Ways to adulterate olive oil

The Adulteration of Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO)

Adulterating olive oil is a persistent fraud despite the fact that this food is one of the most controlled and subject to European legislation. The methods to adulterate olive oil are becoming increasingly sophisticated, which, according to the scientist Alba Tres Oliver from the University of Barcelona (UB), means that some cases can go unnoticed by standard controls.

The Engine of Fraud: Economic Gain

The main motivation to adulterate olive oil is economic gain. Defrauders seek to put the product on the market at lower prices than honest producers or simply to sell larger volumes. Given that EVOO is a relatively expensive product (although it has not reached 10 euros per liter this year, it is still expensive compared to previous prices), the first warning for the consumer is to distrust extra virgin olive oil that has a very low price, as it is impossible for it to be cheaper than the average price.

Ingredients Used for Adulteration

To adulterate olive oil, fraudsters resort to lower quality oils. The main ingredients used today include:

• Sunflower oil
• Hazelnut oil
• Avocado oil

While sunflower and hazelnut oils are detectable with standard control methods, avocado juice is particularly problematic. According to the expert, avocado has nutritional properties very similar to those of olive oil, which creates great difficulty in detection.

Detection and the Criminological Context

To combat increasingly complex fraud methods, the UB has developed an advanced analytical tool that has been validated to detect the adulteration of olive oil. This tool will be shared with the authorities of the Generalitat de Catalunya to join forces and reinforce surveillance.

From a criminological perspective, the fraud fulfills all the elements of a crime:

1. Victim: The consumer.
2. Motive: Economic gain.
3. Opportunity: Arises when surveillance is insufficient.

The mere existence of more effective control tools helps to discourage the temptation to commit crimes.

Distinction Between Frauds

The adulteration of olive oil recalls the historical rapeseed oil fraud, which caused more than a thousand deaths. That case was a “double fraud”: rapeseed oil was sold as olive oil, and the rapeseed oil had been adulterated with an industrial dye toxic for human consumption.

Currently, the expert maintains that the intention to adulterate olive oil is to obtain financial gain, not to cause health problems to the population.

A more common deceptive practice than the adulteration of olive oil with other ingredients is fraud in category labeling, such as selling virgin olive oil as extra virgin or labeling a product that has lost quality due to poor storage as EVOO. Although these deceptive practices go more unnoticed socially, the professor concludes that adulterations with external ingredients, although they exist, are “always exceptional.”