Adulteration of Olive Oil

Abstract

The US Food and Drug Administration (US FDA) is mandated with protection of the US public against intentional adulteration of foods for economically motivated gain and deceptive label declarations such as those found with adulterated extra virgin olive oil (EVOO). In April 2016, a US Congressional Committee expressed concerns related to reports of the high prevalence of imported olive oil sold in the United States that is adulterated or mislabeled. Such fraudulence reportedly includes the mixing of EVOO with seed oil, which could adversely impact the health of consumers who are allergic to seed oil. The most serious issue facing regulatory agencies has been the relative ease of adulterating EVOO while meeting the physical and chemical criteria of established trade standards, such as those of the International Olive Council (IOC) and the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). This issue underscores the urgent need for more rigorous and accurate analytical methodologies, including untargeted rapid screening tools, for detecting such fraudulence. This article presents an overview of current official methods, analytical procedures that target specific analytes, and rapid screening tools that rely on chemometric analysis.

A Review of Recent Progresses on Olive Oil Chemical Profiling, Extraction Technology, Shelf‐life, and Quality Control

“…Quality and authenticity characteristics of VOO are strictly regulated [87] . In order to preserve this nobility, OO passes through various quality and purity controls by international authorities, notably the International Olive Oil Council, and research continues to be conducted to prevent any desecration or impurity of the quality of this natural heritage [88] . OOs are divided into several groups based on their qualities.…”

“…[87] In order to preserve this nobility, OO passes through various quality and purity controls by international authorities, notably the International Olive Oil Council, and research continues to be conducted to prevent any desecration or impurity of the quality of this natural heritage. [88] OOs are divided into several groups based on their qualities. The chemical standards to be assessed to classify the quality levels of VOO are reported in Table 3.…”

A Rapid, Univariate FT-NIR Procedure to Determine Moisture Concentration in Olive Oil

“…In the present study we demonstrate for the first time that, based on spiking experiments, the unique NIR band near 5260 cm 1 is attributed to moisture in olive oil. Preliminary data were recently presented at the 2019 International Forum Process Analytical Chemistry 11 . The moisture content of olive oil is a quality parameter according to CODEX standard for olive oils and olive pomace oils 12 .…”