`Quality Controls in Europe Need Improvement, Study Finds - Olive Oil Times
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Quality Controls in Europe Need Improvement, Study Finds

By Costas Vasilopoulos
Feb. 14, 2020 09:41 UTC
Summary Summary

The European Union con­ducted a study on qual­ity con­trols in the olive oil sec­tor, find­ing that reg­u­la­tions are in place to pre­vent fraud and improve the qual­ity of European oils. The study high­lighted the need for improved con­for­mity checks, coop­er­a­tion among author­i­ties, and more resources to ensure com­pli­ance with reg­u­la­tions in the nine pro­duc­ing Member States.

The European Union released a study on qual­ity con­trols per­formed by the olive oil-pro­duc­ing states.

Requirements per­tain­ing to the olive oil sec­tor are con­tained in the Common Market Organization (CMO) reg­u­la­tion, includ­ing mar­ket­ing, label­ing, and pack­ag­ing rules and a set of def­i­n­i­tions, des­ig­na­tions and olive oil sales descrip­tions.

Olive oil is con­sid­ered at high risk of fraud due to its eco­nomic value com­pared with other food prod­ucts, the study stressed, with reg­u­la­tions in place to pre­vent fraud­u­lent prac­tices and improve the qual­ity of European oils.

The pro­duc­ing Member States are respon­si­ble for per­form­ing a min­i­mum num­ber of con­trols each year to con­firm that dis­trib­u­tors and retail­ers com­ply with the require­ments.

The study found that the con­for­mity checks con­cern­ing con­sumers’ pro­tec­tion and busi­ness-to-con­sumer fair trade prac­tices were suf­fi­cient, while other areas like the exis­tence of a level play­ing field and the sound oper­a­tion of the inter­nal olive oil mar­ket need to be inspected and improved.

In terms of vio­la­tions, the most com­mon cases observed dur­ing the checks were sell­ing vir­gin olive oil as extra vir­gin, and mar­ket­ing blends of other veg­etable oils with olive oil as pure olive oil.

Furthermore, the exist­ing con­for­mity check eval­u­a­tion sys­tem needs to be upgraded, the study stated, to ensure that more resources in terms of staff and finance are involved. Cooperation and coor­di­na­tion among national and regional author­i­ties need to be improved.

There are nine pro­duc­ing Member States (Spain, Italy, Greece, Portugal, France, Slovenia, Croatia, Malta and Cyprus) account­ing for 69 per­cent of the global pro­duc­tion of olive oil. The largest non-pro­duc­ing con­sumer is Germany, absorb­ing around four per­cent of the EU’s olive oil.


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