At first glance the sprawling campus amid glorious countryside looks an unlikely base from which to wage war against Italy's most feared crime organization, the 'ndrangheta.

And yet the laboratories of Campden BRI, once part of the University of Bristol and now a major research hub, are, in their own quiet way, playing a vital role in tackling organized crime.

The laboratories are not conducting forensic tests on specks of blood or splinters of bone. Rather, they have been contracted by the government's Rural Payments Agency to carry out chemical tests to establish the purity of olive oil — which, since March, has been subject to new EU regulations designed to ensure that consumers get what they believe they are paying for.