The North American Olive Oil Association, a trade group that represents the olive oil business in the United States and Canada, is suing Kangadis Food, saying that it falsely labeled its Capatriti brand as olive oil when the product is a fat from leftover olive skins and pits.
That fat, known as olive pomace oil or olive residue oil, is extracted using high heat and chemical solvents including hexane. “Olive pomace oil is not allowed in any grade of olive oil under any standard anywhere in the world,” said Eryn Balch, executive vice president of the association. In addition, she said, “The cost of producing oil that way is a fraction of what it costs to produce authentic olive oil.”
Themis Kangadis, an executive with the company, said he had not heard of the lawsuit and would ask the company’s lawyers to look into it. “I had no idea,” Mr. Kangadis said.
The lawsuit seeks to prevent Kangadis, which is based in Hauppage, N.Y., and operates under the name The Gourmet Factory, from selling any pomace product that is not so labeled and to notify retailers and other buyers of pomace products that they were buying an adulterated product. The suit was filed Wednesday in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Ms. Balch said Capatriti’s pricing was one-third to one-half the price of competitive brands, so the association hired an independent contractor to buy nine tins of Capratiti “100% Pure Olive Oil” product from three lots. Identifying materials were removed from the samples, and they were shipped to a lab in Spain that is certified by the International Olive Council, an organization based in Spain that sets the standards for olive oil purity and quality.
“When the results came back, they clearly confirmed that none of the samples were olive oil,” Ms. Balch said. “Instead, they were some type of pomace oil and pomace oil and seed oils.”
Dan Flynn, executive director of the Olive Center at the University of California, Davis, said he was not surprised to hear of the lawsuit. “There have been too many reports that the grading and labeling of olive oil are a big problem,” Mr. Flynn said.
Other studies by the center on olive oils sold in supermarkets and used in the food service industry have found that many failed to meet the standards of the grade listed on their labels.
In 1982, the Food and Drug Administration defined “virgin olive oil” as a term that may be used on labels only for oil from the first “pressing” of olives and fit for consumption without further processing. “Oil extracted from olive pomace and pits by chemical means and refined to make it edible must be labeled either ‘refined olive residue oil’ or ‘refined extracted olive residue oil,’ according to the agency’s regulations.
More recently, the Agriculture Department has published voluntary guidelines for grading olive oil. New York State has more stringent laws than the federal government, stating that any compound or blended olive oil be labeled as such and include the percentage of olive oil that is in the total.
Diluting olive oils with seed and other oils has been a persistent problem, attracting growing consumer complaints, as has the grading of extra virgin olive oil.
“Information about hazelnut, walnut and other seed oils being in olive oils has been misrepresented in the press,” she said. “Most of what has been talked about lately is not about authenticity, it’s about labeling within a grade, whether something is really extra virgin or not.”
In the complaint against Capatriti, the association said that because of the differences in the way olive oil and pomace were produced, the presence of pomace in a single tin meant that all tins in the same lot contained pomace. Capatriti bottles and cans are labeled “Extra Virgin Olive Oil,” “100% Pure Olive Oil” and “Light Olive Oil,” and its Web site says it is “proud to introduce” a new line of “All Natural Blended Olive Oil.”
“This is a very, very clear-cut case of false advertising,” said Timothy J. Treanor, a lawyer at Sidley Austin who is representing the association. “This is not a case where there is room for argument about degrees of truthfulness. Here, 100 percent olive oil is what it states on the tin and by any standard, that’s not true.”
The association contends that Kangadis had to have known about the adulteration of its products because of a complaint it filed after the Connecticut General Assembly in 2008 adopted the criteria set by the International Olive Council for assessing olive oil quality and set penalties for companies that sell olive oils cut with hazelnut, soy or peanut oils.
Kangadis tried to stop the Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection from enforcing the state’s law on olive oil, saying the company’s “reputation and business relationships have already been harmed by adoption of the state olive oil standards.”
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: February 6, 2013
An earlier version of this article incorrectly spelled the surname of a laywer at Sidley Austin representing the North American Olive Oil Association. He is Timothy J. Treanor.
Trade Group Lawsuit Challenges Olive Oil Labeling
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Trade Group Lawsuit Challenges Olive Oil Labeling
