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> switched to olive oil after the scandal Do you actually have olive oil in your olive oil? In the U.S., most of the olive oil for sale is either misgraded o

• harperlee 10y ago
  If I recall correctly Spain is the biggest exporter of olive oil, with Italy and Tunisia somewhere behind (and in fact most of the Italian exports are just Spanish oil, Italian branded). It makes way less economic sense to adulterate the olive oil in Spain when it is not a gourmet import, but a staple daily produce. On the pricier premium virgen extra oil there has been some fraud, nonetheless (in Spanish: http://m.europapress.es/sociedad/consumo-00648/noticia-ocu-acusa-nueve-marcas-aceite-oliva-enganar-consumidor-20121025122232.html http://m.europapress.es/sociedad/consumo-00648/noticia-ocu-a...).
• zb 10y ago
  I was just in Spain, and was told that prior to the financial crisis much of the olive oil produced in Italy and Greece was made from olives grown in Spain. (Spain is a massive producer of olives.) After the crisis they stopped exporting olives and started bottling their own oil, which was the cause of the shortage in supply of extra virgin oil from e.g. Italy that led to organised crime getting into the fake olive oil business. So there's every reason to think that Spain in particular is awash in genuine olive oil.
  • lovemenot 10y ago
    So, a result of the crisis was that Spain decided circumstances had changed such that foreigners' cash was needed less than before? Your facts may be right (I don't know) but if so, Spanish authorities made a basic economic error in that decision.
    • edu 10y ago
      No, businessmen realized it's more profitable to process the olives and sell the oil than just selling the olives.
    • zb 10y ago
      No, you make more money exporting value-added products (like olive oil) than raw ingredients (like olives). Basic economics says you want to move higher up the value chain, and that's what (I'm told) they did. Of course this caused further problems for Greece and Italy, which were already not in good shape.
• joeyspn 10y ago
  > Do you actually have olive oil in your olive oil? Yes, actually we are the biggest extra virgin olive oil producers, exporters and probably also the biggest consumers in the world. Most people here has or knows a friend that produces the oil himself... 100% pure (from the trees to the oil mill). I don't remember the last time I used sunflower oil (the alternative option). http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-california-olive-oil/img/feat_oliveoil05prod_1280.png http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-california-olive-oil/... Italians and frenchies usually buy the product from Spain and rebrand it.
• NetStrikeForce 10y ago
  > In the U.S., most of the olive oil for sale is either misgraded or adulterated[1] [1] http://time.com/money/4326354/fake-olive-oil-food-fraud/ http://time.com/money/4326354/fake-olive-oil-food-fraud/ Mostly yes. Spain accounts for 45% of the world's EVOO production.
• gutnor 10y ago
  Yes, but more importantly, olive oil is staple food and Spanish people know the real taste of olive oil. Part of the problem in the US and other countries is that marketing successfully managed to convince people that the taste of cheap generic oil was the sign of quality and all the potent characteristic of virgin olive oil were undesirable. Rapeseed oil nowadays start to get sold a bit more. But as rapeseed, not as colza. Any 30 something or older spaniard would never buy colza oil. That's how much that scandal has impacted the industry, and everybody has seen someone with the malformation due to the tainted oil (which may not be the real reason according to this article). That would commercial suicide if your brand was somewhat mixing its oil because of that scandal. A last point is that Spain is really producing a lot of the stuff and is utterly inept at making a lot of money on it. Contrast that with Italy that buy Spanish oil and sell it at a premium just by labelling it "Italian Olive Oil". Actually that's another aspect of the US problem with oil. "Italian Olive Oil" is an extremely powerful label, one that, conveniently, has little legal meaning.