Spain and Italy Ask Restaurants to Comply with Olive Oil Container Laws

The con­tin­ued use of refill­able olive oil con­tain­ers in restau­rants remains a press­ing issue for the olive oil sec­tor in Spain and Italy.

The prac­tice per­sists despite being banned in sev­eral European Union coun­tries for over a decade.

This ongo­ing issue prompted Spain’s Interprofessional Olive Oil Organization to launch a new cam­paign tar­get­ing restau­rants, con­sumers and insti­tu­tions.

“What qual­ity does an anony­mous pack­age offer me? What is its best-before date? Who is respon­si­ble in the event of a food safety issue? And, most impor­tantly, how can I be sure that it con­tains extra vir­gin olive oil and not a blend of other fats?,” Pedro Barato, pres­i­dent of the Interprofessional, wrote in a press state­ment.

The new cam­paign, which will run until April, will fol­low the model of a pre­vi­ous ini­tia­tive called “#Peeerdona,” widely pro­moted on tele­vi­sion, social media, and other plat­forms between 2017 and 2018.

Renowned Spanish actress Rossy de Palma was among the celebri­ties who par­tic­i­pated in the campaign’s pro­mo­tional videos.

The ini­tia­tive includes new adver­tise­ments, out­reach efforts, and a series of meet­ings between the olive oil sec­tor and cen­tral and regional gov­ern­ments.

These meet­ings aim to coor­di­nate a new round of inspec­tions and enforce­ment actions nation­wide.

“There is no doubt that imple­ment­ing this reg­u­la­tion was a sig­nif­i­cant step for­ward. For the first time, hos­pi­tal­ity cus­tomers could be cer­tain about the prod­uct they were con­sum­ing,” Barato added.

“We can­not have laws ban­ning this prac­tice while allow­ing those who ignore them to con­tinue unpun­ished. We demand that the law be upheld,” he added.

Juan Antonio Tello, man­ager at Tello Laboratories in Jaén, which spe­cial­izes in olive oil analy­sis, noted that fines for the ille­gal use of refill­able con­tain­ers in restau­rants have failed to curb the prac­tice.

“This is a wide­spread prac­tice. Anonymous pack­ag­ing offers no guar­an­tee of ori­gin and, there­fore, no guar­an­tee of safety,” Tello told Olive Oil Times.

“These fac­tors not only mis­lead con­sumers but also elim­i­nate any assur­ance regard­ing the qual­ity and safety of the olive oil they con­sume,” he added.

Some restau­rants argue that the added cost of sealed bot­tles is a key con­cern.

“The best solu­tion is con­sumer edu­ca­tion, help­ing them rec­og­nize proper pre­sen­ta­tion and appre­ci­ate high-qual­ity extra vir­gin olive oil,” Tello said. ​“Without this aware­ness and appre­ci­a­tion of what they’re being served, progress will be dif­fi­cult.”

Tello sug­gested that olive oil adver­tis­ing cam­paigns should empha­size the dif­fer­ent qual­ity lev­els of olive oil and their culi­nary and health ben­e­fits.

“It would also be ben­e­fi­cial to have ded­i­cated infor­ma­tion points in par­tic­i­pat­ing restau­rants and bars,” Tello said.

In Italy, olive oil pro­duc­ers from Unaprol, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the farm­ers’ orga­ni­za­tion Coldiretti, launched an ini­tia­tive at the start of the new olive sea­son in the fall.

The two orga­ni­za­tions announced a new deca­logue to help con­sumers choose qual­ity olive oils and ensure their rights are respected in restau­rants.

“The refill­able con­tainer is for­bid­den in restau­rants. [As cus­tomers] we demand that extra vir­gin olive oil be served in bot­tled, labeled form, pro­tected by a tam­per-proof cap,” they wrote.

Additionally, across the coun­try, sev­eral ini­tia­tives aim to add value to restau­rants that legally pro­mote high-qual­ity extra vir­gin olive oils and show­case extra vir­gin olive oil diver­sity to their cus­tomers.

“Since the reg­u­la­tion came into effect, the ICQRF has been con­duct­ing spe­cific inspec­tions at food ser­vice estab­lish­ments to ensure com­pli­ance with this pro­vi­sion,” offi­cials of the Italian Central Inspectorate of Quality Protection and Fraud Prevention of Agri-food Products (ICQRF) told Olive Oil Times.

The law does not apply to restau­rant kitchens in Spain and Italy. The use of olive oil or extra vir­gin olive oil is instead sub­ject to reg­u­la­tions gov­ern­ing the qual­ity of ingre­di­ents used in food prepa­ra­tion.

Portugal, one of the European Union’s major olive oil pro­duc­ers, has banned refill­able olive oil bot­tles since 2005. According to local experts, this change has pos­i­tively impacted con­sumer aware­ness of qual­ity olive oil.

Greece, another major olive oil pro­ducer, intro­duced new reg­u­la­tions in 2013 and has since under­gone sev­eral updates. However, the response to the law took a dif­fer­ent turn.

As a result of these require­ments, many restau­rants in Greece removed olive oil con­tain­ers from cus­tomer tables alto­gether.