ONLY BERTOLLI (1 february 2004)
It must have been one or two years ago that I saw the first advertisements on television: rustic scenes featuring Italian people displaying an overwhelming dose of health and almost unnatural cheerfulness just because of the olive oil they consumed - its brand: Bertolli.
One day a supermarket in our neighbourhood offered this wonder oil at a substantial discount, so I thought "Let's give it a try", and put a bottle in the trolley. I must say: I've tried dozens of brands in my life. This oil scored very high ... in tastelessness. This may be great for people who like insipid oil. But it's not exactly what I go for.
For a quite a while I used to buy quite a tasty oil of the brand Pont at a supermarket of Dirk Van Den Broek, which is considered the supermarket in the Netherlands with the lowest prices. And indeed: this Pont olive oil was quite inexpensive (about 3 euros).
But a week or two ago, my favorite brand was not available any more. The only oil on the shelves was .... Bertolli .... which cost about twice as much as what I paid for the oil of Pont.
I was wondering why Dirk Van Den Broek, a supermarket that prides itself on its low prices, sells olive oil at such a steep price. So I looked around on the Internet. And lo and behold: I found an article (in Dutch - sorry) on the truth about Bertolli.
Bertolli may once have been Italian olive oil. But the brand has been taken over by Unilever. And it's all mass-production now, and not even half of the olives are of Italian origin. Knowing all that, you may have your own thoughts why a supermarket that strives to have the lowest prices should sell olive oil at such unnecessarily high prices.
Of course, I do have my ideas why a supermarket would be so friendly to Unilever, but I'm not going to express them here. After all, both Dirk van den Broek and Unilever have lots of lawyers. And I have a family to think of.
