Johannesburg | Monday
POLICE raided several companies this week suspected of selling sunflower seed oil labelled as ”olive oil” — cheating consumers all over the country out of millions of rand.
Over the past two months the M-Net magazine programme Carte Blanche worked closely with the SA Olive Growers Association (Saoga) and a team of forensic investigators of the Oilseeds Advisory Committee, to uncover the elaborate scam, a statement from M-Net said on Sunday.
Members of Saoga initially noticed products on supermarket shelves claiming to be Italian olive oil. They were marked ”Product of Italy”, ”Bottled & Produced” in Italy by Italian-sounding companies with Italian-sounding addresses, and sporting Italian flags on their labels.
Guido Costa, an executive member of Saoga, said ”Forensic investigations instigated by Saoga revealed that the packaging materials used in these products… were all of local origin… the producer companies… were non-existent, and the barcodes were being fraudulently used. This discovery led us to more closely examine a number of other suspicious looking so-called ”olive oils” in the retail sector. The contents of a number of brands was subsequently analysed, and every one of these suspicious looking brands were confirmed as being artificially coloured sunflower seed oils.”
”From the quantities of bottles, caps, labels and cartons supplied to these fraudulent operators over the past 24 months, it is clear that it has developed into a multi-million rand swindle.”
The commercial branch of the SAPS carried out the raids on premises in Cape Town, Johannesburg and Durban this week and one in Johannesburg last week.
According to independent laboratory reports, the following brands were positively identified as being ”virtually 100% sunflower seed oil, with, in some cases, added green colourant”:
ANTICO FRANTOIO Extra Virgin Olive Oil;
ULIVO Virgin Olive Oil;
CARROBA Fine Blend Virgin Cold Filtered Olive Oil;
APHRODITE Extra Virgin Olive Oil — Cold Pressed;
OLIVIO Refined; and
Cold Pressed Olive Oil (Olio di Oliva).
Other suspect brands are being investigated.
Those brands that have been confirmed as fake are still widely available.
Dr Theo van de Venter, of the National Directorate of Health, this week issued a national alert on these products, so they will soon be removed from the marketplace, either by local authorities, or by managers. – Sapa