Think It’s Olive Oil? Beware This Common Supermarket Trap!

When you’re at the supermarket, you’re not one to dawdle in the aisles. With your cart in hand, you weave swiftly through the shelves. Household products, vegetables, spices—items fly past as if you’re racing against time! Like many shoppers, you’re on a tight schedule, and brands are well aware of this. Understanding that we can’t scrutinize every label, they set traps for us. A tempting promotion that hides an unappealing price per pound, a “no added sugars” claim that conceals a high Nutri-Score… There are plenty of marketing sleights of hand, including in the oil section. You think you’re buying olive oil, a product rich in omega-9 and antioxidants? In reality, you might have just picked up a less nutritionally valuable vegetable oil…

This is a subtle trick by manufacturers, notes Olivier Dauvers. In the latest episode of the show “At What Price” aired on M6, the man dubbed the king of shopping warns us about a trap set by brands: fake olive oil. “It looks like olive oil, but it isn’t!“, remarks a customer who just picked up a bottle of “combined oil,” a blend of several vegetable oils.

How was she deceived? The bottle is tinted, explains Olivier Dauvers. The green-colored glass suggests olive oil, whereas in reality, it contains very little: “only 20% here“, the expert points out. What else is in it? Canola, sunflower, and sometimes nuts. Is it better than regular olive oil? “No, not necessarily“, responds Aline Perraudin, the health expert on RTL. Indeed, even though these combined oils boast a better balance, especially between essential fatty acids, they are primarily a way to reduce costs and catch the consumer’s eye. And as the UFC-Que Choisir investigation reminds us, “The recipes—and thus the nutritional interest—vary greatly from one brand to another“.

Next time you find yourself in the oil aisle, don’t be fooled by the color of the bottle. What truly matters is listed in the ingredients. A quick glance is all it takes to avoid leaving with a product that only looks like olive oil.