So you’ve recently bought a shipment of bulk oil in some sort of bulk packaging.

Perhaps it was delivered in 275 Gallon Totes. Or perhaps you use the 55 Gallon Drums, or even smaller 35 Lb. Containers (also called JIBs). Once you’ve used the oil in your production, what do you do with the packaging remaining?

Depending on what you specifically bought, there’s a few things you can do with it. We will review.

Setting goals is an important step to improving.

There are, of course, a number of different kinds of goals. You have personal goals for your life, and you have professional goals for your job. But they’re always entangled, some taking priority over others depending on the day.

The best way to achieve all of them is to lay them out separately, prioritize them, and then make a plan for how you can achieve every one.

Here’s a smart framework for purchasing managers to complete your goal setting for 2018-- not just for your job but also for your life.

The USDA recently released a report on oilseeds and production, which included a small feature on expectations of the upcoming 2017/2018 olive oil harvest.

Today, I'd like to go through their report, piece by piece, and add some commentary in that will be helpful to fully understand what they are saying and how it may affect your 2018 bulk olive oil buying plans.

The American Heart Association recently released a report advising against the use of coconut oil. 

In recent years, you've probably seen a rise in the popularity of coconut oil. It's been increasingly espoused as the "miracle oil" and used in more and more natural products (e.g., these chips cooked in coconut oil).

But there's still been a heated debate around the true health of coconut oil, with those in each pro and con camp fighting fervently for their sides.

To finally shut down this debate, the American Heart Association reviewed studies and research making an official recommendation on June 15th, 2017. 

We've all got Thanksgiving dinner on the brain.  I know I do.

With Thanksgiving this week, I hope you're finishing up your grocery shopping tonight and getting all of your recipes prepped for tomorrow.

In case you have yet to finalize the last few delicious creations you plan to make, I've gathered a few great recipes below that use olive oil.   Olive oil can be a great addition to Thanksgiving, and you can use it in more creative ways than you may think.  

Of course, it's great to slather on your turkey before putting it in the oven.  But here's a few more delicious (and beautiful!) recipes you can use olive oil in. 

Wanting to dive into the coconut oil debate more thoroughly this year, I read:

Know Your Fats: The Complete Primer for Understanding the Nutrition of Fats, Oils and Cholesterol, by Mary G. Enig

Enig was one of the first few scientists who lobbied against trans fats, and asked the FDA begin to require trans fat listings on the side of nutrition boxes (they listened, and that trans fat listing requirement on nutritional labels exists today). This research and information eventually led to their recent decision to take trans fats off of their GRAS List (Generally Recognized As Safe) starting in 2018. To learn more about this decision, you can read FDA Recommends Removing Partially Hydrogenated Oils From Food.

Needless to say, Enig (now deceased) was one of the most well-versed on oils of her time. In addition, she was a scientist who shared and tried to break down the complex concepts for consumers. She wrote this book in an effort to share the truth 

Picture this: it’s February and you plan to use the olive oil that’s been sitting in your warehouse for a week. You plug the pump into your drum and… nothing happens. You can’t actually GET to your oil to use it. It’s completely solid, like cold butter. Now what?

This is an all too real situation that happens to many a food manufacturer. Anyone who has a cool warehouse in the winter or is located in the northern half of the US can expect to experience this at some point.

As we head into November (and officially the colder months of the year) I want to make sure we talk about this today.

Have you ever seen the price of Pure Olive Oil be almost as high as Extra Virgin Olive Oil? I have — most of us in the food manufacturing world have. And people often ask me why.

The answer is simple and complex at the same time. In a vacuum — in a perfect world — the price of pure olive oil should fall somewhere between Extra Virgin Olive Oil and Olive Pomace Oil. It is, of course, the olive oil grade between these two extremes (along with Refined Olive Oil) and pricing should correspond.

In the good harvest times, it follows exactly this pattern. But in times of poor harvest and bad olive oil production, the olive oil commodity market (aka, the simple economics of supply and demand) has more of an impact on the pricing comparison scale that you might expect.

Want to learn about olive oil?  Today, I've gathered a few infographics allowing you to peruse some fun facts on this "liquid gold".

Did you know that your oil is made up of a few different types of fats — some of which are regarded as healthy and some of which are not?

There are 3 natural types of fat: Saturated Fat, Monounsaturated Fat and Polyunsaturated Fat.

Saturated fat is listed on the nutritional label of your products as a subcategory.  Though they’re not often mentioned, there are 2 more subtypes that could be listed in the same area: the monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats.

These last two are what is considered “good fat”. On the flip side, saturated fat is generally considered to be the “bad fat”.  However, with the popularity of coconut oil, this has come under hot debate recently.

Trans fat seems to be in it’s own category, a widely known bad type of fat that is artificially created through partial-hydrogenation.

By looking at the different types of fat and the ratios of each within an oil, you can determine which ones are healthier and which ones you should limit.

If you haven’t heard yet, Costco has now surpassed Whole Foods Market in organic sales. It happened a little while back, and it was a quiet race for the win.

More and more, I’m recommending that my customers use an oil blend when they can — when their customers will appreciate it rather than feeling like it detracts from their product.

Why do I like these blends so much? I think an oil blend has a number of advantages that they bring to the table. But it all depends on what you’re looking for.

To be clear, a blend is a mix of two different types of oils. Both of them would have to be listed on your ingredient label, so you'd have two different oils in your product instead of one.

If you’ve been considering this option, today I’d like to help you see the oil blend option in a new light. 

Is olive oil non-GMO? This is one of the most common questions we get about olive oil, and I thought I’d address this one again.

You walk into a gourmet olive oil store: in front of you, there is Spanish olive oil, there’s Greek olive oil, and there’s Italian olive oil — along with oil from about about 20 other countries. So what is it about each of these regions that gives the olives their particular flavor?

Let me ask the question a different way… If you cut an olive tree in half, roots and all, and took 1/2 to Spain and 1/2 to Greece, would the Extra Virgin Olive Oil, once produced, taste different?

This musing probes at the root of a bigger question: why do particular olive growing regions have distinctive flavors of EVOO? Why is the classic Spanish EVOO peppery? Why does Tunisian EVOO taste buttery?

Everyone’s been feeling the pressure on the olive oil market this year. It’s been a really tough market in 2017, with a delay in the olive harvest that pushed oil production out far later than usual, and was coupled with high and ever-rising prices throughout the spring.

Today, I’d like to do a brief review as we prep for next year’s harvest to begin in the coming months. First, I’m going to cover some numbers and percentages that we saw this last year across the globe. Then we’ll finish up with some personal insight on this market as we look forward towards next year.