The National Consumers League (NCL) has released a report finding that six of 11 national brands of extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) failed to meet EVOO standards when evaluated by an Australian lab. In January 2015, the consumer group purchased 11 different varieties of olive oil, all labeled extra virgin, from four major Washington, D.C., area retailers. Of those 11 products, six failed to meet International Olive Council (IOC) standards required to be considered extra virgin quality; only five were found to be true extra virgin olive oils.
“One of NCL’s priorities is to assess whether the food in our supermarkets are accurately labeled,” said Sally Greenberg, NCL’s executive director. “The results of our olive oil testing reveal that, while consumers are buying and paying extra for olive oil labeled EVOO, too much of the olive oil bought off the shelf isn’t the real deal. It’s mislabeled, or it’s been degraded over the course of the shipping and storage process.”
Olive oils are classified based on their chemistry, flavor profile, and presence of defects, and are labeled (from best quality to worst quality) extra virgin, virgin, ordinary, and lampante. An olive oil found to have any defects cannot be classified as “extra virgin.” At the other end of the spectrum, lampante is a classification that the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture (USDA), along with other standard-setting authorities, uses to indicate that the oil is not fit for human consumption.
Shortly after purchase in January, the NCL shipped the samples to the Australian Oil Research Laboratory (AORL), a testing facility located in New South Wales, Australia, and accredited by the IOC and the American Oil Chemists’ Society (AOCS). The NCL commissioned AORL to comprehensively analyze the oils with a variety of tests, including sensory assessment (also known as the organoleptic assessment) in order to identify flavor profiles and defects in the oils.
The following five products were found to have no flavor defects and to be classified as extra virgin:
California Olive Ranch Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Colavita Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Lucini Premium Select Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Trader Joe’s Extra Virgin California Estate Olive Oil
Trader Joe’s 100% Italian Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil
“Based on my review of the data, both the organoleptic (sensory or taste testing) and chemical tests support the same conclusion, that only five of the 11 [products] samples tested were ‘extra virgin’ as represented on the label,” said Richard Cantrill, chief science officer and technical director of the AOCS.
All the samples NCL tested were found to be 100% olive oil, and none were cut with refined oil or seed oil, which is a form of EVOO fraud.
