`Details Emerge in Seizure of Counterfeit Olive Oil in Puglia - Olive Oil Times
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Details Emerge in Seizure of Counterfeit Olive Oil in Puglia

By Paolo DeAndreis
Jul. 18, 2024 12:41 UTC

Italian Carabinieri uncov­ered a wide­spread olive oil coun­ter­feit­ing net­work in Cerignola, Puglia, mark­ing one of the most exten­sive oper­a­tions of this kind in recent years.

The Carabinieri’s Anti-adul­ter­ation and Health Unit (NAS) oper­a­tives exe­cuted search war­rants against seven local peo­ple and dis­cov­ered 71 tons of oily sub­stances, 623 liters of chloro­phyll, and equip­ment to pro­duce large quan­ti­ties of olive oil-like prod­ucts ille­gally.

The police oper­a­tion was coor­di­nated by the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Foggia and involved sev­eral provinces across the coun­try.

See Also:Discovery of Adulterated Olive Oil Kindles Debate Over Testing in Northern Cyprus

The inves­ti­ga­tion began last September and recently enabled NAS to iden­tify and seize nearly 42 tons of adul­ter­ated oil.

A large por­tion of this sub­stance was ready for mar­ket dis­tri­b­u­tion. It was some­times already bot­tled and made avail­able to the agri-food sup­ply chain, falsely labeled as Italian extra vir­gin olive oil.

Over the years, the scourge of olive oil coun­ter­feit­ing has trig­gered a grow­ing vol­ume of sci­en­tific research inves­ti­gat­ing how coun­ter­feit­ing occurs and meth­ods to detect adul­ter­ated prod­ucts.

Counterfeiters some­times add chloro­phyll and beta-carotene to seed oils to mimic the color of extra vir­gin olive oil.

A super­fi­cial analy­sis of these coun­ter­feit prod­ucts might not detect fraud, as low-qual­ity olive oils are often added to the mix­ture.

As a result, law enforce­ment agen­cies deploy highly sophis­ti­cated meth­ods, includ­ing spec­troscopy, chro­matog­ra­phy and even DNA test­ing.

According to Gennaro Sicolo, pres­i­dent of Italia Olivicola, the NAS inves­ti­ga­tion under­scores the abil­ity of Italian law enforce­ment agen­cies to com­bat food crimes effi­ciently.

“The Carabinieri oper­a­tion against fake extra vir­gin olive oil and oil col­ored with chloro­phyll is a shin­ing exam­ple of the excel­lent func­tion­ing of the con­trol sys­tem against food fraud,” he said.

Sicolo stressed the impor­tance of such oper­a­tions given the high value of Apulian olive oil pro­duc­tion.

With its 60 mil­lion olive trees and numer­ous award-win­ning olive oil pro­duc­ers, Puglia is Italy’s most sig­nif­i­cant pro­duc­ing region, account­ing for approx­i­mately half of the national pro­duc­tion.

According to Sicolo, the chal­lenge is to raise con­sumer aware­ness about the qual­ity and health ben­e­fits of high-qual­ity extra vir­gin olive oil so that cheaper oils with fewer health guar­an­tees are less favored.

The Italian Association of the Edible Oil Industry (Assitol) warned that ​“the real issue is the rep­u­ta­tional dam­age to the vast major­ity of com­pa­nies that oper­ate cor­rectly.”

Anna Cane, pres­i­dent of Assitol’s olive oil group, noted that ​“ours is one of the most mon­i­tored sec­tors, pri­mar­ily thanks to SIAN, the national telem­atic sys­tem that mon­i­tors the flow of oil enter­ing and leav­ing Italy.”

“Additionally, eight dif­fer­ent pub­lic con­trol bod­ies over­see the oils mar­keted on the shelves,” she added.

According to Assitol, one of the rea­sons fraud per­sists is low con­sumer aware­ness sur­round­ing extra vir­gin olive oil.

“The fact that under-the-counter deal­ers like those dis­cov­ered in Cerignola still find buy­ers in the mar­ket shows how lit­tle value is attrib­uted to this extra­or­di­nary prod­uct,” Cane said. ​“This is yet another rea­son to pro­mote its knowl­edge in Italy and world­wide and to sup­port its pro­tec­tion in every pos­si­ble way.”

Following the seizure of the coun­ter­feit oils, both the CIA and Coldiretti, a farm­ers’ asso­ci­a­tion, empha­sized the impor­tance of cer­ti­fied olive oil pro­duc­tion as a safe har­bor for con­sumers.

They referred to the European Union-sanc­tioned Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) and Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) cer­ti­fi­ca­tions, which link tra­di­tion­ally pro­duced food and drinks to spe­cific regions and cul­ti­vars.

“I con­tinue to appeal to con­sumers: buy PDO and PGI extra vir­gin olive oil. To obtain these recog­ni­tions, PDO and PGI extra vir­gin olive oils must adhere to pre­cise and rig­or­ous rules that attest to their high qual­ity and health­i­ness,” Sicolo said.

Alfonso Cavallo, pres­i­dent of Coldiretti Puglia, said law enforce­ment is cru­cial to pro­tect­ing con­sumer health.

“Food fraud is a par­tic­u­larly hate­ful crime because it endan­gers peo­ple’s health, it is based on decep­tion and pri­mar­ily affects those with lim­ited finan­cial means who are forced to resort to low-cost food,” he said.

This is not the first time Italian law enforce­ment has uncov­ered sig­nif­i­cant ille­gal oper­a­tions focus­ing on olive oil coun­ter­feit­ing. In December, author­i­ties in Italy and Spain seized 260,000 liters of adul­ter­ated olive oil and arrested 11 indi­vid­u­als in coor­di­nated raids.

However, experts have warned that the com­bi­na­tion of low pro­duc­tion in the past two crop years, dwin­dling olive oil stocks and high prices have cre­ated entic­ing con­di­tions for crim­i­nal orga­ni­za­tions to com­mit olive oil fraud.

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