One of the biggest food scams on the planet involves extra virgin olive oil.  If you are on the cooking oil aisle of your favorite food store and scan the prices of the olive oil bottles you will find that those labeled “Extra Virgin Olive Oil” are a lot more expensive than those which are labeled simply “Olive Oil”. However, many of us apparently can’t tell the difference.  This provides unscrupulous producers an incentive to pass off lower grades of olive oil as extra virgin products. It is estimated that 70% of the extra virgin olive oil on our store shelves doesn’t meet the very high extra virgin olive oil standards.

Olive oil producers all over the world have been caught using this deception to increase their profit margins, including several in the United States.  Perhaps nowhere else in the world is olive oil more revered than in Italy. So it was a major scandal when seven of the country’s best known and respected brands were caught passing off inferior olive oil as extra virgin. 

There are a couple of reasons why extra virgin olive is more expensive than its less costly cousin and the most important is the way it is made.  It is “cold-pressed” which indicates heat is not used in the process.  The olives are ground to a paste and then the paste is pressed or placed in a centrifuge to extract the oil from the water and solid remains the olives. Also, the process of certifying a product through standards bodies such as the Madrid-based International Olive Council (IOC), the California Olive Oil Council, etc., which involve chemical analysis and often expert taste testing, is both rigorous and time-consuming. Therefore it is an expensive process. 

On the other hand, regular olive oil is an oil that that does not meet these rigorous standards.  It is often heat-treated to get rid of unwanted impurities. Heat treating gives a more neutral taste and lighter yellower coloration.  Often a small amount of premium extra virgin olive oil is added to give it more of the characteristic olive oil taste.

The process of making extra virgin olive oil produces an oil that has a “forest-green color, a grassy, slightly peppery flavor, and a fruity aroma”. In other words, it smells like olives and has excellent flavor. It also contains all of the health benefits for which olive oil is famous.  This is the olive oil that you will want to use for dips, dressings, finishing touches on other food items, or just to soak up with crusty bread to eat off hand.  In other words, it is best used in situations that don’t involve cooking.

You can certainly use extra virgin olive oil for cooking, but it is very likely that you won’t be able to detect its subtle taste characters in cooked dishes. So it makes good sense to use its less expensive cousin, regular olive oil, for cooking.  It makes sense to keep two bottles of olive oil on hand, extra virgin for non-cooking applications and regular olive oil for cooking.

Note: You don’t want to use any olive oil for high heat cooking like frying because it has a low smoke point. An oil’s smoke point is the temperature where it starts to smoke and break down into unhealthy components.  Also, give your olive oil the smell test before using it. Olive oil can break down over time and become rancid.  Also, don’t buy olive oil in clear glass or plastic bottles. Olive oil breaks down due to oxidation when subjected to light so keep it in a cool dark place like one of your kitchen cabinets.

Now back to extra virgin olive oil fraud.  I did some research and found an article on the Selo Olives website which lists the olive oil producers which have been detected by chemical testing to have fraudulently misrepresented some of their regular olive oil as extra virgin.  Does that mean that all of their extra virgin olive oil product are frauds? No, perhaps some or most of their many olive oil brands do meet the high extra virgin standards and/or they may have completely cleaned up their act after being busted. However, several of these producers, including some of the famous Italian companies, have been caught defrauding the olive oil buying public multiple times. I personally wouldn’t trust the olive oil products of the companies listed below because of their past bad behavior.  

The following 13 companies have been caught advertising inferior oil as extra virgin olive oil on their bottles according to the article, “Known Fake Olive Oil Brands”.  Note that some brands you have probably known and trusted for years are included.

Known Fake Extra Virgin Olive Oil Brands:

Antica Badia

Bertolli

Carapelli

ColavitaCoricelli

Felippo Berio

Mazola

Mezzetta

Primadonna

Pompeian

Safeway

SassoWhole Foods – yes, that Whole Foods

Well that raises the obvious question, which brands can you trust. That’s a hard one because some of the brands which were caught cheating have previously been certified by standards organizations such as the International Olive Council (IOC).  Obviously they submitted verified extra virgin olive oil for testing and certification and then began selling inferior oil to the public under the same brand names.  All I can provide here is a list of olive oil producers that have not been caught cheating. 

During my research, I found an article, “NAOOA Certified Olive Oils” which lists of the extra virgin olive oil brands which the North American Olive Oil Association (NAOOA) has certified for quality. A word of caution here; I found several of the brands of companies known to have faked extra virgin olive oil on the list below and removed them.  All that can truly be said of the remaining companies on NAOOA’s list below is that these producers are not known to have been involved in the scam. The list is furnished primarily to illustrate that there are many companies producing extra virgin olive that are not known to have defrauded the olive oil buying public, or at least they have been caught doping it yet.

Extra Virgin Olive Oil Brands Not Caught Cheating

Alessi: Alessi Premium Organic Italian Extra Virgin Olive Oil*

Carlini (Aldi): Carlini Extra Virgin Olive Oil and Simply Nature Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Cibaria: Cibaria Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Flor do Alentejo USA: Flor do Alentejo Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Goya: Goya Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Goya Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil, and Goya Unico Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Guillen: Guillen Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Iliada: Iliada Extra Virgin Olive Oil

La Tourangelle: La Tourangelle Extra Virgin Olive Oi and La Tourangelle Everyday Extra Virgin Olive Oil*

Napa Valley Naturals: Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Origin 846: Extra Virgin Olive Oil and Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil 

Primal Kitchen: Primal Kitchen Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Roland: American Roland Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Sprouts: Sprouts Extra Virgin Olive Oil of Italy, Sprouts Extra Virgin Olive Oil of Greece, Sprouts Extra Virgin Olive Oil of Spain, Sprouts Farmers Market Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Star: Star Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Terra Delyssa: Extra Virgin Olive Oil Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil *

Zoe: Zoe Extra Virgin Olive Oil and Zoe Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil

However given the prevalence of fraud in this market, it really is up to you to try to determine whether the extra virgin olive oil you are buying is genuine or not.  Here are some tips on how to determine whether or not you have the good stuff from an article entitled, “How to Tell If Your ‘Extra Virgin’ Olive Oil is Real or Fake”

1. Smell and Taste It:  True olive oil should smell fresh, like grass or something fruity. Avoid something that smells musty or rancid, or even odorless. In addition to smell, when you’re tasting olive oils, you should recognize hints of grass, fruit, and almond. Plus, it’s a good sign if the oil tastes a bit bitter (but not too much) and also has a slightly peppery taste as well.

2. Look at the Batch Date:  This is not the same as an expiration date. Look at the bottle’s label for a “batch date,” “bottled date” or “harvested date” that’s within 18 months. If it only has an expiration date and nothing else, you might want to consider not purchasing it because you could be purchasing olive oil that has been produced or bottled years before.

3. Pay Attention to How It’s Bottled:  Olive oil should be stored in a dark, cool place, so if the bottle is clear, you’ll want to stay away from that brand. A darker bottle will help preserve the olive oil. Additionally, the olive oil should be packaged in a glass bottle—a plastic bottle is too porous to protect it from heat, light, or moisture.

4. Read Labels Carefully:  Just because the olive oil says it was “packed” or “bottled” in a certain location, doesn’t mean the olives were grown there, or even that the oil was produced there. Olive oil could be made in a different country and then sent to Italy or Greece for bottling. Look at the label to find out exactly where the olive oil was produced. In addition, the label should say “extra virgin,” and avoid terms like “pure,” “light,” or “olive pomace oil”—that means it’s been chemically refined.

5. Price: “Early harvest” olive oil (which has the highest level of healthy polyphenols) is oil squeezed from the olive before the olive is ripe. An unripe olive yields much less olive oil but much higher quality oil.  Since the manufacturing process yields much less oil it takes the “juice” more expensive. Avoid bargain prices. Unfortunately, if it’s cheap, it might not be genuine olive oil.

For those of you who value olive oil as a tasty and healthy component of your family’s diet, good luck finding genuine extra virgin olive oil when you seek it.  It’s the wild west out there.

Cajun (Rick Guilbeau)  2/9/2021