Major Spanish Cooperative Under Fire for Importing and Exporting Practices

Spain’s largest olive oil coop­er­a­tive con­tin­ues to come under fire for its import­ing prac­tices in the after­math of a €2.81 mil­lion ($3.29 mil­lion) fine levied by the Spanish tax author­i­ties.

The fine orig­i­nates from out­stand­ing import tar­iffs that Qorteba International failed to pay on olive oil it had imported from Tunisia and Morocco. The com­pany had orig­i­nally sought an exemp­tion for pay­ing these tar­iffs, but their request was denied.

Fifty per­cent of Qorteba is indi­rectly owned by Dcoop, which has said it will take respon­si­bil­ity for the fines and expenses incurred by lit­i­gat­ing them.

Once the imported oil arrived in Spain, Dcoop blended it with oil from its mem­ber com­pa­nies, then repack­aged the blend as Spanish olive oil before it was exported to the United States under the Pompeian brand.

In doc­u­ments reviewed by El Economista, which orig­i­nally broke the story, the Spanish Customs Agency wrote that it had detected ​“a prob­lem in the analy­sis of some oils.”

Indeed, inspec­tors graded the oil being imported from North Africa as ​“lam­pante” before it was blended with ​“low qual­ity” Spanish olive oil that had been obtained in sec­ond extrac­tions from olives used in the pro­duc­tion of extra vir­gin olive oil.

This blend was then sold as vir­gin olive oil in the United States at prices 40 per­cent lower than other Spanish and Italian olive oil and up to 100 per­cent lower than olive oils from California.

In a state­ment, Dcoop rejected the claim that it was being fined for ​“import­ing olive oil from Tunisia that does not meet the required qual­ity stan­dards and then sell­ing it in the United States as if it were Spanish oil.”

Through a spokesper­son, Dcoop also down­played the impor­tance of the issue, deny­ing that they were try­ing to sub­vert the mar­ket by sell­ing adul­ter­ated olive oil.

“At [the cooperative’s] last gen­eral meet­ing, the issue did not even come up,” the spokesper­son said. ​“We are not inter­ested in low­er­ing the price, that goes against the spirit of a coop­er­a­tive.”

Dcoop’s direc­tor, Antonio Luque, went one step fur­ther. He denied that the oil was adul­ter­ated at all and cast asper­sions on the sen­sory tast­ing meth­ods used in the deter­mi­na­tion.

“The same inspec­tor has come to estab­lish dif­fer­ent qual­i­ties in the oil of the same batch,” he told El Economista.

Luque added that other promi­nent mem­bers of the sec­tor, includ­ing the National Association of Industrial Packers and Edible Oil Refiners (ANIERAC) and the Spanish Association of the Olive Oil Exporting Industry and Commerce (ASOLIVA), had also ques­tioned the abil­ity of tast­ing pan­els to con­sis­tently iden­tify olive oil grades.

However, this argu­ment has left many promi­nent mem­bers of the sec­tor uncon­vinced that the prac­tices of Luque and Dcoop are harm­ing the Spanish olive oil sec­tor.

Cristóbal Cano, the sec­re­tary gen­eral of the Union of Small Farmers and Ranchers (UPA) con­demned Dcoop, label­ing their prac­tices as ​“very dan­ger­ous” and wor­ried that episodes such as this one might ​“triv­i­al­ize” the value of Spanish olive oil.

“In addi­tion, a mes­sage is sent to the con­sumer that it is a prod­uct that does not have that value and that qual­ity for which we are com­mit­ted,” he said. ​“Gaining short-term mar­ket shares and low prices is but lit­tle bread for today and assures you hunger for tomor­row, we must bet on qual­ity at a rea­son­able price because we have seen in recent years how the mar­ket responds.”

Juan Luis Ávila, the head of COAG Jaén, also con­demned Dcoop for their actions, argu­ing that under­min­ing the price of com­pet­ing Spanish olive oil would hurt the whole sec­tor by cut­ting profit mar­gins for farm­ers and lead­ing to increas­ingly unfair busi­ness prac­tices.

“Cooperatives must have as an absolute pri­or­ity that the farmer receives a fair pay­ment that hap­pens to take into account com­pe­ti­tion in the mar­ket,” he said. ​“But coop­er­a­tives must also respect com­pet­ing olive grow­ers by ensur­ing there is a sen­si­ble price of ori­gin [from olive oils made in Spain] and that this price at least cov­ers their pro­duc­tion costs too.”

Other crit­ics of Dcoop fear that episodes such as this one will incur the ire of U.S. President Donald Trump, who has already imposed tar­iffs on Spanish olives. They worry, though they have no evi­dence to back these con­cerns, that tar­iffs on Spanish olive oil could be com­ing as a result of these kinds of sto­ries.

Cano addressed these con­cerns indi­rectly, stat­ing that Dcoop must own up to what it has done and that the whole sec­tor must work together mov­ing for­ward in order to pro­tect their over­rid­ing inter­ests.

“In the end, these fines affect the part­ners and the entire sec­tor,” Cano said. ​“There must be those who demand respon­si­bil­ity from their lead­ers and ask them­selves whether these prac­tices really advo­cate for the gen­eral inter­est of the sec­tor or seek par­tic­u­lar inter­ests that have noth­ing to do with its future on the whole.”

• El Economista


• OK Diario


• Cadena SER