Olive oil may be synonymous with southern European gastronomy but it is also a key ingredient for fraudsters, at least in France.
The consumer fraud office has said that 40.9 per cent of the olive oils checked by its inspectors were swindles in one way or another.
Most claimed to be extra virgin, the finest oil, made by pressing high-quality olives, but turned out on inspection to contained processed oils that should have deprived them of the prestigious label.
The department in the finance ministry responsible for consumer affairs and preventing fraud said that it had verified 222 producers, distributors and sellers last year, and that 90 of them were misleading consumers.
One supplier claimed to have put gold powder in its oil, but it turned out to be zinc and copper. Another label said that the oil contained French truffle aroma, but the truffles were Spanish, which are reputed to lack the pungent quality of their French counterparts.
A spokesman for the consumer fraud office told buyers to “distrust bargain buys. If you see an extra-virgin olive oil at the price of a standard oil, there’s a problem.”
It is not the first time the office has warned of fraud driven by the French taste for high-quality olive oils. It said that the price of one litre-bottles sold in supermarkets ranged from €5.80 to €20. “They can even reach €60 when the oils are marketed by luxury groups.”
France gets through about 110,000 tonnes of olive oil a year but produces only about 4,500 tonnes itself, making it a magnet for swindlers, the office said.
Its warnings echoed a report three years ago by 60 Millions de Consommateurs, a consumer group, which checked 26 oils that claimed to be extra virgin and found that only ten merited the label.