pany believes the two most recent thefts are not con­nected.

“We believe this hap­pened because Terra Delyssa can eas­ily be placed on the mar­ket, as it is the num­ber one brand in Canada and one of the best sell­ers in U.S. stores as well,” Wajih Rekik, CHO America’s chief exec­u­tive, told Olive Oil Times.

“The noto­ri­ety of Terra Delyssa and the trust con­sumers have in the prod­uct make it very easy to sell, espe­cially for thieves offer­ing it at a 50 per­cent dis­count,” he added.

CHO Group’s blockchain trace­abil­ity tech­nol­ogy, orig­i­nally designed to help con­sumers track the ori­gin of their olive oil, played a cru­cial role in the inves­ti­ga­tion.

“In this case, it helped us trace all lot num­bers to the stor­age loca­tion and made it pos­si­ble to iden­tify the stolen prod­uct instantly,” Rekik said.

Since the theft was made pub­lic, many com­pa­nies in the olive oil indus­try have offered their sup­port.

“We received phone calls from retail­ers as well as from our com­peti­tors, offer­ing use­ful leads which were passed on to the police,” Rekik said. ​“Some thieves attempted to con­tact legit­i­mate retail­ers right after the theft, and some of those retail­ers are now help­ing to track down the cul­prits.”

CHO Group has assured con­sumers that all Terra Delyssa bot­tles sold by major retail­ers are safe and unre­lated to the theft.

“We sell directly to major retail­ers such as Whole Foods, Kroger, Target, Walmart, and Costco,” Rekik said. ​“Those bot­tles are com­pletely legal and legit­i­mate.”

However, some smaller retail­ers pur­chased the stolen olive oil, mainly inter­na­tional food stores, spe­cialty shops, and dis­count out­lets.

“Stores that offered these bot­tles were smaller inter­na­tional food stores or dis­count chan­nels we’ve never done busi­ness with,” Rekik said.

In some cases, these stores con­tacted CHO Group after real­iz­ing they had bought stolen goods. ​“They coop­er­ated with the inves­ti­ga­tion and offered to return the bot­tles imme­di­ately,” Rekik added.

Only about ten per­cent of the stolen bot­tles have been recov­ered, and Rekik empha­sized the need for wide­spread coop­er­a­tion.

“We ask all actors in the indus­try to help with any infor­ma­tion they might have,” he said. ​“This is why it is essen­tial that news of the theft spreads, as the whole sec­tor has a direct inter­est in pro­mot­ing and defend­ing legal sales.”

He warned retail­ers that pur­chas­ing and reselling stolen goods could make them com­plicit in the crime.

“Buying those prod­ucts from thieves and reselling them can eas­ily trans­form any retailer into an accom­plice of a crim­i­nal theft,” Rekik said. ​“Some retail­ers did not con­tact us when approached with the stolen bot­tles, only doing so after they saw the news.”

Rekik expressed frus­tra­tion with how eas­ily dras­ti­cally dis­counted goods can sway peo­ple.

“People buy a $90 (€83) prod­uct for $10 (€9.20) or $15 (€13.80), and they don’t ask ques­tions,” he said. ​“They should be call­ing the com­pany listed on the label. Every food prod­uct in the U.S. has a label with the producer’s infor­ma­tion. It’s easy to get in touch.”

He added that some retail­ers who pur­chased the stolen olive oil claimed they thought the dis­count was due to a qual­ity issue.

“If some­thing seems too good to be true, and you still go through with the pur­chase, you’re at risk of being an accom­plice,” Rekik said.

Though many retail­ers even­tu­ally coop­er­ated with the inves­ti­ga­tion, Rekik stressed how sim­ple it would have been to pre­vent the issue: ​“Stopping this is easy: a two-minute phone call to the pro­ducer can clear every­thing up.”

To mit­i­gate the chances of future inci­dents, CHO Group is imple­ment­ing GPS track­ing sys­tems for their pal­lets and increas­ing audits with third-party logis­tics com­pa­nies from once a year to four times a year. ​“We will main­tain the use of third-party audits of third-party logis­tics as well,” Rekik said.

Rekik expressed his grat­i­tude to those who assisted in the inves­ti­ga­tion. ​“I’d like to thank all the retail­ers, smaller retail­ers, and com­peti­tors who helped by shar­ing infor­ma­tion,” he said. ​“We were so touched by direct com­peti­tors who reached out, invest­ing their time and effort to sup­port us.”

“It’s that strong sense of com­mu­nity that will help us all as an indus­try,” Rekik added.

He also shared a sep­a­rate anec­dote that could serve as a cau­tion­ary tale for the indus­try.

“When the prod­ucts arrived at a retailer’s dis­tri­b­u­tion cen­ter, we received a call inform­ing us that a fork­lift had acci­den­tally run into a pal­let and bro­ken five bot­tles,” Rekik said.

The con­se­quences of an acci­dent like this go beyond just a few bro­ken bot­tles. ​“Five bot­tles of olive oil can soak an entire pal­let, mak­ing it nearly impos­si­ble to han­dle due to the slip­pery mess,” Rekik said. ​“You’ve got all the ingre­di­ents for a cat­a­stro­phe.”

Under nor­mal cir­cum­stances, logis­tics teams would con­tact CHO Group for guid­ance on how to han­dle the sit­u­a­tion.

“The cost to sal­vage the remain­ing bot­tles and clean up the spill would range between $3,000 (€2,755) and $4,000 (€3,675), while the total value of the dam­aged prod­ucts might only be around $1,000 (€920),” he said.

Rekik explained that recov­er­ing the prod­ucts does not make sense eco­nom­i­cally. ​“In cases like this, we usu­ally tell them to dis­pose of the olive oil,” he said.

However, there’s a gap in the sys­tem: the peo­ple respon­si­ble for han­dling the dam­aged goods do not always over­see their destruc­tion.

“The trans­porter or the per­son man­ag­ing those bot­tles won’t nec­es­sar­ily be the one dis­pos­ing of them,” Rekik said. ​“Sometimes, dri­vers, load­ing per­son­nel, or even other staff end up in charge and no one is inspect­ing whether the bot­tles are destroyed.”

This cre­ates an oppor­tu­nity for wrong­do­ing. ​“Those bot­tles could be taken by some­one and resold,” he added.

Though he under­stands the temp­ta­tion, Rekik expressed mixed feel­ings about the sit­u­a­tion. ​“Of course, we feel bad about destroy­ing our olive oil because of a spill,” he said. ​“If it were me, I’d just clean the bot­tle and use it at home.”

“But for some peo­ple, ille­gally sell­ing those bot­tles at a steep dis­count is a quick way to make easy cash,” he added. ​“That might make cer­tain indi­vid­u­als look for­ward to the next time such an acci­dent hap­pens.”

The Involved Lots

CHO America listed the involved lots and asked any­one with infor­ma­tion about those prod­ucts to call +1 2817121549.

• Lot N° : L1185/40695
• Lot N° : L1144/40752 Expiry Date : 29/01/2026
• Lot N° : L1152/40753 Expiry Date : 26/02/2026
• Lot N° : L1152/40754 Expiry Date : 26/02/2026
• Lot N° : L1152/40758 Expiry Date : 26/02/2026
• Lot N° : L1149/42545 Expiry Date : 16/02/2026
• Lot N° : L1163/42584 Expiry Date : 29/03/2026
• Lot N° : L1178/42591 Expiry Date : 29/03/2026
• Lot N° : L1185/40695 Expiry Date : 05/02/2026
• Lot N° :L1187/40787 Expiry Date : 06/05/2026
• Lot N° : L1131/42520 Expiry Date : 03/01/2026