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Comment by nimbius | Hacker News Reader

id venture anything under $200/oz USD is fake. it is generally sourced as a byproduct of the petrochemical industry.

Whenever I see statements like this that correlate price and product quality (eg wine, spirits), I’m always wondering why a “fake” wouldn’t just elevate its price to the level of the non-fake. I have a feeling most customers won’t know the difference. I guess I’m just skeptical of using price as a proxy where everything from a fancy-looking label to a nice marketing campaign will inflate the price.

I think the reason is the fake ones are capitalizing on the demand at lower price levels. I bet there are fake expensive ones as well but it would likely be a tougher market to compete in.

At the higher price points there is margin available for quality assurance, certification of origin, and testing by experts.

Specifically with truffle oil - its taste profile is so noticeable different, that unless you never had a real truffle, it would be easy to spot.

As for different things, about 7 years ago in LA there was as huge wine counterfeit operation bust. Expensive bottles were filled with cheaper wine, re-corked and sold. This is why expensive bottles now "destroyed" one way or another.

Point is - easier to sell and fewer troubles.

$200/oz is the cost of a fresh high end truffle which you wouldn't use to make oil. You don't need that much to make infused oil, it's more like $10/oz.

Real 100 year old Balsamic vinegar is $200/oz though: https://giusti.com/products/giusti-100-reserve

It doesn’t take that much truffle to make a lot of truffle oil so it isn’t that expensive, but it is quite a bit more than the fake stuff

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