If you're a retail consumer, you're probably used to buying Extra Virgin Olive Oil for cooking in your kitchen. Have you ever seen Olive Pomace Oil on your grocery shelf? You usually won't, so a lot of people who don't buy industrial or food service oils don't even know that it exists.

That said, it is much more common in the food manufacturing and restaurant world. Since those are the industries that we at Centra Foods eat, sleep and breathe, I'd like to take today to weigh in.

The popularity of coconut oil has sky-rocketed in recent years. However, there’s lots of different kinds of coconut oil, so sometimes it’s hard to understand exactly what you’re getting.

When you walk through the aisles of a grocery store and scan the shelves reviewing each brand of coconut oil, every jar will have slightly different descriptions on the labels. Some brands have chosen to highlight the fact that the oil inside is unrefined, sometimes that it is a superfood, or perhaps that it is cold pressed. Some are organic and some are not.

There is one big difference between the types of coconut oils, and this one you will see over and over again on the labels: whether are the oil is “virgin” or not. Unrefined oil is typically called out using the word “virgin” to mean “the grade of coconut oil that is not refined”.

More interestingly, within this particular description, you may notice that some coconut oils are described as extra virgin and some are described as just virgin coconut oil. So what’s the difference between these grades?

Is extra virgin coconut oil better than virgin coconut oil?

What's the difference between olive oil and canola oil? Put side by side, these two oils are actually quite disparate.

When you consider these oils from a home-use perspective, any differences might seem minor or unimportant. In this small-scale situation, the primary thing on the line is your health and you'll choose the oil that best fits your needs and your beliefs.

When you look at these oils from the perspective of an industrial food manufacturer, however, there's a lot more riding on this "simple decision". Understanding the objective differences will help you make the right educated choice -- whether it's for your family or for your company. 

Centra Foods receives questions from hundreds of manufacturers each year on the best ways to select specialty oil ingredients that fit their many different corporate goals -- one being cost savings, particularly for manufacturers using olive oil.

There are many components that can affect the total price of your olive oil, including the different quality grades, the type of bulk packaging you choose, the volume of your orders, the distance of the shipping point and the experience or business model of your bulk supplier(s).

In this part three of the series, we're going to weigh in with the different factors that can make you choose one supplier over another, and how the features and offerings of your suppliers can affect the total "all in" delivered price of your oils. 

Centra Foods receives questions from hundreds of manufacturers each year on the best ways to select specialty oil ingredients that fit their many different corporate goals -- one being cost savings, particularly for manufacturers using natural oils.

There are many components that can affect the total price of your oil ingredients, including the different quality kinds of oil available, the type of bulk packaging you opt for, the volume of your orders, the distance of the shipping point and the experience or business model of your bulk supplier(s).  

In this part two of the series, we're going to weigh in about how the different bulk packaging choices can affect your final edible oil pricing.

Centra Foods receives questions from hundreds of manufacturers each year on the best ways to select specialty oil ingredients that fit their many different corporate goals -- one being cost savings, particularly for manufacturers using olive oil.

There are many components that can affect the total price of your olive oil, including the different quality grades of olive oil, the type of bulk packaging you choose, the volume of your orders, the distance of the shipping point and the experience or business model of your bulk supplier(s).  

In this part one of the series, we're going to weigh in with the different factors that relate to choosing the right grade of olive oil to meet your company's needs.

If you are producing a product that is paleo friendly (or if you follow a paleo diet yourself), understanding the oils that fit a paleo diet will be one of the first things that you do.

Oils are a hot topic for those living within a paleo diet, and there's a lot of information reviewing which oils are good, which ones aren't and why.

Today I'd like to review your options for which oils will fit best for your food product. As we work primarily with natural food manufacturers, I will be speaking to food producers rather than consumers, but the same guidelines apply no matter who you are. 

If you're hoping get a promotion or continue to move forward in the career that you're in, it's helpful to have a good idea of what's "industry standard" in your position and work field.  

Having an understanding of the average information about your job (and others like it) will also help you make decisions about what you'd like to do more of in the future. It's also good to get a better understanding of what your peers might be getting paid to make sure you're being compensated competitively -- and to decide your later career path, if finances are a part of that decision for you.

That's why I've compiled average salary information about purchasing and manufacturing jobs to help you get a bit of perspective on your current position -- and to make plans for the future.

Different suppliers -- whether they're located in the US or around in the world -- price oil differently. Sometimes it is priced per pound, per kilogram, per liter, per metric ton, or per gallon. It can be confusing to get pricing from so many different suppliers for bulk oils.

This means that as a buyer, you'll need to be prepared to convert both english to metric values AND volume to weight. Of course to do the latter, it depends on the density of the material (in this case olive oil).

To help avoid the confusion, we've written some conversion calculations you can follow rather easily.

I recently got a fun question: “Is there an Extra-Extra Virgin Olive Oil? Is there a higher grade than the Extra Virgin?”

When it comes to the constant market fluctuations of bulk olive oil, global production (aka, how much olive oil is available in the world) plays a central part. However, there’s one more important thing to factor in: the strength of the euro.

If you are thinking about contracting for your olive oil, you’ll need to do some preparation before signing on the dotted line. There’s a lot of internal review that typically goes on before you will be ready to pull all of your information together and work with your supplier to lock in any guarantees on supply and pricing.

If you’re gearing up for a contract in the near future, here’s the internal steps you’ll need to take to prepare.

Olive Pomace Oil is the lowest grade of olive oil. As opposed to a more expensive first, cold pressed Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Pomace is produced using a solvent-expel process (similar to conventional canola or soybean oil) to get the last of the oil out of the olive.

That said, when I discuss all of the oil options with customers, I often get asked, “how much less is olive pomace oil than the other options available”? My answer is usually, “pretty substantially”, but today I’ll try to be a bit more clear than that.

High oleic oil is a term that you will see applied to many different types of oil: canola, sunflower, safflower and more. High oleic oils have seen a recent spike in popularity, especially in the natural snack food manufacturing industry.

Why is this so? High oleic oils are premium options that have a healthier fat composition, a longer shelf life, a higher heat tolerance and an extended fry life. 

You’re buying olive oil in bulk you say? What type of supplier is going to be the right fit for your needs? It all comes down to how much you’re buying.

What’s the difference between these two kinds of businesses: distributor vs. supplier? There’s actually a lot, and based on how much you’re buying, and if you’re ordering any other ingredients, it will help you to find the right fit.

Here’s a quick review to start with.