Your olive oil may not be suitable for human consumption

You can think of your grocery bill as partly embodying a range of extreme weather events around the world, from suction inflation caused by poor potato harvests in Europe to rising tomato prices in the Middle East following heatwaves.

Perhaps the most dramatic example was last year’s stunning rise in olive oil prices, which few middle-class shoppers would have missed. The steep increase can be attributed to severe drought and heatwave conditions in the Mediterranean, likely exacerbated by the climate crisis, as my colleague and Bloomberg Opinion’s resident olive oil expert Javier Blas has written.

But it’s not the only way the climate crisis could change our shopping baskets. Criminals are taking advantage of the liquid gold price shock, meaning there is a greater chance that a bottle of extra virgin is actually Lampant, a variety considered unfit for human consumption.

Data provided to the Guardian under freedom of information laws shows the European Union saw a record number of potential cases of olive oil fraud at the start of the year, when prices were at their peak. The actual level of olive oil-related crime is also likely to be much higher, as the data only captures cases reported to the EU Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety and omits domestic cases.

Olive oil fraud can take various forms. High-quality extra virgin oil can be mixed with adulterants to further increase the potency, or criminals can invent a mixture to turn low-quality or cheap oil into something that could be considered a good product. In July, Italian police seized 42 tons of counterfeit extra virgin olive oil worth nearly $1 million, as well as 623 liters of chlorophyll added to low-quality oil and 71 tons of a substance ominously referred to as an “oily substance.” In January, seed oil mixed with beta-carotene and chlorophyll was passed off as extra virgin olive oil in 50 restaurants in Rome.

There were even examples of so-called grove robbers stealing olives or even felling trees to get their hands on the valuable fruits. Spanish police prevented the theft of 465 kilograms (1,025 pounds) of olives this month alone. The officers also found forged shipping documents that would have allowed the stolen products to be sold under false claims about origin and traceability.

Mislabeled and adulterated liquid gold is a story as old as time. Clay tablets from Ebla, an ancient kingdom in Syria, date back to 2,400 B.C. BC and describe teams of royally appointed inspectors who detected olive oil fraud. It is likely that some degree of olive oil counterfeiting will continue to occur. It’s also worth noting that because it’s a scam, it’s difficult to get a clear picture of the true extent of food fraud – the good scams go undetected.

In the UK, the cost of counterfeit feed to consumers, businesses and government is estimated to be around £500 to £2 billion ($670 to $3.6 billion) per year. An increase in cases may simply be due to increased vigilance or better law enforcement.

But times of extreme scarcity, when prices rise rapidly, are associated with an increase in fraud, as criminals are given an opportunity to fill the supply gap and exploit high market values. In its 2024 strategic assessment, the UK Food Standards Agency’s National Food Crime Unit identifies the increasing frequency of extreme weather as a key driver of food crime in the short and medium term.

Although the likelihood of fraud in the UK is low – an FSA surveillance survey released in February, which sampled commonly consumed products and a range of other goods, found the authenticity rate of the foods tested was 97% – the risks are evolving further and climate change is in addition to geopolitical tensions and shifting border regulations are an essential part of it.

The threat won’t just be limited to olive oil either. Orange juice is already one of the most adulterated commodities, with prices currently at record highs as a severe drought in Brazil was accompanied by the spread of citrus greening – a disease spread by an invasive insect that decomposes and slowly kills the fruit Trees it infects.

The more processed a food is, the easier it is to add adulteration or intentionally mislabel it. With extreme weather posing risks to coffee, chocolate and tea production, it is not hard to imagine bad actors increasingly exploiting climate-related inflation and supply shocks.

Such crimes are not just a matter of bad taste and waste of money, they can also pose a threat to public health. When olive oil prices began to rise this time, Spaniards of a certain age no doubt remembered the outbreak of toxic oil syndrome in 1981, caused by the consumption of denatured rapeseed oil for industrial purposes, which had been sold illegally as olive oil in 300 People died and many more suffered from chronic illnesses.

A survivor organization, Seguimos Viviendo, claims more than 5,000 people have died as a result of the scam over the years. When we think about the impacts of climate change, we often think about the direct impacts. But governments and companies also need to be prepared for the consequences.

This also includes keeping an eye on crime.

Lara Williams is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering climate change.

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