Food fraud screening and vulnerability assessment in the olive oil supply chain

• The olive oil business in the EU is moderately to highly vulnerable to food fraud. • The primary fraud factors are low technical difficulty and high economic motivation. • The factors contributing to food fraud vary among different stakeholders. • The current olive oil supply chain lacks effective systems to prevent food fraud. Olive oil has become a frequent target for food fraud, posing significant influences on the quality and sustainability of the olive oil value chain. To effectively manage and mitigate fraud risks in the olive oil supply chain, this study investigates the overall fraud vulnerability and the differences across its principal tiers: producers, manufacturers, retailers, and external stakeholders. The Food Fraud Vulnerability Assessment (FFVA) tool was applied to evaluate the olive oil fraud vulnerabilities, and a total of 30 fraud factors related to opportunities, motivations, and control measures were examined. A statistical analysis was conducted to assess the number of historical fraud incidents within the olive oil supply chain and to identify the main types of fraud. The frequency of fraud factors was calculated to establish the ranking importance of the three primary fraud categories. Significance analysis was employed to assess differences in key fraud factors across participant roles, while multiple correspondence analysis was used to visualize the distribution pattern of tier groups and their correlation with fraud factor score. Among the three key fraud elements, opportunities showed the highest contribution to vulnerability (41.53%), followed by motivations (27.10%) and control measures (14.52%). Technology opportunity and economic motivation were identified as the main drivers for the olive oil fraud vulnerability assessment. The absence of a fraud prevention system was identified as a critical threat across stakeholders, including producers, manufacturers and retailers. These results provide a comprehensive understanding of fraud dynamic in the olive oil industry, highlighting key drivers, critical points of vulnerability and potential mitigation measures.