Rasna’s No-Fraud Guarantee

The problem of fraud in the olive oil industry has been well documented recently. In an extensive article by Tom Mueller titled “Slippery Business – The Trade In Adulterated Olive Oil,” the August 13, 2007 issue of The New Yorker magazine chronicled a number of notorious cases involving millions of dollars, international companies and officials at various levels of the Italian government. Vast quantities of olive oil labeled as extra virgin and from Italy have proven to be anything but, with far cheaper oils – sometimes from other continents – being illegally represented as the real thing.

Mueller also discussed the problem on an August ’07 National Public Radio edition of “All Things Considered,” and the website NPR.org notes – citing some of the hair-raising stories in Mueller’s article – that, “Italian extra-virgin olive oil has become so lucrative that adulterated olive oil has become the biggest source of agricultural fraud problems in the European Union. Some oil labeled "extra-virgin" is diluted with cheaper olive oils or other vegetable oils. In some cases, lampante, or "lamp oil," which is made from spoiled olives fallen from trees, is used, even though it can't legally be sold as food. One fraud ring is accused of coloring low-grade soy oil and canola oil with industrial chlorophyll, and flavoring it with beta-carotene.”

Many other sources document this criminal problem, and the measures that are being taken to combat it.

Rasna Extra Virgin Olive Oil comes with our guarantee that our product is 100% authentic, made from hand-picked olives in central Tuscany, selected under the direct supervision of author and olive oil aficionado Dario Castagno. This is our promise to our clientele.