The European Union (EU) has reported a record number of potential olive oil fraud and mislabelling cases in the first quarter of this year, The Guardian reported.
The European Union (EU) has reported a record number of potential olive oil fraud and mislabelling cases in the first quarter of this year, The Guardian reported.
The increase came against a backdrop of supply shortages and higher prices, the 29 July report said.
In the first quarter of this year, the EU recorded 50 cases of “cross-border EU notifications”, including mislabelling, potential fraud and safety cases involving contaminated oils, compared with 15 in 2018, the report said.
As the total was limited to cases reported by member states to the EU directorate general for health, and did not include domestic cases, the true scale of fraud was likely to be much higher, the report said.
The incident reports included oils contaminated with unauthorised substances such as pesticides, mineral oils and one case where glass fragments were discovered.
In addition, there were many cases where extra virgin olive oil was judged to be adulterated, for example by mixing it with poorer or cheaper quality oils, cases where virgin olive oil was labelled as extra virgin (a more premium unrefined oil with a lower acidity), and several cases of misleading or false origin labelling, The Guardian wrote.
Some oils had crossed several borders, with Germany reporting a case of “misleading mislabelling of olive oil from Syria, via the Netherlands” in March, the report said.
Of the total 182 olive oil fraud and non-compliance notifications sent to the EU since the start of 2023, 54 related to products from Italy, 41 from Spain and 39 from Greece.
In July 2022, the EU introduced new rules on conformity checks of marketing standards for olive oil, as well as methods for analysing it.
A European Commission spokesperson said the higher number of notifications in the system did not indicate an increased risk for consumers.
“The yearly higher reported number of notifications are proof of better exchanges of member states’ competent authorities and their vigilance towards fraud in the agrifood chain,” the spokesperson said.
According to provisional figures from the International Olive Council (IOC), global olive oil production levels are expected to fall to 2.4M tonnes in 2023/24, down 27% from 2018/19 and lower than estimated consumption of 2.6M tonnes.
