FLORENCE, ITALY – Italian prosecutors are investigating seven olive oil producers for fraudulently selling ordinary olive oil as highly prized extra-virgin.
Prosecutors in Turin announced the investigation Tuesday November 11, 2015, after customs officials independently confirmed the findings by the magazine “Il Test,” which published a cover story last spring revealing that nine out of 20 bottles it tested were not extra-virgin as labeled.
They carried out tests on 20 of the most popular brands of extra virgin olive oil – the highest quality you can buy – sold across Italian supermarkets and found that the labels on nine of the bottles falsely claimed to be extra virgin.
Italy’s Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Forestry last year seized €10 million worth of fake olive oil as part of a food fraud crackdown. “We’re closely following the investigation,” Agriculture Minister Maurizio Martina said.
The Italian farm lobby Coldiretti called on authorities to better protect Italy’s olive oil sector, second only to Spain’s with estimated annual revenues of 2 billion euros. Coldiretti said that the fraud was often perpetrated by adding imported olive oil to domestic, noting that Italy was the No. 1 olive oil importer in the world.
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