The Italian Mafia's New Weapon: Olive Oil | Food Fraud Mafia Investigation

Damn it, do I have to make everything myself now?

I’m from South Italy, Apulia. We do produce extra virgin olive oil, the real deal, from organic olive trees but we haven’t been able to start our company business because the people doesn’t want to pay the right price for an excellent product that you don’t find in any store of the world. The real one, just the oil, cost to us around 10 eur/liter, how am I supposed to sell it for less than that amount? I believe the right price would be around 25 eur/liter but people don’t understand that if you want something excellent you have to pay for it!

Most product labels in NZ now say "made from local and imported ingredients", so we never know the true origins of certain foods

Wait until they investigate the honey industry 😬

I bought olive oil once that was actually olive oil. Like they accidentally shipped the real stuff. That was when I realized I had never actually had real olive oil before.

The question is why did they wait until now to take a bigger action? This was known for decades...

In India we pay somewhere around $15-20 dollars/lt for extra virgin olive oil while most oils (soyabean, sunflower, mustard, ricebran, palmolein oil is available for around $2/lt), even after paying the premium price, now I am doubtful whether that's the real deal or not.

Well done, it's about time people told the truth. Thank you so much for being honest.

Thanks for this report. This is completely poisonous! The good thing about Albania it is that most of us make our olive oils even though you don't have olive trees. You can directly buy the olives from farmers and turn that into olive through the machineries (there are dozens of them scattered around the county). You decide about the thickness, temperature etc.

It's important to keep stopping these operations or the Italian quality producers will suffer too. For people outside of Italy it's better to stick with brands that have a known history and not to just look for the cheapest bottle on the shelves. Most Italian oil brands have a clear online presence and a long history of quality. If you suddenly see a cheaper oil with an unknown brand it's better to avoid it.

Next time someone tells you that canola, vegetable oils, sunflower, corn or grape seed oils are healthy, kick them in the head.

I am looking at a bottle of Italian extra virgin olive oil at the moment promoted by a uk tv celebrity says bottled in China !!!! why the hell would Italian olive oil be exported to China to be bottled , would love to get it properly sampled.

Punishment should be sever enough to deter criminal activity.

For as long as humanity has existed, so have criminals.

Excellent documentary, and the same goes for the wine too. When you can find Chianti all the way from Alaska to New Zeeland, you can only wonder if the Mediterranean Sea isn't covered in vineyards. Coming back to the olive oil, when I was living in Italy I was always going in the countryside to buy olive oil and wine straight from the farmers. A proper extra vergine cannot be less than €8/l at the farmer's gate, anything less than that is bent. Here comes the fault of the italian population, especially the young generation that are becoming food illiterates. They compare this €8/l price with the supermarket oil prices of €2/l, not looking at all at the quality. The supermarket extra vergine is in fact lampante (that sort of oil used in the past for the oil lamps). This way loads of farmers ran out of customers and now are selling their organic extra vergine to the big corporations that are bending it with all kind of other oils and substances to sell it later in the supermarkets chains as extra vergine. The Italian state is obviously at fault too for not protecting the DOC and DOGC labels for what they really should be, letting the farmers and consumers down.

I had relatives in Crete and I used to buy it from them. 0-1 acidity. It’s too expensive to ship and it was a hassle to go pick it up from the customs hall in downtown Montreal. The association of Kolymvary. Really miss it. Now I buy from Greek grocery stores. I buy the Athena brand.

If you are Mediterranean and grew up on a daily diet of extra virgin olive oil, you would quickly realize the Italian stuff you’re buying in American stores is not extra virgin. Lacks the color, the Aroma, the density, the assertive flavor... I buy Spanish, Greek, Lebanese (from Al Kura region). The Spaniards when they mix or blend, tell you on the label (like Al Wazir) and manage to keep it delicious.

It's a fact that there's no sufficient culture abroad about olive oil (perhaps also about wines, tomatoes etc.,) so that also engine oils are thought they can work as well. In Italy there are only few specific areas where olive oil is produced ....in Liguria, Tuscany, small areas in Lazio, Puglia, certain areas in Sicily and in the North around the Garda lake. The olive oil produced in these areas have all a different taste due to the nature of their soil. That said every Italian has his own preference so that if for example I'm used to buy olive oil from Liguria it will be unlikely that I'll buy an olive oil from Puglia because its taste and consistence is completely different. This to say that one should learn to recognize what is what so to identify those products that might be fake regardless of the brand they carry on a bottle or a 3 / 5 litres can. On top of that, only the giant companies are planning to sell hundred thousand bottles/litres of olive oil hence the risk is more there rather than in a smaller production site with a limited market or number of bottles to sell. A bit of brain should always be put in use to survive this world. 🙂

Glad I’ve always paid for the best oil but even then how the hell do we know it is what it says it is on the label 🤷🏻‍♂️

In Italy have many control about food production, imagine what's happening in food production in the country not have any control like china or India