Deceptive false labeling of olive oil bottles to hide the nation of origin

adulteration \| false labeling \| optical illusions

cleverly deceptive olive oil labels
When a label says "Imported from Italy" it does not mean the olive oil was made from Italian olives.

Bertolli ® is the largest brand of olive oil in the world. In 2001 a law suit was opened against Bertolli for false labeling. At that time Bertolli ® was owned by Unilever (Hellmann's/Bestfoods) the giant Dutch/English food company. They settled out of court. Look at the back labels of Carapelli ® (Hormel, USA), and Star ® (Borges, Spain), and Filippo Berio ® (Salov, SpA, Italy) you will find similar clever labeling. Click on the pictures to see details. In July 2008 Unilver sold the Bertolli brand to the Spanish food company: Grupo SOS.


BETOLLI ® (Grupo SOS, Spain)		FILIPPO BERIO ® (Salov, SpA, Italy)
FRONT label says: "Imported from Italy"		FRONT label says: "Imported from Italy"
BACK label says:		BACK label says:
"PRODUCT CONTAINS SELECT HIGH QUALITY OLIVE OILS FROM ITALY, GREECE, SPAIN & TUNISIA BOTTLED AND PACKED IN ITALY."		"Packed in Italy with select oils from Italy, Spain, Greece, Tunisia and Turkey."


CARAPELLI ® (Hormel, USA)		STAR ® (Borges, Spain)
FRONT label says: "Imported from Italy" "Florence"		FRONT label just says: "Imported"
BACK label says:		SIDE label says: (in vertical writing)
"Product contains select high quality Olive Oils from the countries indicated by the letters in the brackets below. (I)=Italy, (GR)=Greece, (E)=Spain, (TU)=Tunisia, (TK)=Turkey."		"PACKED FOR © BORGES USA - STAR FINE FOODS - FRESNO, CA 93725. PACKED IN SPAIN."
		Then in micro-print it says:
		"Contains high quality Olive Oils from Spain, Italy, Greece and Tunisia."
		Star was originally a California based company owned by an Italian immigrant, but it was purchased by Borges of Spain to import their products.

When I was visiting near Rome, Italy a few years ago I had lunch in the home of a local family. They had Bertolli ® olive oil in the table so I asked them if they knew who owed the Bertolli ® brand. They said it was an Italian company. They were shocked to find out that the brand was owned (at that time) by Unilever (a Dutch/English multinational). The brand that Unilever used to own in Turkey is called Komili. This brand started as a family owned factory, but was later developed by Unilever into one of the most popular brands in the market. In 2008 the brand was bought by a Turkish company. There is nothing illegal about using a brand name that gives an impression to the consumer that is different from reality. Nearly half of the world's olive oil is produced in Spain, but in the US most olive oil seeks to represent itself as Italian, because the perception is that this is what the consumer wants. In Turkey, a multinational company may want to appeal to the consumer's preference for local brands by using an old family name. But these small deceptions do impact the consumer, because they distract her from the real value of extra virgin olive oil, which is not in the branding, but in the health-giving and flavorful quality of this fruit juice given to us by the olive tree. -- Dennis McGee; Istanbul, Turkey January 2012.

A 1997 article Tom Mueller tells how Paolo De Castro, (Italian agriculture minister in 2007) proposed a “Made in Italy” law, which would require distributors to state the origin of their oil on the labels. Leonardo Marseglia, owner of one of the largest largest edible-oil refineries in the world, did not think such a law could be effective. Mueller quotes Marseglia: "Oil doesn’t have an identity card; it just goes. When someone has two silos of oil, one Italian and the other foreign, you just have to switch them: the other one becomes Italian oil, this one becomes foreign." Marseglia pointed out that oils labeled “Made in Italy” sell for more than other oils, and he said that "De Castro’s legislation would only inspire more fraud. So what’s going to happen? They’ll do another swindle, and behind the mask of ‘Made in Italy’ there’s foreign oil labeled “Made in Italy”"

US Customs regulations on olive oil labeling
US Customs regulations on "country of origin" and the United States International Trade Commission Ruling based on Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Regulations about what constitutes "substantial transformation" indicate that:
"all of the nations of origin must be shown on the same side of the label and in comparable size letters so as not to mislead the consumer"
An exception to the rule of origin is when:
"a product has undergone substantial transformation"
Yet most major US brands continue to put “imported from Italy” on the front label in large letters and other origins on the back in very small print. These products are a mixture of olive oil from more than one nation and it is not clear what percentage of the olive oil is really of Italian origin. This practice makes it difficult for high quality, lower cost producers outside of Italy to enter enter the US market, and for genuine Italian producers to compete.

Other popular brands of olive oil are Pompeian (Moreno family, Spain), Goya (Goya Food Inc., USA). Da Vinci (World Finer Foods Inc.), and Colavita (Colavita USA LLC & Italy).