Advances in preventing fraud in the origin of olive oil

A team from the University of Barcelona (UB) has published a new paper presenting technologies to verify the geographical origin of extra virgin olive oil, an emblematic product of the Mediterranean diet.

Food fraud occurs when products that do not meet consumer expectations enter the market and, in extreme cases, can cause health problems. To fight against this deceptive and critical practice in the food sector, researchers are working on innovative solutions.

Professors Stefania Vichi and Alba Tres lead the research, which is part of the doctoral thesis of researcher Berta Torres from the Faculty of Pharmacy and Food Sciences, the Research Institute in Nutrition and Food Safety (INSA), and the Torribera Food Campus of the University of Barcelona.

How can the authenticity of extra virgin olive oil be guaranteed?

Knowing the country of origin of products like olive oil significantly influences consumer purchasing decisions and affects market prices. The supply chain of extra virgin olive oil is especially vulnerable to fraud, and the falsification of origin declarations is particularly difficult to detect.

Despite European regulations on mandatory origin declarations, there is still no official method to verify this information, creating a critical gap in the food supply chain.

To address this urgent issue, numerous quick, cost-effective, and efficient authentication techniques have been developed and proposed, enabling the identification of fraud entering the market.

So, which method has the highest reliability? An article published in Food Chemistry for the first time compares two of the most promising methods among specific and non-specific techniques for authenticating the geographical origin of extra virgin olive oil: stable isotope analysis and the metabolic fingerprinting (fingerprinting) of the sesquiterpene fraction (a type of lipid compound).

The study, developed in collaboration between the UB, the Research and Innovation Centre of the Fondazione Edmund Mach (Italy), and the University of Perugia (Italy), highlights the great potential of sesquiterpene fingerprinting for verifying the geographical authenticity of extra virgin olive oil.

"The results showed that the sesquiterpene fingerprinting method outperformed the isotopic methods in several aspects, such as classification accuracy, sensitivity, and selectivity," said the authors, members of the Department of Nutrition, Food Sciences, and Gastronomy at the UB.

The paper also highlights the need to increase the transferability of this biochemical technique to ensure its global application and, thus, combat fraud in the food supply chain more effectively.

Reference article:

Torres-Cobos, Berta; Bontempo, Luana et al. "Ground-breaking comparison of target stable isotope ratios vs. emerging sesquiterpene fingerprinting for authenticating virgin olive oil origin". Food Chemistry, March 2025. DOI: 10.1016/j.foodchem.2025.143655.

Torres-Cobos, Berta; Nicotra, Soriana et al. «Mono- and sesquiterpenoid fingerprinting: A powerful and streamlined solution for pine nut authentication». Food Chemistry, febrero de 2025. DOI: 10.1016/j.foodchem.2025.143153.