The ABC-AHP-NCNPR Botanical Adulterants Prevention Program (BAPP) recently announced the publication of a new Laboratory Guidance Document (LGD) on olive oil (Olea europaea).
 
The oil of the olive fruit is one of the most popular vegetable oils for culinary use, and is widely used in topical formulations. It also serves as a carrier oil in dietary supplements for fat-soluble vitamins, saw palmetto berry, and other herbal extracts. It’s also used as a dietary ingredient alone, and is often combined with fish, flax, borage, and other oils to supply healthy amounts of fatty acids to the human diet.
 
The adulteration of olive oil, particularly extra virgin olive oil, with lower-cost ingredients is frequent because the financial gains are relatively large and the availability of highest olive oil grades is relatively low. Adulterants of extra virgin and virgin olive oils include lower grade olive oils and vegetable oils such as canola, hazelnut, sunflower, and soybean oils. Occasionally, pigments such as chlorophyll and beta-carotene are added without declaration on certificates of analysis for bulk ingredients, or consumer product labels to enhance the color of the oil and provide a false sense of quality.
 
The olive oil LGD was written by Rodney J. Mailer, PhD, an expert in vegetable oil production and analysis and former head of the New South Wales (NSW) Department of Primary Industries’ edible oil research program in Wagga Wagga, NSW, Australia, and Stefan Gafner, PhD, American Botanical Council chief science officer and BAPP technical director.
 
The document lists olive oil quality requirements, lists known adulterants, and summarizes the various analytical approaches to detect adulterants from relatively simple visual inspections to complex multivariate statistical analysis. The olive oil LGD was reviewed by 23 experts from academia, government, contract analytical laboratories, and the vegetable oil, dietary supplement, and cosmetic industries in the U.S. and other countries. It follows the Botanical Adulterants Prevention Bulletin on olive oil, which was published in January 2020 and revised in October 2020.
 
“Olive oil is one of the most important but also one of the most frequently adulterated food ingredients,” Gafner said. “The large number of official and unofficial methods that are available to authenticate olive oil and detect its adulteration reflects the popularity of the oil and the many ways to adulterate it. In order to keep the LGD concise and analyst-friendly, we focused on the authentication assays that are most relevant for the industry and relatively recent analytical methods that may be of interest to companies planning to invest in advanced technologies. This new document can make it easier for analysts to navigate the ocean of available methods in order to select the most suitable option for their lab.”
 
“Olive oil is a ubiquitous ingredient in the conventional food supply as well as in consumer herb products and cosmetics, and it has been known to be subject to widespread adulteration for decades, if not longer,” ABC founder and executive director Mark Blumenthal added. “The new BAPP Laboratory Guidance Document is a valuable technical guide for commercial entities in various industries as well as researchers and regulators so they can utilize appropriate analytical methods for olive oil authenticity testing and be more confident of the results.”
 
The olive oil LGD is the 11^th publication in the series of LGDs, and BAPP’s 65^th peer-reviewed publication. As with all of its publications, the bulletins are freely accessible to ABC members, registered users of the ABC website, and members of the public who register for free.