olives ripen on the tree, are harvested by Hand and taken to the mill. Their Oil is extracted, bottled, before it is sent to the whole world.
You can twist it and turn it as you like: Each one of these production steps is prone to Adulteration. “Fraud on the olive oil market for a long time,” says Susan Test, Director of culinary Innovation in the Italian olive oil producer Bellucci, compared to the “BBC”.
“seed oil may be added; or it may contain only a small percentage of Italian Oil, and it is added to Oil from other countries, while on the label only Italian Oil.”
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And here lies the crux: If the label of “Italian olive oil” or an Italian name, that does not mean that the olives are really from Italy. On the contrary, The name refers only to the filling station or on the seat of the importer, but not on the area of origin of the olives. An exception applies in the case of the protected designation of origin DOP, the Italian seal, which indicates the origin of Italy, of the Oil.
The Problem with Italian olive oil
but If, for example, a Spanish Oil company, sold Italian buys, and Spanish Oil, under the Italian name, is the legal. It suggests to the consumer but something else. This is the case at the company Bertolli, for example.
Then there’s the practice, that very good olive oil from Greece to Italy, to the quality of spice. In the minds of consumers Italian olive oil is considered a high-quality, Spanish, and Greek lies in the perception of very much deeper than that. So you carts it is easy to Italy, mixed it, bottles it, sells it as Italian olive oil and can thereby achieve higher prices. This is also allowed.
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which is of course a bitter aftertaste: You can never be sure where the olive oil comes really. How can you change that? With transparency, for example. The company Bellucci tries with new technologies like the Blockchain to guarantee the origin of their products. Thus, one can track the journey of the Olive from tree to supermarket shelf. The data can be changed later.
Since the founding of the company in the year 2013, Bellucci goal is to make a name for themselves around the traceability of olive oil. Consumers can enter, therefore, the batch number of a specific bottle in an App to their exact origin follow up to the olive grove where the Olive was harvested.
Some food companies go even further and provide their products with QR Codes to more information to the customer. The new technologies not only make it easier to Adulteration and counterfeiting, but also to draw the consumer back into the trust. Because it’s never been the customer more and more important to know where their food comes from. What individual companies in terms of transparency, is at least a start.
