Bari, Italy – Italian police have arrested 39 people and seized truckloads of fake olive oil destined for the United States, Germany and Switzerland.
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Tipped off by restaurateurs cops have confiscated 5,500 gallons of the fake oil after catching the gang adding flavoring and colorants and slapping false "extra-vergin" labels on bottles.
Some 15,000 cans, 33,000 labels, 2,800 one-litre bottles of oil and 250kg of chlorophyll were also seized, along with seven olive oil factories.
Italy is Europe's second-largest producer of olive oil, behind Spain. [Reuters]
No wonder why the food tasted like it was from Mitzrayim. I thought my mother in law was trying to make us feel like we were still in Mitzrayim.
If only Yom Tov was 18 minutes so we could have run out of the house…. Thank You Italy. Thank you to all the countries that sold us fake virgins of olive oil.
Read the label on the back of he bottle and you will see a list of the counties it might come from. This started a few years ago.
murky Italian olive oil to be pored over
By Malcolm Moore,
The secretive world of Italian olive oil will be laid bare after the government insisted that every bottle should show where it comes from.
Large olive oil brands, such as Filippo Berio and Bertolli, have long cultivated the image that its oil comes from rustic, rolling groves in the Italian countryside.
Instead, it often arrives in Italy in tanker trucks from destinations as diverse as Tunisia, Turkey, Greece and Spain.
According to EU laws, foreign oil can be sold as Italian olive oil if it is cut with a small amount of the domestic product.
Only four per cent of olive oil leaving Italy is pure Italian oil.
Alberto Fontana, the president of Salov, the company that makes Filippo Berio, admitted that only about a fifth of the company’s oil is pressed from Italian olives.
After being blended, the oil is often said to be bottled nella tenuta, or “on the estate”, despite having come from elsewhere. Last year there was a 45 per cent rise in imports of Tunisian oil.
With the law change, every bottle of Italian olive oil will have to declare which farm it comes from, and the press that extracted the oil. In the case of blended oils, a precise breakdown of the various oils will be listed.
“This will protect our star product against fraud, and make sure people know what they are getting,” said Paolo De Castro, the agriculture minister.
Although Italy is famous for its olive oil, it is the second largest producer in Europe behind Spain.
Indeed, Italy cannot even produce enough oil to satisfy its domestic customers. Last year, the crop was down 13 per cent to 700,000 tonnes, while Italians used 835,000 tonnes.
Imports make up the difference, while the majority of Italy’s exports are made from foreign oil. Brands such as Felippo Berio and Bertolli are not available in Italy.
The labelling will also help to erase the common practice of marking olive oil as “extra virgin”.
A television investigation by RAI, the state broadcaster, tracked a load of olio di sansa, the oil that is extracted from the pulp after the extra virgin has been pressed, as it passed through Turkey.
When the oil left the Turkish port on its way to Italy, it was certified as extra virgin.
Until now we all knew that vergin olive oil dosnt need an Hashgocha, here we go with that!
Maybe they should also seize the “Gebaken nuch paisech” (baked after passover) stickers that are being faksly slapped onto products in this after pesach season, and arrest these manufacturs.