Avocado oil is supposed to be the clean upgrade. It costs three to five times more than seed oils like soybean or canola, and shoppers reach for "avocado oil" chips, mayo, and dressings specifically to avoid those cheaper oils. A new study from the University of California, Davis says a lot of those products are not what the label claims.
Researchers in the lab of Selina Wang, a UC Davis food-science professor who has studied oil fraud for years, tested 54 avocado-oil products bought in 2025 and 2026. Nearly 9 in 10 failed an authenticity test. The paper, "Authenticity of avocado and olive oils used as ingredients in commercially processed foods," was published in Applied Food Research in July 2026.
What the study found
Every product was bought in two separate lots and tested twice, so a single bad batch could not sink a brand on its own. The headline numbers:
- 48 of 54 avocado-oil products failed the authenticity test — about 89%.
- 26 of 28 avocado-oil chip samples failed (93%).
- 12 of 12 avocado-oil salad dressings failed (100%).
- 10 of 14 avocado-oil mayonnaises failed — and every U.S.-made mayo failed.
- At least one sample's chemical fingerprint matched soybean oil almost entirely, with essentially no real avocado oil detectable.
To measure authenticity, the team compared each product's fatty acids and sterols — chemical "fingerprints" unique to each oil — against reference ranges for real avocado and olive oil, allowing a generous ~10% margin for natural variation between avocado varieties and growing regions. A product failed only when it fell outside that tolerance.
The obvious objection is that frying a chip or emulsifying a mayo might scramble the oil's fingerprint. The researchers tested that too, running their own frying and emulsification experiments. The authenticity markers "remained largely unchanged," so processing does not explain the failures — the cheaper oil was there before the chip ever hit the fryer.
The full pass/fail list
Here is how each product scored across its two lots. FAIL means the oil was compositionally inconsistent with authentic avocado (or olive) oil — the strongest lab signal that a cheaper oil was blended in or substituted.
Avocado oil chips
| Product | Lot 1 | Lot 2 |
|---|---|---|
| Boulder Canyon Avocado Oil Classic Sea Salt Kettle | ❌ FAIL | ❌ FAIL |
| Lesser Evil Moonions (organic avocado) | ❌ FAIL | ✅ PASS |
| Simply Tostitos Sea Salt & Avocado Oil Tortilla | ✅ PASS | ❌ FAIL |
| Siete Kettle Cooked Sea Salt | ❌ FAIL | ❌ FAIL |
| Siete Maiz Sea Salt Corn Tortilla | ❌ FAIL | ❌ FAIL |
| Kettle Brand Sea Salt with Pink Peppercorn (avocado oil) | ❌ FAIL | ❌ FAIL |
| Kettle Brand Apple Cider Vinegar (avocado oil) | ❌ FAIL | ❌ FAIL |
| Jackson's Avocado Oil Sweet Potato | ❌ FAIL | ❌ FAIL |
| Jackson's Kettle Cooked Sea Salt ("only with avocado oil") | ❌ FAIL | ❌ FAIL |
| Sprouts Organic Sea Salt & Lime Tortilla (avocado oil) | ❌ FAIL | ❌ FAIL |
| Sprouts Kettle Style 100% Avocado Oil Sea Salt | ❌ FAIL | ❌ FAIL |
| Sensible Portions Garden Veggie Straws (avocado oil) | ❌ FAIL | ❌ FAIL |
| Bettergoods Hatch Chile Tortilla (100% avocado oil) | ❌ FAIL | ❌ FAIL |
| Good Health Kettle Style Avocado Oil Sea Salt | ❌ FAIL | ❌ FAIL |
Olive oil chips (the comparison group)
| Product | Lot 1 | Lot 2 |
|---|---|---|
| Boulder Canyon Olive Oil Classic Sea Salt Kettle | ❌ FAIL | ✅ PASS |
| Lay's Baked BBQ Potato Crisps with Olive Oil | ✅ PASS | ✅ PASS |
| Trader Joe's Kettle Cooked Olive Oil | ✅ PASS | ✅ PASS |
| Torres Extra Virgin Olive Oil | ✅ PASS | ✅ PASS |
| Graza Extra Virgin Olive Oil | ✅ PASS | ✅ PASS |
Avocado oil dressings
| Product | Lot 1 | Lot 2 |
|---|---|---|
| Sprouts Balsamic Vinaigrette with Avocado Oil | ❌ FAIL | ❌ FAIL |
| Primal Kitchen Avocado Oil & Vinegar Vinaigrette | ❌ FAIL | ❌ FAIL |
| Primal Kitchen Italian Dressing with Avocado Oil | ❌ FAIL | ❌ FAIL |
| Chosen Foods Lemon Garlic (100% pure avocado) | ❌ FAIL | ❌ FAIL |
| Chosen Foods Zesty Italian (100% pure avocado) | ❌ FAIL | ❌ FAIL |
| Briannas Classic Balsamic (100% avocado) | ❌ FAIL | ❌ FAIL |
| Bella Sun Luci Sonoma Vinaigrette (100% olive) | ✅ PASS | ✅ PASS |
| Bragg Organic Vinaigrette (100% extra virgin olive) | ✅ PASS | ✅ PASS |
| California Olive Ranch Balsamic Vinaigrette (extra virgin olive) | ✅ PASS | ✅ PASS |
Avocado oil mayo and sauces
| Product | Lot 1 | Lot 2 |
|---|---|---|
| Chosen Foods Vegan Mayo (100% pure avocado) | ❌ FAIL | ❌ FAIL |
| Chosen Foods Classic Mayo (100% pure avocado) | ❌ FAIL | ❌ FAIL |
| Primal Kitchen Real Mayonnaise with Avocado Oil | ❌ FAIL | ❌ FAIL |
| Sir Kensington's Avocado Oil Mayonnaise | ❌ FAIL | ❌ FAIL |
| BetterBody Foods 100% Avocado Oil Mayo | ❌ FAIL | ❌ FAIL |
| Grove AvoYeah! Mayo Sauce | ✅ PASS | ✅ PASS |
| Grove AvoYeah! Garlic Aioli | ✅ PASS | ✅ PASS |
| Graza "Original" Mayo (olive pomace + extra virgin olive) | ✅ PASS | ✅ PASS |
| Graza "Fancy" Mayo (100% extra virgin olive) | ✅ PASS | ✅ PASS |
Why this keeps happening
There is no FDA standard of identity for avocado oil — no legal definition of what actually has to be in the bottle for it to be sold as "avocado oil." Olive oil has one. Avocado oil does not. Without that baseline, there is nothing specific for regulators to enforce, which makes the category unusually easy to cut with something cheaper.
And the incentive is enormous. Pure avocado oil runs roughly $4 to $5 per pound; soybean, canola, and safflower oil can be well under $1.50. Quietly replacing some or all of the avocado oil with a seed oil turns a premium product into a cheap one while the price on the shelf stays premium. The FDA itself lists avocado oil as one of the foods most frequently targeted for economically motivated adulteration — the industry term for swapping in a cheaper ingredient to boost margins.
The important nuance: this is a fraud finding, not a poison finding. Nobody is saying these chips are toxic. The problem is that you are paying avocado-oil prices for seed oil — often the exact soybean and canola oils that avocado-oil buyers are specifically trying to avoid.
This is not the first time
If this sounds familiar, it should. The same UC Davis group reported in 2020 that 82% of avocado oil samples were rancid before their expiration date or mixed with other oils — including three bottles labeled "pure" or "extra virgin" that were close to 100% soybean oil. A follow-up found roughly 70% of private-label (store brand) avocado oils had the same problems. So the claim you will see floating around social media that this is the "first time" anyone caught fake avocado oil is simply false. It is at least the third wave of the same finding — this time following the oil out of the bottle and into the chips, dressings, and mayo it is used to make.
What actually passed
Two encouraging patterns stand out.
Olive oil held up. Of about 20 olive-oil products tested as a comparison group, only a single lot of one product failed. If you want a chip or dressing where the oil is what it says, olive oil is currently the far safer bet.
A handful of avocado products passed clean. Grove AvoYeah! Mayo Sauce and Garlic Aioli passed both lots — the only avocado-oil products in the whole study to do so. Graza, Bragg, California Olive Ranch, Bella Sun Luci, Lay's, Trader Joe's, and Torres all passed on the olive side. Lesser Evil Moonions and Simply Tostitos each passed one lot but failed the other, which is its own warning: authenticity was not even consistent within a brand.
How to know what you're actually buying
A clean-sounding label is not proof anymore. "100% pure avocado oil" was printed on products that failed both lots.
This is exactly the problem we built Tallow to solve. Scan a product's barcode and Tallow breaks down what is really in it — seed oils named line by line, additives rated, and independent lab tests attached to the product when they exist. The UC Davis results in this article are now linked to the affected products inside the app, so if you scan one of the chips or mayos above, you will see the authenticity flag right there instead of having to remember a headline. Eat clean, drink clean, and make the label prove it.
This article summarizes independent academic research for consumer-information purposes. "FAIL" reflects the study's finding that a product's oil was compositionally inconsistent with authentic avocado or olive oil; it is not a legal determination of fraud against any brand. Sources: UC Davis, Applied Food Research, Forbes, Food Safety Magazine, and StudyFinds.