There is no free olive oil on the restaurant table – 11/21/2023 – Cozinha Bruta

With a liter of olive oil approaching R$100 in the supermarket, there are already Portuguese restaurants changing their cod recipe.

Adaptations will need to be made, and one thing is certain: olive oil fraud, which is already endemic, will explode.

The scheme involves counterfeiting (selling other oils as if they were extra virgin olive oil) or adulteration (olive oil “baptized” with other oils) at all stages of the chain.

There is fraudulent olive oil in origin, distribution, packaging and, as you may have already suspected, in the kitchens of Brazilian restaurants.

This is a scam that is as simple as it is difficult to punish. The owner of the restaurant – say, a kilo – buys a few bottles of olive oil from a trusted brand and makes them available to customers.

When the oil runs out, he takes the bottles to the kitchen and tops them up with product bought in gallons, always something cheaper. What is in the gallon, in general, is olive oil that has been adulterated in the packaging – every year there is a list of brands caught in the trick – or mixed soy and olive oil.

That’s when a guy doesn’t give a damn and puts pure soybean oil in the olive oil bottle.

It doesn’t happen everywhere, obviously, but it is a widespread practice. As a rule, the cheaper/more popular the place, the greater the chance of having fake olive oil on the table – because restaurants like this attract a less demanding public when it comes to cruet items.

The absurd inflation of olive oil, worsened by the failure of the olive harvest in Spain, is putting pressure on the restaurant sector to change procedures. Some will pass on the increase in costs (which could scare off customers), others will simply do away with “free” olive oil for seasoning food at the table (which could also create dissatisfaction).

A third group, made up of traders who have not yet committed fraud, will give in to temptation and defraud the olive oil. Because it is a business as simple as it is difficult to punish.

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