The number of cases of fraudulent olive oil referred to the EU hit a record high this year after inflationary pressures fuelled black market activity.
The price of olive oil has more than doubled in the last five years on climate-related supply pressures and environmental shocks.
There were 50 reports to the European Union of mislabelling, potential fraud and safety cases, such as contamination related to olive oil, in the first three months of this year, according to data obtained by the Guardian. In 2018, the number was just 15.
Officially, fraud is where someone mixes another oil with extra virgin oil and passes it off as the genuine article.
A lucrative business
Increases in the price of olive have pushed it to become the most-stolen item in Spanish supermarkets, according to security company STC.
Late last year, gangs were found using this stolen olive oil to make diluted, fraudulent versions of the product.
“The faking of extra virgin olive oil is a common practice. A mix of various factors, such as the general inflation of prices, reduced olive oil production and increasing demand, have created the perfect breeding ground for fraudulent producers,” Europol said in a statement at the time.
The International Olive Council has predicted that just under 2.3m tonnes of olives will be produced in 2024, down slightly from last year’s yield of 2.5m tonnes but significantly lower than the 3.4m tonnes produced in 2022.
The change is largely an effect of global warming: unusual stretches of hot weather are bad for olive trees, and will impact the quality and yield of the crops. In Italy, too, a severe virus has affected the yield of trees in the production hub of Puglia.
However, part of the reason fraud reports have risen is simply a better complaints process, health consultant and author of Olive Oil for Dummies, Dr Simon Poole, said.
“There has always been fraud in the olive oil world,” Poole said. However, it is an increasingly regulated world, he said, and “standards are enforced”.
The EU, which accounts for 53 per cent of global olive oil production and 67 per cent of global production, introduced new checks on marketing standards for olive oil in July 2022.
“You will always find people trying to cut costs or increase profits, particularly at times when the price of olive oil is rising,” Poole said. But more is being uncovered because the authorities in places like Spain, Portugal and Italy and Greece “do clamp down heavily on fraud in the industry”.
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Is your olive oil real?
It’s unlikely that fraudulent olive oil will end up on your local supermarket shelf.
“The supermarket chain supply is usually reasonably good and so deliberate fraud would be unlikely to end up in the supermarket,” Poole said.
“[Fraud] is more likely to happen in unregulated markets,” he added. Unregulated – or less regulated – markets can include small businesses, or simply areas where there isn’t any surveillance.
‘Fake’ olive oil in the supermarket is more likely to be oil that only just passes the standards of quality at production, and then goes off on supermarket shelves or in our cupboard, Poole said. This isn’t illegal, and wouldn’t be referred to the EU.
“If you taste an extra virgin olive oil that is fruity and it has some bitterness and some pungency, then it’s likely to be the genuine article,” Poole said.