Sudan Dyes, Recycled Oil: Expert Warns Lagos Consumers Over Palm Oil Adulteration

Kehinde Adeleye

Lagos residents have been warned to be extra careful when buying palm oil after the Lagos State Consumer Protection Agency, LASCOPA, raised the alarm over the growing presence of sophisticated adulterated palm oil in markets across the state.

The warning came as food safety experts highlighted emerging methods being used to adulterate palm oil, including mixtures that could evade basic checks and potentially expose consumers to harmful substances.

The alert was issued at the Lagos State Food Safety Conference and Exhibition following a technical presentation by a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Food Technology, Auchi Polytechnic, Dr Nurah Oseni.

Oseni, in her paper titled ‘Palm Oil Adulteration: Emerging Risks, Detection Strategies and Regulatory Control,’ said palm oil was particularly vulnerable to adulteration because of its high demand and trading volume, consumers’ preference for deep-red oil and price differences in the market.

She also identified informal market practices and the increasing difficulty of detecting modern adulterants as factors worsening the problem.

According to her, some emerging forms of adulteration involve the use of potentially carcinogenic Sudan and Azo dyes to make palm oil appear more attractive to consumers.

She also raised concerns over the blending of palm oil with recovered or recycled oils, including spent cooking oil, as well as the use of multi-adulterant mixtures specifically designed to escape basic quality checks.

The development could have serious implications for households that routinely use palm oil for cooking, particularly where consumers rely mainly on the colour or appearance of the product when making purchases.

LASCOPA General Manager, Afolabi Solebo, urged residents to “shine their eyes” when buying palm oil and report suspected cases and unscrupulous traders to the agency.

Solebo said the agency had intensified surveillance across markets in Lagos as part of efforts to protect consumers from unsafe and substandard products.

He warned that traders found dealing in adulterated products would face the law.

He said any suspect caught would be arrested and prosecuted under the relevant laws.

Oseni, however, advised consumers not to rely solely on the appearance of palm oil when determining whether it is genuine.

She said simple visual checks could serve as an initial precaution, noting that authentic palm oil may naturally separate into layers, with the lower layer appearing orange to red-yellowish rather than uniformly deep red.

She stressed that visual inspection alone could not conclusively establish whether palm oil had been adulterated.

LASCOPA consequently urged consumers who suspect that palm oil or other products may have been adulterated to report them through the agency’s official channels as market surveillance continues across the state.