Texas Opens an Avocado Oil Labeling Investigation: What It Means for Texans Who Paid the Premium

What Changed, and When

On August 20, 2026, the Office of the Attorney General of Texas announced that it had launched an industry-wide investigation into companies that market and sell products labeled as “made with avocado oil.” According to the announcement, the office issued Civil Investigative Demands — the formal document-and-information demand the Attorney General may issue while investigating a possible Deceptive Trade Practices Act violation — to Primal Kitchen, Siete Foods and Chosen Foods, “with more to follow.”

The announcement states the purpose of the investigation this way: the office “will investigate to determine if these and additional companies have broken Texas law by misleading consumers in violation of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act.”

Two points about that sentence matter, and it is easy to read past both of them:

• An investigation is not a finding. No court has found, and the Attorney General has not announced, that any of the three named companies violated the law. A Civil Investigative Demand is a request for information at the start of an inquiry, not a charge and not a judgment.
• It is described as industry-wide. The three companies named are where the office started, not necessarily where it ends.

What Prompted It

The Attorney General’s announcement points to a 2026 University of California, Davis study, published in Applied Food Research, which tested processed foods marketed as containing avocado oil. UC Davis reported that researchers found 48 of the 54 avocado-oil-labeled products they tested — about 89 percent — were adulterated with cheaper oils, even though avocado oil was the only oil listed on the label. Broken out by category:

• 93 percent of the chips tested contained other oils.
• 71 percent of the mayonnaises tested contained other oils.
• 100 percent of the salad dressings tested contained other oils.

For comparison, the researchers applied the same purity tests to 20 olive-oil-labeled processed foods and reported that only one failed. UC Davis attributes that gap to how long olive oil authenticity has been studied and monitored relative to avocado oil, a newer and more expensive category.

The researchers identify oils by measuring fatty acids and sterols — chemical signatures particular to each oil. UC Davis says the team tested whether processing such as frying or emulsifying distorts those signatures and found the change was minimal, and that the samples were given a 10 percent margin of deviation to allow for natural variation by growing region and avocado variety. Products were purchased in 2025 and 2026 from online retailers and California stores, and UC Davis notes they represent only a portion of the market.

The study’s lead author, UC Davis food science professor Selina Wang, is quoted in the university’s account saying that brands whose products failed may not know they are using adulterated oil, because many food companies buy through third-party brokers or multiple suppliers, and that the adulteration likely originates upstream with oil suppliers. That is the researchers’ view of where the problem starts; whether it changes anyone’s legal position is a separate question, and not one this page answers.

This is not the first result of its kind from the same lab. UC Davis reports that a 2020 study found 82 percent of commercially bottled avocado oil was either rancid or mixed with other oils, and a later study put the figure at 70 percent for private-label oils.

Who in Texas This Reaches

This one is unusually broad, because the products sit in ordinary grocery aisles across the state:

• Texas shoppers who bought these products on purpose. Much of the market for “made with avocado oil” chips, mayonnaise and dressings is people specifically trying to avoid other oils, often for health reasons, and paying more to do it. Reporting on the study notes that avocado oil versions of these items commonly carry a large price premium over conventional equivalents.
• Households with a medical or dietary reason for the choice. Someone avoiding a particular oil on a doctor’s advice, or for an allergy or sensitivity, is in a different position from someone who simply preferred the label — and it is a fact-specific difference a lawyer would want to hear about.
• Texas food businesses in the middle of the supply chain. Retailers, restaurants and manufacturers who bought oil from a supplier and passed the label claim along have their own exposure and their own contract questions. Those are business and commercial questions, not consumer ones.
• Texas-based companies in the category. Siete Foods, one of the three companies named in the announcement, is an Austin-founded brand. Being named in a Civil Investigative Demand is not a finding of wrongdoing.

What This Changes Legally

Nothing about the announcement changes the law itself. What it does is put a specific practice — oil labeling — under the statute Texas already had. A few facts about that statute:

• The statute is the DTPA. The Texas Deceptive Trade Practices–Consumer Protection Act, Chapter 17 of the Texas Business and Commerce Code, prohibits false, misleading or deceptive acts in trade or commerce. Section 17.46(b) includes representing that goods have characteristics or ingredients they do not have, and advertising goods with intent not to sell them as advertised.
• The Attorney General enforcing it and a consumer suing under it are two different tracks. The Attorney General’s investigative and enforcement authority sits in Subchapter E; a private consumer action is a separate right under Section 17.50. An enforcement action by the state does not by itself resolve any individual purchase, and a consumer does not have to wait for the state to finish.
• There is a written notice step. Section 17.505 requires a consumer to give the other side written notice of the complaint and the amount of actual damages and expenses at least 60 days before filing suit. It is a procedural requirement, not a formality, and it is one reason people talk to a lawyer earlier rather than later.
• There is a deadline. Section 17.565 sets a two-year limitations period, running from when the deceptive act occurred or when the consumer discovered or reasonably should have discovered it. How that applies to a particular purchase is exactly the kind of question that depends on the individual facts.
• Remedies are defined by statute. Section 17.50 provides for economic damages, and allows additional damages where the conduct was committed knowingly or intentionally, plus court costs and reasonable attorneys’ fees for a prevailing consumer. What any particular situation is worth is not something this page can tell you, and no lawyer can promise a result.

What Kind of Option Might Apply

Nothing here is a prediction about any case or any company. What a Texas consumer protection lawyer can review includes:

• Whether a particular purchase and a particular label claim fit the conduct the DTPA covers.
• Whether the two-year period has run on a given purchase, and when the clock is treated as having started.
• Whether the pre-suit notice requirement applies and what it needs to say.
• Whether an individual claim, a claim joined with others, or simply waiting for the state’s enforcement process makes more sense for a specific person — they are genuinely different paths with different trade-offs.
• For a business in the supply chain, what its contracts with suppliers say about warranties, indemnity and testing, which is a commercial question rather than a consumer one.

Receipts, packaging, and a rough sense of what you bought and when are the sort of thing a lawyer will typically ask about. Those are ordinary questions about your own record, not a commitment to anything.

Why Acting Quickly Can Matter

Two dates do the work here. The first is the two-year DTPA limitations period in Section 17.565, which is measured from the deceptive act or from reasonable discovery of it — and a story like this one, published widely, is the kind of event that can start people counting. The second is the 60-day pre-suit notice window in Section 17.505, which sits inside that two-year period rather than extending it. Together they mean the practical time to look at a situation is shorter than the headline number suggests.

The investigation itself has no announced timetable, and the Attorney General’s office has said only that additional companies may receive demands. It is best to talk with a lawyer about your own purchases rather than wait to see how the state’s inquiry ends.

Sources

1. Office of the Attorney General of Texas, Attorney General Ken Paxton Investigates Avocado Oil Products for Deceptive Marketing and Potential Use of Undisclosed Seed Oils (August 20, 2026) — primary document.
2. Texas Business and Commerce Code, Chapter 17, Deceptive Trade Practices–Consumer Protection Act (Texas Statutes) — primary document.
3. University of California, Davis, That Avocado Oil Chip You’re Eating May Not Be Made With Pure Avocado Oil (July 15, 2026, updated July 28, 2026).
4. Lopez-Alvarez, Li, Vizgordiski and Wang, study on avocado oil authenticity in processed foods, Applied Food Research (2026).
5. Forbes, The Avocado Oil Boom Has A Fraud Problem, New Study Suggests (July 15, 2026).
6. Inc., Researchers Tested 54 ‘Avocado Oil’ Products From Popular Brands. Nearly 90 Percent Failed a Purity Test (2026).
7. Texas Border Business, Hidden Oils Prompt Texas AG Investigation Into Avocado Oil Products (August 2026).