Choosing the right suppliers can have a huge impact on the bottom line for your company. The decisions you make about your vendors can impact your pricing structure, the raw ingredient inventory you hold, cash planning, the overall quality of your product, as well as your company's profitability!  Choices around this topic touch so many parts of your business. So today, we want to help you with the guidelines for a new supplier evaluation. 

These are the questions that, as a buyer, you should be asking yourself as you are evaluating new vendors for bulk ingredient supply.  You may be sourcing oils or you may be sourcing something else; this analysis process should look pretty similar across the board.  Let's dig in!

Sunflower and safflower oil are both extremely popular in the natural food industry right now.  As brands look for healthier options (and move away from conventional GMO oils like soybean, corn, cottonseed and canola) sunflower and safflower become the next logical choice that many brands opt for.

Sometimes we see products that use one of these oils, and other times we see products that use BOTH interchangeably with an "and/or" statement on their ingredient list. If you had to choose between them, which is a better fit for you?

Today, we will take a closer look at these two oils to discuss how they are similar and how they are different. Of course, if you can use both, then do it! Both are good quality, naturally non-GMO oils perfect for use in snack foods, breads and frozen products.  However, if you'd rather choose only one oil, let's dive into some information on each to help you decide. 

When it comes to cooking with oil, smoke points are very important. These numbers indicate at what temperature a particular type of oil will smoke at. If your cooking process goes above that, your oil may impart an unwanted burned flavor into your product.  This is key for allowing manufacturers to choose the right oils for their production. 

The accurate smoke point for each type of oil may depend on who you ask.  You may get different smoke point temperature information from different suppliers -- even when they are supplying the same type of oil.  Smoke points can also vary based on if the oil is high oleic, if it's refined, if it's expeller pressed vs. solvent, and many other characteristics.  

The grades of olive oil that are commonly used in manufacturing are not the same names you may recognize from a retail shelf.  On a retail shelf, you typically see Extra Virgin Olive Oil as the most common type available -- as you should!  But if you are not familiar with the lower grades and new to purchasing bulk olive oil for food/body care production, it can be confusing. 

Here is a review of Olive Oil vs. Olive Pomace Oil -- two common grades used in food and body care manufacturing.  Plus one more!

People are always wanting to know about the different grades of olive oil: how they are made and what they are used for. Let's really dive in and talk about the specific grade of Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil. Sometimes it can seem so straight forward when you hear about organic EVOO this it's easy glance over. 

To really understand, we've outlined some basics below about Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil that you should know. 

Olive oil blends are a common oil option in both the food manufacturing and food service industries.

Blends can have a lot of advantages.  In the manufacturing world, they are a great option for a mild-tasting oil: they still allow you to use olive oil and have it on your label, but without the strong flavor.  They also help you meet lower raw-ingredient costs.  On the foodservice side, olive oil blends typically have higher smoke points (from the added canola oil) and help keep your kitchen costs down.

In Hebrew, Kosher means fit or proper. When used with food products, kosher means that the item in question meets the dietary requirements of Jewish law. These are requirements set forward by the Jewish faith, and nutritional restrictions followed year-round. 

 Want to find out more about what it means to offer a Kosher food product?  Read on.

Centra Foods receives questions from countless food manufacturers each year, asking for the best ways to save money on olive oil. Many components can affect the total price of your olive oil, including grade types, packaging, freight, the distance of the FOB point, and experience of the supplier.

If you missed part one of this series, click here.  This week, we will be reviewing the next step to saving: choosing the best (and cheapest) packaging for your production facility.

Centra Foods supplies wholesalers and food service distributors with olive oil (and other non-gmo and organic oils) in bulk. As a result, we get a lot of business questions from companies in this industry.

Maintaining the right levels of inventory for all of your ingredients can be a challenge, especially for small and fast growing businesses. Many small businesses want to buy in bulk, but struggle with holding too much inventory at one time.

Do you find you are interested in canola oil but need to know a little bit more about it? Look no further! Here are 15 quick tips about canola oil you need to know.

Most everyone, when researching bulk olive oil, will have the question "What is the price of bulk olive oil?" This is a more complex topic than you might expect, as there are many factors that can affect pricing.

An order you send to any food ingredient supplier is, at the very least, a gentleman's agreement on both sides. To be able to get just what you're looking for you will need to make sure that you include all the necessary details.

When was the last time you were able to order a shirt on, say, Amazon and you didn't have to specify the size you wanted, color, or your shipping address? You are probably thinking to yourself, never.

Let's begin to look at the different details you need to make sure you are giving your supplier on your PO. In the industrial industry, a purchase order is important, to begin with - it's basically your contract. With any contract, you will want to make sure that you specify in writing the details you have agreed on. You will also want to make sure you've covered everything that could affect your order.


Sometimes the details can be a wide range and you may not naturally include certain information because it doesn't directly affect you. That's why we have created a list of all the information that you should make sure you include when you're putting your orders together. This applies to any industrial food supplier you work with.

Have you ever sourced just plain olive oil? Understanding what you are getting can, at times, be confusing to most buyers outside of the oil industry. We want to explain the grade "Olive Oil" which is better known as "Pure Olive Oil" because many consumers don't fully understand.

There is a lot of misinformation about canola oil out there. Part of the problem is the concerns that people have with canola only apply with some of the canola oil in existence — and their same concerns also apply to lots of other oils that people don’t talk as much about. To understand the full story you have to know when the claims about canola oil are true and when they are false.

Let's tackle some myths and truths about organic canola oil and how they relate to their conventional GMO vs. organic counterparts.