`World's Largest Olive Oil Producer Responds to Fraud Allegations - Olive Oil Times

World's Largest Olive Oil Producer Responds to Fraud Allegations

By Ylenia Granitto
Nov. 13, 2015 09:27 UTC

After the clamor cre­ated by the case of the famous brands of olive oil dis­trib­uted in Italian super­mar­kets accused of fraud, Deoleo which man­ages the brands Bertolli, Carapelli and Sasso, promptly responded.

See Also:The World’s Best Olive Oils, Official NYIOOC Ranking

The three brands, despite their Italian names, have been since 2008 the prop­erty of the Spanish food group, which in a press release, dis­missed the alle­ga­tions, empha­siz­ing some points.

These con­trols, even if car­ried out by pro­fes­sional tasters, are con­sid­ered inap­pro­pri­ate for many aspects.- Deoleo

Deoleo said its prod­ucts and processes meet the high­est qual­ity stan­dards” and that the com­pany strictly respects all the laws and reg­u­la­tions relat­ing to food secu­rity in all the coun­tries in which it oper­ates.”

Regarding the facts inves­ti­gated by the pros­e­cu­tor in Turin, the com­pany declared that the chem­i­cal and phys­i­cal test con­ducted by the chem­i­cal lab­o­ra­tory of the cus­toms agency in Genoa, had shown that their prod­ucts are in accor­dance with the Italian law about extra vir­gin olive oil and meet all the phys­i­cal and chem­i­cal para­me­ters (per­ox­ide value, free fatty acids and spec­tropho­to­met­ric analy­sis of K232 and K270, total esters, ethyl esters).”
See Also:Italian Prosecutor Accuses Seven Brands of Fraud
Afterward, Deoleo affirmed that the incrim­i­nated prod­ucts, based on the date of pack­ing, were com­pletely com­pli­ant both with phys­i­cal and chem­i­cal analy­sis and with tast­ing.

Considering that the tast­ing car­ried out by the Italian police is a sen­sory analy­sis, in which a group of experts appre­ci­ates just the smell and taste of olive oil,” the group con­cluded that the checks com­mis­sioned by the Prosecutor and car­ried out both by the mag­a­zine The Test and sub­se­quently by the NAS, are based exclu­sively on a tast­ing of the prod­uct,” and in sub­stance, these con­trols, even if car­ried out by pro­fes­sional tasters, are con­sid­ered inap­pro­pri­ate for many aspects, as the method of analy­sis sub­jec­tive, non-repeat­able and non-repro­ducible.”

Since the Italian law estab­lishes a legal term of 30 days to request a rebut­tal, Deoleo has already requested a coun­tercheck, to ver­ify the results of the tast­ing made by NAS.

Today, the chief pros­e­cu­tor, Armando Spataro, trans­ferred the inves­ti­ga­tion to the Prosecutors of Florence, Genoa, Spoleto and Velletri, the places of pro­duc­tion of olive oils under inves­ti­ga­tion.

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