I’m from North Carolina, and as such I’m genetically bred to be a college basketball fanatic. My allegiences firmly lie with the UNC Tarheels, who have what is widely considered to be the greatest rivalry in college sports (some even say ALL sports) against the Duke Blue Devils. (In fact, I feel a bit queasy even typing their name.).

This rivalry is so fierce that it transcends sports. It divides families. It sparks playground fights all over the country when kids show up to school wearing different shades of blue. It’s a Big Deal.

There is an equally-fierce rivalry between two of the three major suppliers of krill oil. They’ve had some entertaining confrontations at industry trade shows. In Europe a year or so ago one of them showed up with armed police and a court order and confiscated all the materials at the other’s display booth.

It’s personal between these two companies, you can tell. Kind of like soap opera rivals fighting over the lead actress. Or Dook and UNC.

But there is ONE thing both totally agree on. Fake krill oil is a fraud that must be stopped.

In recent interviews, bigwigs from both companies sounded like bosom buddies as they echoed each others sentiment. But what they had to say was very telling:

Eric Anderson of Aker said this when asked what drives him crazy about the current Krill Oil marketplace: “Without question it is the outliers and cheaters,” he said. “These companies harm the entire industry by defrauding consumers.”

He goes on to say, “A product marketer at one of the largest companies in the natural products industry recently said to me, ‘Our consumers don’t know the difference. They are not educated, so we can sell them this product. If it was in one of our quality products lines we would have to buy the real material.’ Really?”

Wael Massrieh over at Neptune was in total agreement: ”It is a challenge and a threat when new entrants to the market are allowed to commercialize low grade fake krill oils. We are working hard on establishing a pure krill oil monograph to prevent this, but unfortunately until that is achieved there is very little that anyone can do.”

Well, we’re doing something. Unlike the customers of the company Anderson was talking to, YOU know the difference. You know not to buy krill oil that isn’t at least 40% phospholipids. That’s the main criteria the industry wants to use as the standard.

Even with that, there is a lot of variance in quality. Some products have more EPA/DHA than others. And of course only one has extra astaxanthin. Still, it’s nice to know that even arch-enemies can agree that anything less should not be called krill oil!