Tag Archives: honey

Food is big business—one that has potential to be quite lucrative when the product and the market conditions are right.  Unfortunately, some importers and manufacturers are attempting to gain a competitive edge by misrepresenting their subpar products as premium goods—and pricing them accordingly.

Consider the most recent case of honey smuggling, which resulted in the 44-count indictment of 11 executives at six German and Chinese companies.  The companies went to great lengths to disguise the origin of their inexpensive, antibiotic-tainted honey, to avoid paying the $78 million in anti-dumping duties that would have been due.  Now they’re facing criminal prosecution, 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Then there’s the class action lawsuit in California, which charges that distributors and retailers of inferior quality olive oil were knowingly selling it as extra virgin olive oil, thereby defrauding consumers.  The suit involves 10 major brands as well as 10 major retailers.  It references testing done by UC Davis that exposed 69% of imported olive oil and 10% of California olive oil failed to meet USDA standards.  According to the plaintiffs, substandard olive oil is sold at almost 80% more than its worth, and consumers spend more than $700 million annually on extra virgin olive oil, so the fraud, if it occurred, would have “resulted in an outrageous unjust enrichment to the benefit of the defendants.”  Read more...