Food Safety Systems Every Ingredient Supplier Should Have

Posted by Hannah Broaddus

The Grocery Manufacturer’s Association is now helping food brands and distributors select their ingredient suppliers. In a free guide available for download, they outline all of the traditional procurement steps and evaluation standards food company’s now use as they are selecting their preferred ingredient suppliers.

Whether you’re a young food company or a seasoned brand, you can brush up on your skills and make sure that you’re covering all of the necessary QA and procurement steps.  

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5 Easy Mistakes To Make When Labeling Your Food Product

Posted by Rachel Zemser

This article was originally featured on Rachel Zemser's website, The Intrepid Culinologist, and is published here with permission.

The Fancy Food Show was in town this January! I love wandering around the show, checking out the trends and secretly searching for false claims, labeling violations or stuff that is just misleading. That’s what food scientists do-- and then we pick up the phone, call the FDA and make sure violating entrepreneurs are BUSTED!!

The reality is, there are just way to many products out there for the FDA to inspect for compliance and unless your product is under USDA jurisdiction.  Plus, you don’t even have to have it inspected or approved before putting it on the shelf.

This is all the more reason to do your diligence and make sure you don’t accidentally lie, mislead or omit any important information.

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How To Decide Which Bulk Oil Ingredients (That's Plural!) You Will Use

Posted by Hannah Broaddus

As a follow up from yesterday's blog, Why It's Ideal To List Multiple Potential Bulk Oil Ingredients, today we'll be discussing how to go about the process of qualifying multiple ingredient for your label.

In review, some brands often list multiple ingredients with an "and/or" stipulation. For example, our chips may be made with Canola Oil, Sunflower Oil, and/or Safflower Oil.  The consumer doesn't get to know exactly what they're eating in that particular bag, but they know it will have been made with at least one of those 3 ingredients.  

This decision to list more than one commodity bulk oil ingredient is a strategic business choice.  It helps protect the company in times of commodity market crisis, where one ingredient may be high priced, or even worse, completely unavailable.

Want to do this for your product?  We'll walk you through the steps.

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The Full Report: The Smoke Point of Bulk Olive Oil & Other Edible Oils

Posted by Hannah Broaddus

The other day, I sauteed vegetables on my stovetop.  I used Extra Virgin Olive Oil in the pan, and I was in a hurry so I turned the heat up to get the food cooking faster.  Next thing I knew, I got sidetracked and smoke was billowing from the pan.  

How many of you have experienced this before?

This scenario can happen with any oil that you're cooking with, but some are more prone to it than others.  

Why is that?  It has to do with the smoke point of the oil.

Every type of oil has a miximum heat that it can withstand.  After it heats beyond that point, the oil begins to breakdown and smoke begins to waft up.  The hotter it gets, the more it smokes.  

This can also happen in a manufacturing setting-- not just your home kitchen.  If this happens in production, the result is wasted ingredients, a damaged product, and a number of other physical hazards.  

The best way to avoid this situation is to know the smoke point of the oil you're using, and not heat it above that temperature.  Otherwise, you could damage the flavor of your product and get yourself into quite a pickle in the warehouse.

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The Bulk Olive Oil Quality Control Documents You Should Be Asking For

Posted by Hannah Broaddus

If you're a purchaser for a manufacturing company, it's likely that you've got a long list from the QA department asking for documents on each of the ingredients that you're sourcing.

Compiling and managing this can be a bit overwhelming.  There's lots of boxes to check, and your supplier needs to be prepared to check each one for you.

If you're a new manufacturing business or in a purchasing role for the first time, it can be even more overwhelming!  That's why we want to take the guess work out of what to expect.

Here's a list of the most common documents that we get requests for, what they are and why you might want them.  This list is, in fact, for all of the oil ingredients that you may buy-- not just bulk olive oil.  You can pick and choose what you want to receive from there.

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Why The Color Of Some Bulk Olive Oil Varies [But Costco's Doesn't]

Posted by Hannah Broaddus

The color of bulk olive oil is important to some food manufacturers.  And not at all important to others.  It depends on the product that you're making and the grade that you've decided to use.

But if you've used a specific brand of olive oil for a long time (for example, let's say Costco's Kirkland brand, as you've been growing your small business), it can sometimes be challenging to switch to something new.  The same goes if you are switching from one bulk oil supplier to another.  

This discussion give you a better understanding of why some suppliers' olive oil changes color from order to order, while others do not.

But first, let's discuss the different aspects that affect olive oil color.

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Is Olive Oil Gluten Free?

Posted by Hannah Broaddus

If you have celiacs disease or you’re gluten sensitive, there’s lots of foods that you have to stay away from. There’s good news though-- olive oil isn’t one of them. As a fresh squeezed fruit juice made from olives, olive oil doesn’t contain any gluten in it.

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Top 6 Documents Every Bulk Oil Purchaser Should Expect From A Supplier

Posted by Hannah Broaddus

If you’re in purchasing or procurement, getting the documents for the ingredients that you buy is a key part of your job. Some companies require more documentation than others because of their industry or their own product certifications. But no matter who you work for, you’re going to be requesting documents at some point or another.

If you’re sourcing bulk oils, here’s the top 6 documents that your supplier should be able to provide. These are also the most common documents that we at Centra Foods gets requests for on a daily basis.

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5 Reasons Why Olive Oil Comes In Different Colors

Posted by Hannah Broaddus

Olive oil comes in a variety of colors, from light pale yellow to dark green.  

So what makes olive oil come in so many different colors?  There's a number of reasons, ranging from what it's made from, to how it's made, to how it's stored.  Let's review the 5 most common things that can affect the color of an oil to make it what it is.

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Bulk Olive Oil Color Doesn’t Indicate Quality

Posted by Hannah Broaddus

Have you ever wondered if the color of your olive oil will tell you how good it is? Or hear that Extra Virgin Olive Oil that’s green is better quality than its yellow counterpart?

Make no mistakes, these quality assumptions based on color are unfounded. It’s a myth! You can’t depend on the color of Extra Virgin Olive Oil to indicate how good of a quality it is. Why? We’ll explain.

Keep in mind-- this discussion is looking specifically at Extra Virgin Olive Oil... Not the other grades.

Let's dive in!

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5 Reasons for Food Manufacturers To Switch to Non-GMO Canola Oil

Posted by Hannah Broaddus

As a food manufacturer, you probably already know that demand for Non-GMO foods is on the rise in the US. In fact, “Non-GMO” is now the fastest growing store brand claim¹. That’s because consumers are increasingly caring about what they’re putting in their bodies, and they’re calling for change through their grocery stores and legislation.

As a food manufacturer, you should be increasingly aware of this trend, and begin researching whether changing your ingredients to their non-GMO counterpart is a smart move.

If you’re using conventional Soybean or Canola Oil, you could make the switch to Non-GMO Expeller Pressed Canola Oil instead. Here are 5 basic reasons to make the change.

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Why Extra Virgin Olive Oil Taste Profiles Change

Posted by Hannah Broaddus

As you probably know by now, Extra Virgin Olive Oil is a natural product. In fact, it’s more like a fruit juice than a typical seed oil. It’s squeezed directly from olives which have been picked and crushed into a paste. 

In fact, it’s not unlike how apple cider or other fruit juices are made. If you’ve ever been to an apple orchard, the growing and extraction process is quite similar. Fruit is slow grown throughout the season and harvested at the ideal time of the year. Any farmer would agree, the growing anything is more of an art than a science. And there’s many factors that can affect the the fruit as it develops. On top of that, the cider is going to taste like the apples that it came from.

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What Does Kosher Mean?

Posted by Hannah Broaddus

To be Kosher...

"Kosher" is a Hebrew word that literally means "fit" or "proper." When used in relation to food products, "kosher" means that the item in question meets the dietary requirements of Jewish law¹.These requirements are set forward by the Jewish faith, and the dietary restrictions are followed year round.

Though the Kosher Laws are very complex, the basics of Kosher guidelines can be broken down into the following categories, with a few examples for each.

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Kosher vs. Kosher For Passover Certification

Posted by Hannah Broaddus

Kosher Certifications for Manufacturers

Do you need your bulk oil to be Kosher Certified? If so, you’re not alone. The Kosher Certificate is one of the most requested quality document, second only to the Certificate of Analysis.  

Kosher certified foods are in high demand in today’s market. Some manufacturers also produce products that are “Certified Kosher for Passover”. So what’s the difference between these two certifications? Let’s start at the beginning...

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Reasons Why the Olive Oil “Home Refrigerator Test” Doesn’t Work

Posted by Hannah Broaddus

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Adulteration scandals in the olive oil industry have been increasingly explored by the public in the last 10 years.  As a result, consumers have looked for a dependable “at-home” test to ensure that their Extra Virgin Olive Oil is 100%.

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