Olive oil is touted all over the world as a healthy, good-for-you oil.  Benefits range from the prevention of cancer, heart disease and diabetes to lowering blood pressure to reducing levels of obesity.  They go on and on from there.

So what exactly is it in olive oil that makes it so healthy?  Well, there's a number of chemical components that do your body good.  

But first it's important to understand which type of olive oil you should be eating to get all of these benefits.

If you are producing a product that is paleo (or eating a paleo diet yourself) you'll want to know exactly which oils you can use that are acceptable on a paleo diet.

Today, we'll review which oils you should focus on and which you should stay away from. As we work primarily with food manufacturers, we will focus primarily on companies producing paleo food products.

Safflower and canola are both commonly used oils in the natural food industry. They’re both light in color and flavor, and you’ll find them used in baked goods, snacks, granolas, bars and used for frying.

However, as similar as they are, they also have their differences. Today, I’ll give you the rundown of what's the same and what’s different when it comes to these two oils. 

What is 'pomace' anyways? And what makes it Pomace Olive Oil (or better said, Olive Pomace Oil)? We'll tell you.

What Is Pomace?

Webster's Dictionary has a pretty simple definition of Pomace.

"The dry or pulpy residue of material (such as fruit, seeds, or fish) from which a liquid (such as juice or oil) has been pressed or extracted. 2 : something crushed to a pulpy mass." Source

Yep, that definition is pretty dead on if you ask me!

Safflower oil has gained popularity in recent years in the natural food industry. Though it’s not quite as prevalent as it’s cousin sunflower oil or the food industry main-stay of canola oil, brands are starting to use it more and more.

Without much experience with safflower, many people question if it’s an oil that they should be using in food production or eating in their own kitchens. Is it good or is it bad?

It’s hard to know much about safflower instinctively: the name doesn’t mean much to us — after all, what is a safflower anyways? To make things a little bit more confusing, this oil is often used interchangeably with sunflower oil as well.

Today, I’ll start at the beginning to give you the low down on safflower oil. Why people do or don’t like it, and whether you should be eating it. 

The smoke points of oils are important. They indicate at what temperature a particular type of oil will begin to smoke at, and are key for allowing manufacturers to choose the right oils for their current production process.

Canola oil is a common oil used in manufacturing and by home chefs so this is a popular discussion. Depending on who you ask, you may get different indications of smoke point temperatures from each different supplier, even if they are supplying the same type of oil.

Here's a good indication of the smoke points of canola oil.

Sunflower oil and canola oil are both commonly used oils in the natural food industry. They’re both light in color and flavor, and you’ll find them used in baked goods, snacks, granolas, bars and used for frying.

However, as similar as they are, they also have their differences. Today, I’ll give you the rundown of what is the same and what’s different when it comes to these two oils. 

What should you expect when it comes to the quality control of natural fats and oils used as ingredients in food manufacturing? There's a lot of different documents that you as a food manufacturer can ask for.

If you're wondering what's normal to expect from your bulk oil supplier in terms of quality assurance documentation, here's the list of the QA docs we most often get requests for.

The job description of a supply chain manager sure sounds cool, doesn’t it? On this position, you’d be managing all activities for purchasing raw materials, delivering them to the right point across the organization, making sure the organization is producing enough supply to meet the demand of the audience, and deliver the product to the right place at the right time. You’re basically managing the entire journey of the product.

The high salary (it usually ranges between $93,825 and $122,675 annually) is a huge factor of attraction, too. It’s no wonder why so many people are interested in becoming supply chain managers.

This is one of the most important positions in an organization. It carries tons of responsibility, so the hiring managers have extremely high standards when choosing among the candidates. You want to meet those standards? Then it’s best to learn from the best.

We've worked with many food manufacturers who want to make the switch from conventional (GMO) canola and soybean oil to their non-GMO alternatives. Many opt for non-GMO canola oil, which is a highly popular option right now.

If you're working on getting your product Non-GMO Project Verified, or even if you just want to use more non-GM ingredients, Non-GMO Canola Oil can be a great fit -- for a lot of reasons. It's a mild-tasting, versatile oil that can be an ideal ingredient in many different types of products.

With that in mind, it's important to understand your different options when it comes to Non-GMO Canola Oil. There's two main types of Non-GMO Canola Oil that you'll find on the market today (and one new, less common option). 

There’s a common debate for small and growing companies: when should you make the leap from buying from a local distributor or wholesaler to a larger bulk supplier. The reality is that it’s a larger change than you might be prepared for, even if you want the savings of working with a larger bulk supplier.

Here’s the most important things to consider as you’re thinking about buying from a national supplier.

Sunflower oil: is it healthy or unhealthy? Is it good or bad?

Because the ins-and-outs of the specific kind of fat make up and how an oil is made, this discussion can be confusing. To make the discussion even less straight forward, the sunflower oil that used to be common decades ago is becoming less and less prevalent, so we’re not always talking about the same thing when we say “sunflower oil”.

With the healthy food movement, high oleic expeller pressed sunflower oil is becoming more and more common and is beginning to dominate the US sunflower market.

On the whole, is sunflower oil good or bad? And is it actually a good fit for the food that you’re making? Today we’ll review what this oil is good for (or not) and the science behind it. 

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?