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One of the biggest food frauds ever perpetrated involved vegetable oil. Although it was actually atypical of the usual adulteration or mislabelling of vegetable oil, the sheer scale is worthy of recounting. The incident became known as the Salad Oil Scandal or Soybean Scandal, and was exposed in 1963, causing over US$150 million (£96.5 million; more than US$1 billion, £643 million, at present-day rates) of losses to such corporations as American Express, Bank of America and Bank Leumi, in addition to many international trading companies. The scandal has been likened to the 2007–8 subprime mortgage crisis. The financial ramifications illustrate the importance of vegetable oil as a global commodity.
The Salad Oil Scandal was an astonishing fraud perpetrated by the Allied Crude Vegetable Oil Refining Co. in New Jersey, led by Tino De Angelis. The idea was very simple: load ships with water and float a few feet of soybean oil on the surface – oil floats on water. Inspectors looking into the tankers thought they were full of oil and certified the shipment. De Angelis then used the certificates to obtain massive loans from Wall Street banks and companies, based on the bogus amounts of soybean oil confirmed by the inspectors to be in the ships. The quantities incidentally suggested the existence of much more salad oil than was actually accounted for in the entire US at the time. The scam was exposed in November 1963 and resulted in chaos in the futures markets with the entire value of loans being wiped off the markets in minutes. The fraud was overshadowed by the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy on 22 November 1963. However, De Angelis eventually ended up serving a seven-year jail sentence. Although no science was used to reveal this fraud, the principle of production/supply versus sales auditing – as we saw in the previous chapter with mānuka honey and we will see again in later chapters – can be a critical step in exposing major food fraud.
Where there’s big money, there are big cheats!
The massive scale of global vegetable oil production is what makes the vegetable oil trade such a lucrative business, moving vegetable oil fraud well up the food cheats’ agenda. We’re talking big numbers here – current global annual production for all vegetable oils stands at around 170 million tonnes and is growing year-on-year. The big four are palm, soybean, canola (also known as rapeseed) and sunflower oil, in that order. At least 50 other vegetable oils are produced for human consumption from different seeds and nuts, originating from various parts of the world, mostly the tropics. Seed oils make up the major part of edible oil production, while nut oils tend to be popular owing to their characteristic flavours and are used as specialist gourmet ingredients. The vast proportion of vegetable oil produced is for human consumption. Only a small proportion is used to generate biodiesel and much of this is recycled from spent cooking oil. The scale of vegetable oil production is a response to consumer demand, which can be surprisingly high and is set to rise as Mediterranean-style diets increase in popularity. In 2014, the annual per capita consumption of vegetable oils in Italy reached a high of 28kg (just shy of 62lb); that’s the best part of 100ml (3.5fl oz) per person per day.
Getting clear on oil
The physical property that unifies all vegetable oils is that they are ... oily. When you buy a bottle of vegetable oil you’re buying a bottle of fat – there are more similarities between vegetable oils and animal fats than you might realise. Generally, oils are liquid at room temperature while fats are solid. The liquid oils used for frying and preparation of salad dressings are oils, while lard, butter and hard vegetable fats, such as cocoa and coconut, are fats.
But oils can be made up of different materials: mineral oils are derived mainly from petroleum; others, such as silicone, are made from synthetic polymers; and the oils we eat come from plants and animals. All of these chemically different materials could be mixed together and you would still have a clear oil. And indeed there are examples where such substances have been mixed together in vegetable oil adulteration. It’s pretty revolting to imagine dressing your salad or frying your food with a mixture of vegetable oil and substances we are more familiar with as components of car engine oil or floor polish. Because such substances occur naturally and are permitted additives or trace contaminants from production, limits are set by the regulatory agencies for how much of these foreign substances are allowable in vegetable oils. However, some of these substances are intentional additions to change the properties of the oil.
Reading oil product labels can be quite illuminating, especially since new labelling regulations introduced in 2014 demand explicit listing of the plants used and other ingredients added. For example, on reading the ingredient list on a bottle of vegetable oil you may find dimethylpolysiloxane listed as an added ‘antifoaming’ agent. Defoamers and antifoaming agents are added to liquid foods to reduce the surface tension and therefore inhibit the formation of foam. Dimethylpolysiloxane is an industrial chemical probably best known as the silicone oil used in breast implants. Amazingly, a US patent was lodged in 1991 (US4983413A) proposing the use of this class of industrial chemicals to produce low-calorie fried foods and salad dressings. Luckily it lapsed for failure to pay maintenance fees. Since our digestive system cannot absorb or digest these silicone compounds in the same way as normal vegetable oils and animal fats, the patent proposed that portions of the oil content in low-calorie foods be replaced with organopolysiloxane compounds, achieving that fatty flavour without all the extra calories. Interestingly, McDonald’s confirm on their website that ‘The oil we use for our fried menu items, like our Chicken McNuggets, World Famous Fries and Crispy Chicken sandwiches, does contain a small amount of dimethylpolysiloxane. This is an FDA-approved ingredient that helps prevent the splattering of oil as foods are cooked.’1 Dimethylpolysiloxane is an inert chemical, which makes it the best choice for breast implants, but it doesn’t necessarily make it a palatable addition to edible oils – we’ll take a little foaming and splattering instead any day!
The colour variations in pure vegetable oils arise from traces of plant pigments, such as polyphenols, carotenoids and chlorophyll, extracted from the seeds and nuts during refining. Despite some variation in colour, vegetable oils are all very similar chemically. All vegetable oils (and fats) are made up of triacylglycerols (TAGs), also known as triglycerides. TAGs are quite simple biochemicals made by plants (and animals) as energy stores. There are four basic parts to the TAG molecule: glycerol and three fatty acids (see Figure 6.2). Glycerol is a very simple molecule that links the fatty acids. Three fatty acids are chemically bonded to the glycerol. Fatty acids are fascinating substances produced by all animals, plants, bacteria and fungi. While all the vegetable oils (and fats) have the same basic building blocks, it’s the structures of the fatty acids that make oils and fats so different. Fatty acids are made of chains of carbon atoms usually with even numbers of carbon atoms – 16 and 18 are the most common but higher and lower numbers are also found. Each carbon atom in the chain is bonded to two hydrogens. At one end of the fatty acid chain there is a carboxylic acid group (-CO2H), which is involved in linking the fatty acid to glycerol. At the other end of the fatty acid chain there’s a methyl group (-CH3). Another vitally important feature of fatty acids is the double bonds that some fatty acids contain, which are formed by the removal of hydrogen atoms in fatty acid biosynthesis. Fatty acids containing double bonds are what you will have heard called unsaturated fatty acids. Polyunsaturated fatty acids contain more than one double bond and are very common in vegetable oils (and fish oils), such as linoleic acid and linolenic acid. Animal fats contain higher proportions of fatty acid without any double bonds – known as saturated fats. Different blends of these fatty acid types (unsaturated, polyunsaturated and saturated) bestow the unique properties on each type of oil. At the most basic level, the differences in the number of double bonds is what makes vegetable oils liquid and animal fats solid. But the number of double bonds also affects properties such as rancidity, with more unsaturated fatty acids being more vulnerable to going rancid; this is why processed foods contain more saturated fats.
The compositions of the fatty acids in vegetable oils and animal fats are also important for nutritional reasons; while humans (and other animals) are able to make some fatty acids, we lack the ability to make others that are needed to maintain good health. These are the polyunsaturated fatty acids, such as the omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids that are listed and often highlighted on many food labels. These include the linoleic acid and linolenic acid mentioned above. These fatty acids that our bodies can’t make, called essential fatty acids, are produced by many plants in high abundance, which makes vegetable oils an important source of these compounds. The triacylglycerol structure shown in Figure 6.2 contains one monounsaturated fatty acid (oleic acid) and two triunsaturated fatty acids (both linolenic acid; omega-3).
As well as fatty acids, oils contain a wide range of minor chemical components produced by the different nuts and seeds. It is these components that give different oils their unique aromas, tastes and colours. Oils vary widely in their sterol and antioxidant content, which has nutritional implications, but also offers opportunities for detecting vegetable oil adulteration. Notable antioxidants include polyphenols, Vitamin E (tocopherols), the familiar carotenoid pigments, and of course polyunsaturated fatty acids, all of which appear to be beneficial in offering protection against cardiovascular disease.
Catastrophic vegetable oil fraud
While the financial ramifications of the Salad Oil Scandal were monumental, there were no direct personal impacts on the oil consumers. By comparison, the catastrophic health consequences suffered by the Spanish people during the Toxic Oil Syndrome (TOS) scandal took the impacts of food fraud to a whole new level that made regulators sit up and take notice.
The tragic story of the TOS began on 1 May 1981 when the previously unknown syndrome began to appear in the working-class suburbs of Madrid. People were going to hospital with intense incapacitating muscle pain, breathing difficulties, headaches, rashes, itching; the diagnosis was that they were displaying an autoimmune response. Because the symptoms were similar to pneumonia, many patients were treated with antibiotics although this did nothing. The symptoms were unlike any previously encountered disease. On 10 June 1981, doctors at the Niño Jesús Children’s Hospital in Madrid deduced that the probable cause of the illness was the ingestion of an illegal cooking oil sold by door-to-door salesmen as cheap olive oil. By the end of June 1981, the authorities began to seize the bottles of unlabelled cooking oil. At this point, new cases of TOS stopped appearing, but it had directly affected some 20,000 people, killing over 1,200 people in Madrid and the northwestern provinces of Spain.
So serious and unusual were the symptoms that the Spanish government approached WHO to initiate a wide-ranging international research programme, which continues to this day. The Spanish government established a centre for investigating the disease at the Institute of Health Carlos III in Madrid (Centro de Investigación para el Síndrome del Aceite Tóxico, or CISAT). The conclusion of three decades of research, published in the official WHO/CISAT report, is that TOS was associated with the ingestion of a toxic agent present in oil intended for industrial use, in this case a batch of colza oil (colza is Spanish for rapeseed) containing a denaturant added to render the oil unfit for human consumption. The WHO/CISAT report suggests that the denaturant added was aniline and that toxic compounds were produced during the refining process used to try and remove it. However, despite extensive investigations no compounds were found that appear to possess the extreme toxicity associated with TOS at the trace concentrations present in the oil. Only reaction products (e.g. anilides; see Appendix) between the vegetable oil triacylglycerols and added aniline have been detected.2 The identification of the chemicals responsible for TOS remains part of the ongoing research. A paper published in the journal Epidemiologic Reviews in 20013 concluded that ‘The toxic oil syndrome epidemic is an example of how even a developed country can be affected by a massive epidemic of environmental origin if failures occur in the systems that control and regulate the food supply or other consumer products.’ To say that pinpointing the source of TOS has been controversial is a major understatement. Dealing with the TOS scandal drained the resources of the then newly evolving Spanish political and social medical system.
Aniline is a toxic industrial chemical with the odour of rotten fish – an effective addition to an oil that you want to ensure people don’t consume. By a law passed in 1892, any cottonseed or rapeseed oil imported into Spain had to be denatured with additives such as aniline, castor oil or methylene blue. The aim was to protect Spain’s olive oil industry. The Spanish government had banned the importation of rapeseed oil for human consumption to avoid any temptation to use this cheaper oil to stretch out olive oil supplies or pass it off as the more expensive oil. Yet the sale of rapeseed oil for culinary use continued, as it was an extremely lucrative business, with unwitting consumers regularly being sold various vegetable oils and mixtures as pure olive oil.
The source of the rapeseed oil in the TOS case was traced by investigators to French oil companies who were supplying rapeseed oil in France for human consumption but also producing aniline-denatured rapeseed oil for industry. The main industrial use of rapeseed oil produced in Europe was biodiesel production. Much of this industrial rapeseed oil was later found to have been diverted through Catalonia, mixed with non-denatured oils and then refined for human consumption. This became known as the Catalonian circuit. Coincidentally, in late 1980 and early 1981 the importation of aniline-denatured oil increased; subsequent investigations suggest that much of this was diverted to human consumption. A Madrid-based oil distributor called RAELCA was buying rapeseed oil for resale. The company handled various oils, including olive oil, denatured and non-denatured rapeseed oil, sunflower seed oil, grapeseed oil and oils derived from animal fat. RAELCA’s process involved mixing denatured rapeseed oil with the other oils. Investigations have shown that the only toxic oil linked to a specific refinery was that associated with rapeseed oil from the ITH refinery in Seville, and the epidemic began shortly after this oil was delivered to RAELCA for retail sale. Chemical analyses confirmed the toxic oil was rapeseed oil due to high concentrations of the diagnostic compound brassicasterol, which is a phytosterol (a plant equivalent of the animal sterol cholesterol) produced by rapeseed (we discuss sterols more in Chapter 6 and provide structures in Fig. 6.2). The repercussions of this epidemic were widespread, resulting in many of the implicated oil refiners and distributors being convicted and jailed.
There are theorists who firmly believe the TOS was an elaborate diversion intended to cover up a potentially more damaging source of toxin. The most prominent of these ideas was that the epidemic was the result of tomatoes and possibly other vegetables grown in Andalusia contaminated with organophosphate pesticides, particularly isofenphos and fenamiphos. Although this generated considerable media publicity, the idea appeared not to hold up because the symptoms of TOS differed from known organo-phosphate toxicity symptoms.
The oil identity crisis
Fraud in the vegetable oil business could not be easier as it is simply a matter of mixing two liquids. The physical similarities of different oils makes a sublime situation for the cheats; it’s somewhat akin to the situation in the wine trade, but we’ll come to that in Chapter 8.
In their raw states, the colours of vegetable oils vary from virtually colourless to yellow to orange to green. However, appearances can be deceptive, especially when methods exist for adding colour and taking colour away. The odours of oils vary, but aromas and flavouring can also be added and removed. So the technically adept fraudster can make one oil look like another. We have no idea just how prevalent vegetable oil fraud actually is, but it is rampant enough among commonly tested oils to suggest that there is an underlying chronic fraud.
Olive oil is an especially popular commodity on account of its desirable flavour and perceived health benefits. Like some other speciality oils, it is produced in relatively low volumes and commands a high price. This makes it especially prone to adulteration, despite international efforts to regulate it. In contrast to these premium oils, others are produced cheaply in much higher volumes. So the temptation is just too much: either make the cheap oil smell and taste like the expensive oil or add significant amounts of the cheap oil to pad out the expensive oil. It’s all about increasing the profit margin by selling a cheaper product and leading the consumer to think it’s the more expensive product. This is deeply immoral and damaging to the producers of the genuine article, but until there is a disaster on the scale of the TOS vegetable oil fraud, it attracts surprisingly little attention.
The massive production volumes of vegetable oil make it impractical to test every batch. Additionally, the natural variation in the physical and chemical properties issue raises its ugly head again; the properties of even the same type of oil vary over considerable ranges, making it difficult to define acceptance criteria and standards. And it is within these ranges of variability that fraudsters do their business.
Cracking vegetable oil fraud
Discerning the differences between the different oils should be a matter of looking for differences in the main constituents – fatty acids. However, the fatty acid compositions of the vegetable oils listed in the Codex Alimentarius show that these oils are mainly composed of the same fatty acids. And the mixtures of these fatty acids vary naturally over sufficient ranges to give the cheats plenty of scope to mix two very different oils with similar fatty acid profiles. For example, if we compare the three major fatty acids in olive oil, the natural range in the proportions of each fatty acid overlap with other oils. And it doesn’t matter which olive oil we use for comparison because virgin, refined and olive pomace all have the same fatty acid compositions. Indeed, there is so much scope for mixing oils together that we can only guess at the scale of the fraud.
In trying to detect vegetable oil fraud we have to confront two questions: (i) does the oil in question contain an undeclared oil? And (ii) if there is an undeclared oil, how much of it is present in the bottle? The first question is often easier to resolve than the latter. Progress in answering both these questions has been made with maize or corn oil, with a test being developed that allows its purity to be accurately determined using a novel approach. The international production of maize oil is currently more than three million tonnes; that’s nearly four billion one-litre bottles. Maize oil is popular because of its good shelf life, pleasant flavour, stability and healthy fatty acid profile.
Maize oil doesn’t carry the premium price that some oils do, but it is still twice as expensive as products labelled ‘vegetable oil’ (which are primarily rapeseed in Europe and soy in North America); it’s also produced in high volume. This makes maize oil a prime target for fraudulent adulteration with cheaper vegetable oil. The first hints of extensive maize oil adulteration came in the 1990s as a result of investigations by the then UK Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. Some 291 edible oils were sampled from retailers and submitted to fatty acid, phytosterol and tocopherol analyses. Phytosterols are found in all plants with some of the structures characteristic of particular plants. Brassicasterol, which we mentioned previously, is characteristic of rapeseed oil, for example (see Figure 6.3). Likewise, tocopherols, the compounds that make up Vitamin E, also possess compositions specific to different oils. The analyses found that around 80 per cent of the collected oils were correctly labelled. However, of the 79 maize (corn) oils analysed, 35 per cent were deemed to contain an undeclared oil. The sterol and tocopherol analyses indicated that the most commonly added oil was rapeseed oil.
The results of the survey suggested that the adulteration of vegetable oils was surprisingly commonplace. However, the existing tests had their shortcomings. The detection and quantification of adulterant oils in maize oil presented a particular problem. The fatty acid composition of maize oil has an unusually high natural variability, such that blends of oils may readily be prepared with fatty acid compositions lying within the range expected for pure maize oils. Furthermore, the unusually high sterol and tocopherol contents of maize oil also help to mask the presence of added adulterant oils.
Another test was needed. In the early 1990s Barry Rossell, working at the Leatherhead Food Research Association (LHFRA), UK, recognised that maize came from the group of plants that use the C4 photosynthetic pathway, which you may remember from our honey case study in the previous chapter. All other major vegetable oil-producing plants use the C3 pathway. Rossell had the idea of using this biochemical difference as the basis of a new test. He collected a range of oils together and submitted pure oils and mixtures, prepared to mimic adulterated oils, for carbon isotope analysis. This was a very new approach to detecting food adulteration at that time. His results were extremely promising, showing that as little as 10 per cent of a C3 vegetable oil could be detected in maize oil. However, even 10 per cent adulteration is a lot of cheaper oil being added. And when you think that a typical UK supermarket price per litre for maize oil is twice that of rapeseed oil, this constitutes significant economic fraud globally, even if there aren’t likely to be any significant health consequences. The detection limits needed to be improved.
Around the same time, in the early 1990s, a new type of isotope ratio mass spectrometer became commercially available – a gas chromatograph-combustion-isotope ratio mass spectrometer (GC-C-IRMS). The idea for the technique came from the organic geochemist John Hayes working in the US. One of the first commercial instruments in the UK was acquired by a group in the School of Chemistry at the University of Bristol. One of us (Richard) joined this group shortly thereafter and was looking to put this new technology to good use. Recalling a lecture given six months earlier by Barry Rossell, Richard saw an opportunity to improve the maize oil stable carbon isotope test by looking at the carbon isotopes in the individual fatty acids rather than the whole oil. Rossell was contacted and a pilot study was initiated by Richard’s MSc student Simon Woodbury. A handful of maize and rapeseed oils were analysed and the new technique could detect down to five per cent of rapeseed oil in maize oil – a huge improvement over the existing ten per cent.
So encouraging were these results that the LHFRA funded Woodbury to undertake a PhD to further develop this new technique. He put together a new database of more than 150 vegetable oil fatty acid compositions, together with their individual carbon isotope values. Since oil adulteration was so rife, commercial oils couldn’t be trusted to build this new database, so Woodbury undertook his own painstaking extractions of the actual seeds.4, 5 The work established a precedent for how this type of compound-specific isotope work had to be done. It also showed how carbon isotope values for minor components of the oils, namely sterols and tocopherols, could be used in conjunction with those obtained for the fatty acids to significantly improve the threshold of detection for adulteration of maize oils.6 After presenting the paper on the new technique to an oil producer meeting it was interesting to see how “pure” the maize oils on the supermarket shelves became!
The FSA used this technique in a follow-up investigation in 2001. They tested 61 samples and found none were adulterated. Perhaps the most encouraging aspect of this work is the fact that despite no changes in regulation, an improvement in the detection technique had on its own led to a reduction in fraud. The technique was ultimately incorporated into the international standard in the Codex Alimentarius and for once the detection technique was ahead in the scientific arms race!
Olive oil: a likely victim
The only benefit of any food fraud scandal is that it creates an opportunity to crack open the food production and distribution systems that are elusive to most of us, find the vulnerabilities, and try to correct them. The Spanish Toxic Oil scandal was evidence that olive oil fraud was probably commonplace. Fraud in olive oil derives from the coalescence of four major elements:
1.Consumer demand for high quality olive oil and the misguided belief that somehow an oil advertised as cheap can also be high grade. The same principle applies to all things – you get what you pay for.
2.The production of nine different grades of olive oil, including four different grades of virgin olive oil, two grades of olive oil and three grades of pomace olive oil. To quote the International Olive Council (IOC),
Virgin olive oils are produced by the use of mechanical means only, with no chemical treatment. The term virgin oil includes all grades of virgin olive oil, including: Extra Virgin, Virgin, Ordinary Virgin and Lampante Virgin olive oil products. Lampante virgin oil is extracted by virgin (mechanical) methods but is unsuitable for human consumption without further refining; lampante is Italian for ‘lamp’ and refers to the earlier use of such oil for burning in lamps. This oil can be used for industrial purposes, or refined to make it edible. Refined Olive Oil is the olive oil obtained from any grade of virgin olive oil by refining methods which do not lead to alterations in the initial triacylglycerol composition. The refining process removes colour, odour and flavour from the olive oil, and leaves behind a very pure form of olive oil that is tasteless, colourless and odourless and extremely low in free fatty acids. Olive oils sold as the grades extra-virgin olive oil and virgin olive oil therefore cannot contain any refined oil. Crude Olive Pomace Oil is the oil obtained by treating olive pomace (the leftover paste after the pressing of olives for virgin olive oils) with solvents or other physical treatments, to the exclusion of oils obtained by re-esterification processes and of any mixture with oils of other kinds. It is then further refined into Refined Olive Pomace Oil and once re-blended with virgin olive oils for taste, is then known as Olive Pomace Oil.
3.The huge scale of production of cheaper oils, such as sunflower oil, provides an obvious source of potential cheap additive oils for the would-be fraudsters. Some of these oils have similar chemical compositions to olive oil, which helps to mask the additions unless more sophisticated tests are used. In other words, the fatty acid compositions of the two oils may be very similar, but they differ in their sterols and tocopherols.
4.The lack of simple tests for the different grades of olive oil. Consulting the Codex Alimentarius, EU marketing standards and the IOC testing methods reveals the problem. One of the primary ways to assess the purity of olive oil is an analysis of its organoleptic characteristics – that is, its smell and taste. Aficionados of olive oil argue that few of us would be able to recognise a high quality olive oil if it was put in front of us. This has been a challenge for the relatively new California olive oil industry. US consumers are not used to consuming fresh olive oil and so perceive this fresh flavour as being ‘off’. Most of us do not live in olive oil-producing regions so our exposure to fresh olive oil will be either rather limited or actually non-existent. Assessing the purity of olive oil from its smell and taste sounds like an art but in fact it’s an amazing piece of science. Sensory assessments rely on trained testers to objectively describe the characteristics of an oil. Their descriptions are then statistically analysed to ensure they are due to differences in the product being tested rather than differences between the testers. The conditions published by the IOC in February 2015 for undertaking such tests are very strict. They dictate how tasters should be selected and trained and how the testing should be performed. They even dictate how the room should be arranged and the shape and size of the glass used for testing the predetermined volume of oil. It is also recommended that tests are performed between 10 a.m. and 12 noon as it has been shown that smell and taste sensitivity increases at that time of the day. The testers are trained to recognise the positive attributes for fresh olive oil, which include fruity, bitter and pungent sensations, varying in intensity depending on the variety and ripeness of the fruits. Negative flavours include: heated or burnt, hay-wood, rough, greasy, vegetable water, brine, metallic, esparto, grubby and cucumber, characterising substandard olives or oil resulting from inappropriate quality, storage and/or processing of the fruit. The test is the cornerstone of olive oil authenticity testing and as we will see later it was crucial in revealing widespread olive oil fraud.
If the normal commercial spectrum of grades is not enough encouragement for the cheats, they must really begin to rub their grubby hands together when further opportunities are added through the olive oil connoisseur culture. Additional ‘grades’ have been introduced based on renowned regions and preferred local producers. For example, reputedly the most expensive olive oil in the world is Lambda, which is produced by Speiron Co. in Greece. The oil is labelled as an ‘Ultra Premium Extra Virgin Olive Oil’ and is made from Koroneiki olives, which are harvested by hand and cold pressed in order to avoid heat altering the flavour, aroma and nutritional value. The oil is packed by hand and sold in an attractive 500ml (17 fl oz) bottle. Lambda costs £34.50 (US$54) per bottle, but if you want something a little more special your bottle of Lambda is offered in a gift box at £128 (US$200). But why stop there? For true olive oil connoisseurs you can secure a bottle of Lambda in a hand-crafted case with two 18k gold plates, one of which, along with the bottle, bears the owner’s name; all for an unbelievable cost of £9,433 (US$14,698). We’re not saying there’s anything wrong with anyone enjoying the very best food, but this type of exclusivity and ultra-high price introduces further opportunities for fraud.
The olive oil hits the fan
Motivated by the dominance of European olive oil on US supermarket shelves and concerns over its authenticity, the University of California Davis (UC Davis) Olive Centre initiated a study in 2010 of how olive oils are tested.7 The study, led by Dr Edwin Frankel, was conducted in collaboration with the Australian Oils Research Laboratory. Together they investigated 186 extra virgin olive oils purchased from retail outlets in California. The samples included both imported and locally produced brands. The two laboratories had independent sensory panels in Australia and California evaluate the oils, using methods recommended by the IOC. Remarkably, 73 per cent of the oils failed the IOC organoleptic sensory standard for extra virgin olive oil. The failed samples had objectionable descriptors, such as rancid and fusty. These same oils were subjected to the IOC’s recommended chemical analyses, which included fatty acid profiles. Oils that had failed two IOC-accredited sensory panels worryingly passed the chemical analyses. The team then applied more sophisticated tests. The German Society for Fat Science (DGF) had developed tests targeting other components in the oil, such as diacylglycerols (DAGs) (like a triacylglycerol, but with only two fatty acid chains) and pyropheophytin (a compound formed in the degradation of chlorophyll and commonly called PPP). When Frankel and his team applied these methods to the same oil samples, 70 per cent of the oils from the five top-selling imported Italian brands failed the DAG test and 50 per cent failed the PPP test. The study showed not only that the majority of top-selling imported brands of ‘extra virgin’ olive oils sold in the US were failing sensory tests, but that the IOC’s recommended chemical analyses weren’t sufficient. The oils were failing due to oxidation by exposure to elevated temperatures, light and/or ageing, or adulteration with cheaper oils, or they were poorly made from low quality olives – or a combination of these factors.
The results of the UC Davis study were shocking. But then came Tom Mueller’s explosive book Extra Virginity, published in late 2011. Mueller provides a compelling exposé of the chaotic world of the olive oil trade in which the conflict is emphasised between farmers and big business. The bottom line was that it appeared Italy was exporting more olive oil than it was producing, and the mislabelling exposed by the UC Davis investigation, and others, was rife. It was probably no coincidence that in January 2012 the EU codified a decade’s-worth of amendments to the olive oil marketing standards introduced in 2002. In particular, the new version of the regulations (EU No 29/2012) clarified origin labelling on olive oils in an attempt to offer a degree of control and reassurance to consumers in the wake of mislabelling incidents concerning products ‘Made in Italy’. However, with the cat out of the bag, it was pretty clear that it would take more than a few new regulations to ensure consumers were buying the product depicted on the label. The apparent deficiencies in the established tests revealed by the UC Davis study required a major rethink in the methods used to authenticate extra virgin olive oil.
Faced with new EU labelling laws, new growing regions emerging into the market and an industry ripe for fraud, what was the way forward in terms of analysis? In June 2013, olive oil analysis experts from all around the world, including Frankel from UC Davis, gathered in Madrid to discuss olive oil fraud. The workshop considered the current status of the olive oil market and the trade standards for olive oil globally. Participants undertook a detailed review of the methods available for detecting frauds of various types and considered the magnitude of challenges in detecting olive oil fraud. They accepted that sensory testing was clearly important, but recognised the need to link panel testing to a better understanding of the chemistry behind the organoleptic qualities of olive oil. More research was needed to know how the different production methods affected the chemistry of the oil and how these different chemistries were correlated with the results of the sensory testing. Logically, the connection was made between the assessment of organoleptic properties and possibilities for using new technologies.
Electronic noses and tongues were seen as being an area ripe for development. These devices contain sensors that try to mimic the sensory capacity of the human nose and tongue, but with more objectivity. The so-called e-noses are designed to detect volatile compounds while the e-tongues detect substances in solution. The idea is that electronic signals are produced by the sensor arrays, which are then analysed using multivariate statistics to reveal patterns in the data that allow different samples to be compared. While the goal of removing the subjectivity from organoleptic panel testing is laudable, the challenge of ever achieving the same sensitivity and specificity is very considerable. More conventional analytical chemistry approaches were also highlighted as an area for development, particularly methods that would reveal more information about the volatile organic compounds that lie at the heart of the organoleptic panel tests. With the expansion in production regions and introduction of new olive varieties, DNA-based methods are also likely to have a role in recognising mixtures of oil. However, significant work lies ahead before such methods become an established part of the armoury of techniques for use in the battle against the fraudsters.
A perfect storm
The US Pharmacopeia Food Fraud Database currently lists more than 300 reports, the majority scholarly articles, relating to olive oil fraud. The most common type of fraud is the misrepresentation of the type of olive oil, either its grade or the country of origin. There are also numerous instances of olive oil being mixed with other cheaper oils such as soy, sunflower, rapeseed and corn, with less common additions being grape, peanut, cotton, mustard, sesame, palm, walnut and almond oils. The nut oil adulteration is a particular concern as this brings with it the risk of allergic responses from consumers.
While the Madrid workshop was a step towards recognising what tools were absent in the fraud fighting toolbox, the regulatory authorities in Europe still needed to be spurred into action. The trigger came in the form of the ‘perfect storm’ in 2014; bad weather and pest infestations occurred simultaneously across southern Europe, causing widespread damage to olive crops in the region. The inevitable olive shortages exerted considerable pressures on supply chains. The reduced supply meant the demand for olive oil could not be met, with the result that fraudulent activity increased. The events of 2014 have been called the annus horribilis for olive oil fraud, particularly in Italy. Italian olive oil supplies were massively reduced but because the ‘Made in Italy’ label earns a premium price, the inevitable result was fraud: many of the olive oil products claiming to be Italian were not.
Alert to this, Italy’s inspection and regulatory body for the protection of quality and fraud prevention of food products, known as ICQRF, carried out a multi-agency campaign to track the movements of vegetable oil from Italian ports to production plants, distributors and commercial outlets. They checked 4,114 operators and considered 452 of these to be ‘irregular’. They checked 6,004 products and found that 569 (9 per cent) failed to meet regulatory standards. They took 1,195 olive oil samples and had them extensively analysed by official European panels and found that 66 (6 per cent) were ‘irregular’. Some 140 administrative penalties were levied and 122 seizures were made with a total value of €9.8 million (£7 million, $11 million). Similar concerted actions were revealing analogous widespread fraud in other regions of the EU. To his great credit, on 21 January 2015 the Italian Minister of Agriculture, Maurizio Martina, organised a meeting to reflect on the status of the Italian olive oil industry. The meeting involved regulators and key stakeholders in the Italian olive oil supply chain. He defined a long-term strategy against counterfeit ‘Made in Italy’ oil that strengthened counterfeiting interventions, including providing financial support to Italian producers in times of strife such as the annus horribilis of 2014.
In response to global evidence of vegetable oil fraud, plus a European Parliament report that highlighted olive oil as one of the products (together with fish and organic foods) most prone to food fraud, the EU announced funding in 2014 to advance the science that might help in catching these slippery criminals. The call for submissions came under their Horizon 2020 scheme and the budget was €5 million (£4.4 million, US$6.7 million) to tackle olive oil authentication. The announcement acknowledged the position of the EU as the world’s largest producer, consumer and exporter of olive oil. And it was calling for proposals for research that would further the development, validation and harmonisation of ‘analytical methods and quality parameters that specifically address technical authenticity issues’.8 In particular, they wanted to address the blending of extra virgin or virgin olive oil with lesser quality oils (olive or otherwise).
The announcement was an indictment of the unsatisfactory state of the olive trade and testing practices globally. To quote Alex Renton’s review of Mueller’s book in the Guardian newspaper:
… you could tell the same story of almost any artisan’s product we put in our mouths, from bacon to cheddar cheese or smoked salmon. Industrial production techniques and the supermarket’s tendency to strip out quality in order to give ‘value’ will debase any foodstuff once it becomes popular to the point where the producer has to abuse his animals, sin against tradition or commit fraud in order to stay afloat.
Strong words indeed, but we will be providing an abundance of examples of exactly these sorts of practices in subsequent chapters.
So what of olive oil? The EU research is only just starting and it will be years before the results have any genuine impact in the marketplace. But as the Italian initiative has shown, the regulators can have an immediate effect. If the production of extra virgin olive oil is more closely controlled, there will be knock-on consequences: you will have to pay more for the best authentic products – a price that better reflects the cost of producing it. One of the most critical pieces of guidance when contemplating a purchase of extra virgin olive oil is that if it’s cheap it’s probably not the real thing. Beyond this, we are in the hands of the suppliers and their internal controls to regulate their supply chains and ensure our olive oil is what it says on the bottle.