On Friday, a monitoring operation carried out by a mixed regional committee targeting a group of food stores in the city of Tiznit resulted in the seizure of about half a ton of adulterated olive oil inside a commercial store in the urban area of the capital of silver.
Based on the data available to the Hespress newspaper, the aforementioned committee was able to seize this amount of adulterated oils after subjecting a sample of them to laboratory analyzes supervised by the interests of the National Office for Health Safety of Food Products, which proved that they are oils mixed with other types of poor quality.
The same information stated that the seized oils, which were offered for consumption, were destroyed in the communal dump of the city of Tiznit, indicating that consuming this type of oils would cause serious health complications for the citizen’s health.
Bouazza Kharati, President of the Moroccan League for Consumer Rights, said in a commentary on the subject that “olive oil or ‘oud oil’ or ‘al-Baladiya oil’, with their different names and varieties, from virgin to non-food, as a product of medium origin, has known interest from the external consumer. Due to the materials it contains of great importance to human health, which prompted the Ministry of Agriculture to support the sector in order for the Moroccan product to sweep the international markets, but olive oil destined for export has unfortunately nothing to do with what is sold at the national level.
The same spokesman explained, in a statement to Hespress, that “the Moroccan consumer in general does not acquire oils classified and monitored by the interests of the National Office for Health Safety of Food Products, and prefers to purchase oil in bulk in bottles and barrels of unknown origin, without any sticker showing any data on its production process.”
“By purchasing this product, the consumer is acquiring a toxic substance, because the acidity of the oil does not match the health standards, and therefore it is possible that he will suffer from cirrhosis of the liver. Not to mention the fraudulent methods used to defraud the consumer who refuses to change his consumption habit by purchasing olive oil that bears the license of the monitoring services (UNSA), ”adds the president of the Moroccan League for Consumer Rights.
Al-Kharati stated that “the quantity that was seized in Tiznit does not represent an important percentage compared to the quantities sold in the markets,” noting that “last year recorded the weakest production of olive oil due to the drought that Morocco has known; This shortage in supply results in the sale of adulterated oils in the absence of monitoring and control of the olive and oil market.”
The same spokesman also indicated that “the intervention of the National Office for Health Safety of Food Products is very important, but the requirement to obtain a health license for many production units is not applied on the ground; In addition, some production units use misleading methods for the interests of ‘UNSA’ and the consumer alike.
It should be noted that the prices of olive oil recorded an unprecedented rise this year, reaching between 75 and 90 dirhams per liter, a skyrocketing increase attributed by professionals in the sector to the drought that Morocco experienced during the last agricultural season.
This increase led to the spread of the phenomenon of adulterated oils in many Moroccan regions, where fraud operations vary between mixing olive oil with another for cooking and using drugs mixed with water and selling them to the consumer on the basis that they are pure natural oils, which are the abuses that were the subject of a security operation that was supervised by the members of the division. Last January, the National Judicial Police in the city of Taza managed to dismantle a network of eight people and seize 3,700 liters of adulterated olive oil that was destined for consumption.