Portugal’s DECO Test: 5 of 25 ‘Extra Virgin’ Oils Fail
Portugal’s biggest consumer group, DECO, tested 25 extra virgin olive oils sold in the country and says 5 of them had no right to that label, including one organic brand that its lab says was not olive oil at all. Here is what the test found, how the accused producer answered, and what the results say about buying oil in any supermarket.
What DECO found
The results appear in the September issue of DECO’s magazine, Proteste, and the association put out a statement on them in late August. Its lab ran the chemical tests set out in European law (acidity, peroxide value, ultraviolet absorption and alkyl esters, among others) and sent the oils to a trained taste panel.
Four brands labeled extra virgin, Auchan (Moura PDO), É, Grão Mestre and Naturfoods Biológico, showed sensory defects that extra virgin oil is not allowed to have. By law they should have been sold as plain virgin olive oil, one grade down. The fifth case is the serious one. DECO says the analysis of Alfandagh organic “extra virgin” showed refined vegetable oils other than olive oil. It called that fraud, pure and simple, reported it to ASAE, Portugal’s food and economic safety authority, and asked for the product to be taken off the shelves.
According to DECO, ASAE went back and took new samples of its own, and found some that it described as fraud involving refined olive oil. ASAE said the cases were following the normal procedure to get that oil off the market.
| DECO test, September 2013 | Result |
|---|---|
| Brands tested | 25, all sold as extra virgin |
| Failed on taste (should be “virgin”) | 4: Auchan (Moura PDO), É, Grão Mestre, Naturfoods Biológico |
| Failed as olive oil, according to DECO | 1: Alfandagh organic |
| Top two in the ranking | Dia Clássico (Minipreço) and Gallo Clássico, both among the cheapest |
| Bottles showing a bottling date | 2 of 25 |
The producer fights back
Alfandagh’s maker, M. C. Rabaçal & Aragão, rejects the result. Director Artur Aragão told the Lusa news agency that the findings contradict each other: the taste panel described an extra virgin oil, while the chemistry said it was not even olive oil. He called it somewhat irresponsible to condemn a whole brand on one lot, and said the family firm has its oil tested by an outside company from harvest to point of sale. The oil won a Prestige Gold award at the Terraolivo competition in Jerusalem this year.
DECO told Olive Oil Times that its lab reports are for internal use only, so outsiders cannot check the numbers. That leaves the final word with ASAE, which is the right place for it.
Why it matters beyond Portugal
This is the same pattern as last year’s Consumer Reports test in the United States: most failures are not seed oil in a bottle but a grade problem, oil that is real but tired or defective, sold one grade above what it is. DECO wants more checks at every link, from the mills to the packers to the supermarkets, and says better practice in the groves and at extraction would help too. It also worries, rightly, that a few bad bottles make buyers suspicious of a whole industry that is growing fast in Portugal.
The detail that deserves more attention is the last line of the table. Only 2 of 25 bottles said when they were filled. Without a date, a shopper cannot tell a fresh oil from one that has spent a year under supermarket lights.
- Price did not predict quality here: two of the cheapest oils came out on top.
- A taste-panel fail usually means old fruit, poor storage or slow milling, not a criminal blend.
- A chemistry fail for foreign oils is a different matter, and that is a job for the police and the inspectors.
An oil can pass as extra virgin on the day it is bottled and fail six months later on a warm shelf. Sensory defects grow with time, light and heat, which is why the same brand can pass one test and fail the next. Buy from a shop that turns its stock over quickly, pick the bottle from the back of the shelf, and favor any label that gives a harvest or bottling date. The grade names only tell you what the oil was when it left the packer.
Sources
- DECO Proteste: DECO denuncia fraude no azeite (August 27, 2013, archived)
- Olive Oil Times: Portuguese Consumer Group Seeks Clampdown on Olive Oil Mislabeling (September 3, 2013)
- Algarve Resident: Olive oil fraud denounced (August 30, 2013, archived)