To divine the
secrets of the famously Italian olive oils that are exported from the
famously Italian countryside here, it is instructive to go right to the
source. Not endless olive groves lovingly tended as if they were old friends,
but more typically, a charmless tanker truck
bearing foreign olive oil.
Trucks hauling
many tons of olive oil at a time arrive regularly at the new ultramodern
factory here that bottles Filippo Berio, a
popular brand in the
Into the Berio containers, the ones with labels that say ''Imported
from
Occasionally,
the oil is from
The Italian
olive oil industry has long been built on this illusion. Consumers
the world over want Italian olive oil because it is supposed to be the finest,
redolent of la dolce vita, and so the industry finds a way to give it to
them, sort of.
In truth,
The industry has
a ready justification: what is important is not where the olives are picked
and pressed, but where the oil is refined and blended. The olive
oil is Italian, the argument goes, because it has been processed
by skilled Italian experts who choose oils from around the
''Our object is
to make our customer satisfied, regardless of where the oil comes from,'' said
Alberto Fontana, president of Salov, whose family has
exported Filippo Berio for five generations.
He said that
depending on the year, as little as 20 percent of the oil in Berio might come from Italian olives. (Berio's
main rival, Bertolli, which also has roots in the
In fact, for all
the history proudly described on its labels, the Berio
brand is not available in
Nary an olive nor an oil press is visible here in the new $50
million Salov factory, Instead, as much as 100,000
tons of olive oil a year is produced with a computer-controlled array of
30-foot-high storage silos, mixing vats and assembly lines. Extra virgin olive
oil, the finest grade, needs little processing, while lower categories are
heavily refined.
For export,
the factory even churns out an extra light olive oil, a bland concoction that
is about as enticing to a native Italian palate as bowl of SpaghettiOs.
Whether the
Italian practice is proper depends on the interpretation of different laws in
To which at least
some American consumers and the Spanish olive growers say, harrumph.
More than a trace
of Mediterranean pride is at stake. The Spanish industry, unable to develop as
robust a consumer reputation around ''Imported from
Better marketing
might someday improve the image of Spanish oil, but meantime, the Spanish
growers say, the Italians might improve their own packaging and advertising
with a bit more frankness.
''They are just
pretending that their product is Italian,'' said Josi
Guerra of the
A
Mr. Frank said he
settled after Bertolli agreed to modify its labels.
Now, fine print on the back label indicates the oil's countries of origin, even
though the front label still says ''
Mr. Fontana of Salov said the company had recently added similar type to
its back labels for exports to
Perhaps most
dissatisfied are the Italian olive growers themselves, who grumble that
the Italian producers are disloyal and buy so much Spanish olive oil because it
is cheap. That, insisted Nicola Ruggiero, president of Unaprol,
the Italian growers association, is the only advantage of the Spanish oil.
''Their oil
has a bad odor,''
he sniffed.
His view is not
widely held by olive oil connoisseurs, who said the Spanish oils can be as
outstanding -- or as poor -- as the Italian ones.
One effect of the
dispute is that more Italian oils are prominently indicating that they are made
from only Italian olives. But they are generally more expensive.
And even so,
given that it is difficult to trace an oil's source,
olive oil fraud is not uncommon in
Asked about the
legality of using foreign oil and describing the product as imported from
''It is not
fraud,'' he said, ''but it is cheating.''