“Agromafia” is a term many learned in the 60 Minutes story on January 3, 2016, kicking off the new year with an olive oil expose.
60 Minutes, together with Tom Mueller (author of Extravirginity) and the Italian government’s “Food FBI” revealed the involvement of the Mafia in food production and distribution. And it’s not just olive oil involved in this scheme. Similar issues exist with counterfeit Italian wine and cheese.
Grocery store olive oils with name brands you know have a very high rate of falsified claims about origin and quality. Essentially, many of the olive oils which are labeled as extra virgin olive oil don’t actually meet those standards. They call it phony olive oil.
To learn more about how this was uncovered and the extent to which food products are being misrepresented, you can read the transcript and video available here.
Unfortunately, it’s easy to fool the mass market. Shoppers assume that anything included on a food label is verified and accurate. But the reality is far different from that.
When shoppers educate themselves, however, they can push back against these misrepresented products and make sure they get the real thing. To help, we’ve put together this guide on How to Buy Olive Oil.
At Olio2go, it’s easy to find authentic extra virgin olive oils and other genuine Italian ingredients. Our small olive oil producers are not interested in selling their oil as a commodity.
Our producers submit lab tests and sensory tests for their olive oils. More importantly, they win major competitions with the same olive oil (exceeding lab standards) and they excel at producing great olive oil. You can click here to see the full collection of award-winning olive oils at Olio2go.
There’s no tampering with our gems. And although prices may be a bit higher than the inaccurately labeled products found in grocery stores, quality doesn’t come cheap.
According to Guy Campanile with 60 Minutes, “If you’re paying seven bucks or eight bucks for a bottle of Italian extra virgin olive oil, it’s probably not Italian extra-virgin.”
