Your olive oil might be unfit for human consumption

Perhaps the most dramatic example has been the eye-watering rise in olive oil prices over the last year, which few middle-class shoppers would have failed to notice. The steep climb can be traced back to severe drought and heatwave conditions in the Mediterranean, likely exacerbated by the climate crisis, as my colleague and Bloomberg Opinion’s resident olive oil expert Javier Blas has written. 

But it’s not the only way the climate crisis might be altering our grocery baskets. Criminals are exploiting liquid gold’s price shock, meaning that there may be more of a chance that a bottle of extra virgin is actually lampante, a grade considered unfit for human consumption.

Data released to the Guardian under Freedom of Information laws shows that the European Union saw a record number of potential olive oil fraud cases at the start of the year as prices peaked. The true scale of olive oil-related crime is also likely to be much higher as the data only capture cases reported to the EU Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety and omits domestic cases.

Olive oil fraud takes a few different guises. High-quality extra virgin may be mixed with adulterants to make it go further, or criminals may concoct a blend to transform low-grade or cheap oil into something that might pass as the good stuff. In July, Italian police seized 42 metric tons of fake extra virgin olive oil worth almost $1 million, alongside 623 liters  of chlorophyll, which was being added to oil of a lesser quality, and 71 tons of something ominously referred to as an “oily substance.” In January, seed oil mixed with beta-carotene and chlorophyll was being passed off as extra virgin olive oil in 50 Rome restaurants. 

There have even been examples of so-called grove robbers stealing olives or even cutting down trees to get hold of the prized fruit, with Spanish police preventing the theft of 465 kilograms (1,025 pounds) of olives just this month. Officers also found fake cargo documents that would have allowed the stolen produce to be sold using false claims about origin and traceability.

Mislabeled and adulterated liquid gold is a tale as old as time. Clay tablets from Ebla, an ancient kingdom in Syria, dating back to 2,400 BC describe teams of royally appointed inspectors checking for olive oil fraud. It’s likely that there’s some level of olive oil counterfeiting always happening. It’s also worth noting that it’s hard to get a clear picture of food fraud’s true scale because it’s a scam — the good ones go undiscovered. In the UK, it’s estimated that the cost of counterfeit fodder to consumers, businesses and government ranges from about £500 million to £2 billion ($670 million to $3.6 billion) a year. A rise in cases may simply reflect increased vigilance or better law enforcement.

Yet periods of extreme scarcity, when prices spike rapidly, are linked with increased incidences of fraud as criminals gain an opportunity to meet the shortfall in supply and exploit high market values. In its 2024 strategic assessment, the UK Food Standards Agency’s National Food Crime Unit cites the increasing frequency of extreme weather as a key factor influencing food crime in the short and medium term.

Though the possibility of fraud in the UK is low — an FSA surveillance survey published in February that sampled frequently consumed products and a number of other commodities found food authenticity rates within tested foods were 97% — the risks are evolving and climate change, alongside geopolitical tensions and shifting border arrangements, is a key part of that.

The threat won’t be limited to olive oil, either. Orange juice is already one of the most targeted commodities for adulteration, and prices are currently at record highs as a severe drought in Brazil has collided with the spread of citrus greening — a disease transmitted by an invasive insect that degrades the fruit and slowly kills the trees it infects.

The more processed a food is, the easier it is to add adulterants or deliberately mislabel. As extreme weather poses risks to coffee, chocolate and tea cultivation, it’s not hard to imagine bad actors increasingly exploiting climate-related inflation and supply shocks.

Such crime isn’t just a matter of bad taste and wasted cash, it can pose a public health threat. As olive oil prices started to climb this time around, Spaniards of a certain age were no doubt reminded of the toxic oil syndrome outbreak of 1981. Caused by the consumption of denatured rapeseed oil for industrial use that had been illegally sold as olive oil, approximately 300 people died and many more left with chronic disease. A survivors’ organization, Seguimos Viviendo, claims that more than 5,000 people have died because of the fraud over the years. When we ponder the effects of climate change, we’re often drawn to thinking about the direct impacts. But governments and businesses need to be prepared for knock-on effects, too. 

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