CategoriesBranding Coconut Oil
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Why should you trust Cocoguru?

Some rumours spread in the local circuits that the food department had raided our oil mill, massive adulteration had been detected and we closed the matter by paying a hefty bribe. When whispered carefully, people believe it to be true. It is spread like wildfire when you say it is a secret and not to be told to anyone. The gossip carries more weight when it is that of a famous brand that people trust. Negative news attracts people and brings the haters together. Such rumours are good for us in a way, as the brand gets more entrenched in people’s minds. But few people believe this misinformation and we wish to clarify officially from our side.

Cocoguru brand has been built to benefit the farmers and consumers. It is successfully delivering quality coconut oil to consumers, who have been repaying their faith in us. The brand is growing stronger by the day, it is getting into newer territories, adding more products, and improving its quality. You don’t have to blindly believe us or the rumours, you may consider the following points before you form an opinion:

Premium product
Cocoguru brand is sold at a premium compared to other brands in the local market. So, cutting costs by adulteration is not necessary. It is not sustainable to sell at a premium by delivering inferior adulterated products.
Read more: cocoguru.com/yet-another-price-increase/

Brand
We believe in the power of the brand. We appreciate the fact that the brand as an asset is more valuable than all the physical assets like land, buildings, plant & machinery, saleable inventory, etc. So, every activity we do should be towards building and nurturing the brand. Adulteration or shortcuts are the quickest ways to kill it. Cocoguru brand is already 14 years old and is built to last. We are in it for the long term, not just for short-term profits.
Read more: cocoguru.com/adulteration-in-coconut-oil/

Consumer push instead of retailer push
Cocoguru products are sold because of demand by consumers at retail stores. In contrast to push by retailers for their benefit. To sustain this cycle, we should continue to satisfy and delight consumers rather than bribe retailers with better margins and payment terms.
Read more: cocoguru.com/how-do-we-set-mrp/

Sold at Super Markets and eCommerce portals
High-end quality-conscious consumers buy our products through modern trade supermarkets and various e-commerce portals. Our challenge is to stand their scrutiny of quality and standards. They don’t stress us on prices and hence there is no need for adulteration.
Read more: cocoguru.com/cocoguru-is-now-available-at-reliance-smart-stores/

User reviews
Don’t believe what we say, better to believe what other users have to say. In the days of social media and user-generated content, people are happy to review and recommend products based on their experience. Check the reviews and comments on social media platforms like Facebook & Instagram, and eCommerce portals like Amazon & Flipkart. At the Amazon portal, 1000s of consumers buy coconut oil from us every month, and almost 3000 consumers have reviewed the products with a 4.3 to 4.4-star average rating. Check our standings in the best sellers rank for coconut oil, it is in the top 20 list and among the top 8 brands in the country.

fssai random checks
Food Safety department conducts random tests of food products from the market. They don’t inform us, they test for the quality at the CFTRI laboratory and take actions based on their report. This way fssai is supposed to ensure that the food product consumers buy from the market is safe. Our products have been picked and tested at Kasaragod, Udupi, Mangaluru, Chikkamagaluru, and Kodagu and are safe every time. Yes, the department officials take bribes from brands and restrain them from taking action against brands if they get satisfactory amounts from them. However, Kerala’s food department is very strict with coconut oil as it is their staple edible oil. They have listed a widely sold coconut oil from Karnataka as adulterated.
Read more: indiafilings.com/learn/fssai-food-testing-procedure/

Laboratory testing
If you are not convinced, take a random sample yourself and test it against the parameters listed by BIS for coconut oil at any laboratory and find the results for yourselves. The test parameters and the results we obtained are here.

Full accounting and Invoicing
All the transactions carried out at Cocoguru are accounted for and audited by multiple government revenue departments like Income Tax, GST, APMC, Labour, Factories, Food, etc. All the transactions carry a legal Invoice or document. So, they can be traced and scrutinized.
Read more: cocoguru.com/statutory-info/

Transparency and Information
We believe in transparency and all the information is easily available to anyone who seeks it. We don’t fear competitors copying the ideas as that alone won’t give them the success that we have achieved. Our website is highly informative and detailed, our social media pages are continuously updated and informative. Only when we are confident of our activities, and it is good for the consumers do we share our information.

Factory Visit
We work from 9:00 am to 6:00 pm from Monday to Saturday. Anyone interested is welcome to visit the oil mill. No need to inform us, just randomly visit. Randomness of visits gives us no scope for any special “preparation”, Experience the cleanliness, methodical process, quality of raw materials and finished products. Ask us if you have any queries about the products and processes, and we will be happy to answer them whether you buy the product or not.
Read more: cocoguru.com/infrastructure/

CategoriesCoconut Oil
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5 Common Myths about Roasted Coconut Oil

Cocoguru has been the pioneers and the only brand to make roasted coconut oil for cooking in coastal Karnataka region. Marketing it is very risky because of several myths that the consumers have about it.


All micronutrients are destroyed during roasting
Oil millers who can’t invest in equipment for roasting and take the risk of marketing it, just mislead consumers. They claim that their oil has all the micronutrients like vitamins remain in tact. Fact is that coconut oil is 100% fat, with no micronutrients. If at all they are there in traces, they are retained even after roasting. Nobody consumes coconut oil for its vitamins, it is for its fat.
Roasting of copra is not a process that completely destroys the properties of coconut oil, it is a small process that only enhances the fragrance and taste of coconut oil.
People also confuse roasting with refining. Refining is a highly complex process that people think of but roasting is a small process like drying of copra.

Colour of oil is yellow and hence it is inferior
Oil extracted from copra that has gone bad will be of darker colour. Oil extracted from copra after roasting is also darker or yellow in colour. But they cannot be equated. The point is discussed in detail in this post. Why is Cocoguru coconut oil yellow in colour? English metaphor “Don’t judge a book by its cover” is appropriate here. Smell it and experience it completely before judging the oil.

It is not suitable for cooking, suitable only for hair
It is an edible oil, highly recommended for cooking. In addition to normal cold-pressed coconut oil, roasted coconut oil also adds to the flavour, aroma and taste. The whole kitchen and dining will be scented with divine coconut flavour. Heating food items moderately is not bad, in fact it is good and sometimes essential. Rice has to be cooked with steam, chapathi has to be roasted before eating. We never say rice or wheat has lost its quality in the process.

It is not naturally possible to have such sweet aroma and taste, it must be perfumed
I have heard these objections many times by retailers, I show them by drinking a few drops of oil to convince them. Sweet aroma and taste are emitted after the roasting of copra pieces. Experience the difference between raw ground nuts and roasted ground nuts. The more you heat tea leaves, the more aroma and flavour it emanates.

Shelf life is high because of the use of preservatives
Roasting of copra dries out any moisture still left in copra. Moisture causes rancidity in oil. This is the reason cold-pressed oils and wood-pressed oils go rancid fast as they contain too much moisture. Heating also sterilises the bacteria and fungus in copra. So, shelf life is enhanced without adding any preservatives.

CategoriesEmployees
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Narayana Bhat retires

Mr. Narayana Bhat was working with us as a Production Supervisor and has retired from service on 31st August 2023. This is an event worth writing about as it comes with mixed emotions, pride and voidness.

He joined Cocoguru almost 10 years back on February 2014. He was referred by Keshava Ram’s classmate Shivashankar Shastry, his brother-in-law. He travels 40 kms everyday from Kanyana to work. He worked in various departments like Stores, Logistics, Purchase, Oil Extraction, Canteen, Campus etc. His notable contributions have been

  • Developing and maintaining a beautiful green campus by planting 150 trees and conserving water
  • Major changes in company logistics, selling old vehicles
  • Implementing commission/piece work based payments to labours
  • Getting work done efficiently from people yet having fun doing them
  • Organising events like Independence Day, birthday celebrations, Ayudha Pooje and Deepavali
  • Maintaining cordial relations with land neighbours and Karpadi temple management
  • He helped maintain a very jovial and productive work environment all through out.

He will be 57 years old in about 15 days. His son completed Mechanical Engineering from Nitte and got placed at a private firm at Bengaluru. He announced his decision to retire during his last birthday celebration on 23rd September 2022, and he was waiting for his son Ashlesha to start working. He likes to improve and expand present arecanut farm, build his dream house as the old house is not in good condition. And ultimately lead a happy and peaceful life in village with his dear wife Mrs. Uma and pet animals.

Company is proud to have an employee work with them for almost 10 years and leave them only for an unavoidable reason like retirement. Many people leave for better prospects or when they are not happy working there. But it is difficult to replace him with someone who can do all the jobs with a can do attitude. It is an aspect of nature, and we need to move on.

Narayan Bhat retires 01

We had organised a small event on closing hours of 31st August to honour him and celebrate his contributions for us. Many employees who worked closely with him spoke eulogies of him. Murali (Operations Head) is his direct boss, Keshava Ram (Managing Director), Naresh Kumar (Sales Manager), Shiva Kumar (Finance Manager), Suprabha (Brand Manager), Karthik Rai (Financial Accountant), Shreekrishna Shastry (Public Relations Officer), Jagganath (Expeller Operator) and Shivashankar Bhat (Chairman) all spoke for a couple of minutes with their heartfelt messages and wished well for his retired life. Narayana Bhat likes to be jovial with ladies, and they were all emotional when they realised that he will not be working with them from next day. He was honoured with his wife Mrs. Uma by Shivashankar Bhat. He also spoke briefly with usual humour and ended with a small Kannada poem. A cupboard was given to him as a complement as he is building a new house. Event ended with dinner supplied from Cocoguru Adigemane. People whom he was leading were looking up to him to guide him for work even after his working hours.

All of us at Cocoguru, like to thank him for his contributions to us and wish him a happy retired life with his family.

CategoriesRestaurant
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Restaurant location and start date

Adigemane - Keerthana

Where is the upcoming restaurant going to be and when will it start?
We had announced our intention to start a restaurant long time back. So, the first question most people asked was, where is the location going to be?. Short answer is it is going to be at Kallega, Nehru Nagar, Vivekananda college junction on Puttur – Mangaluru highway. We will start service on Sunday, 15th January 2023 on the auspicious day of Makara Sankranthi. We will run the restaurant where Hotel Keerthana is presently running.

Why this location?
Since we are at Puttur, it should be some where in Puttur town. We don’t like crowded places though there will be many walk-in customers at such places. Reaching the place and parking should not be a challenge. So, we were looking at By-pass road and highways around Puttur town. There were a few options suiting our requirement. Most restaurants just drain the sewage to rainwater drainage streams directly. We are very conscious about treating the sewage well before passing it. This place has a sewage treatment plant. So, we decided on this place.

Why a running restaurant?

  • Running restaurant will have regular existing customers and business. So, business need not start from 0.
  • We tried to sell the land at Kallarpe, but couldn’t. So, we don’t have much funds to buy land, build a building or even to setup the restaurant from scratch from a rented space.
  • It is very risky to start a new business and there will be many trial and errors while establishing one. A running restaurant would have already passed that phase.
  • It already has all the necessary setup to run a restaurant. Only a few repairs, cleaning and enhancements are required.

Overall, the finance requirement and time required to start the service is minimised. We have another short 2 months time before we have to start. We have out tasks cut out.

CategoriesCoconut Oil
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Our view of Wood Pressed Oil – High price for an inferior product

Woodpressed coconut oil
Wood Pressed Coconut Oil

Wood Pressed oils are a craze now. It can be seen by the products sold on Amazon, number of such outlets opened in towns because of the massive consumer preference. I don’t say they are wrong. Because they compare it with what they are consuming today i.e. the refined oil. But when they compare wood pressed oil with corresponding expeller pressed crude, filtered oil they are wrong. Health consciousness should rise, but they should also know what is healthy. Not go with what is popularly happening but scientifically reason it. Normally what is priced higher is good but not always. This fad about wood pressed oil is one such exceptional case.

We don’t debate that wood pressed oil is inferior to refined oil. Wood pressed oil is far superior to refined oil, period. But is it the best way to make oil? Answer is NO! Let us analyse this

2 types of machines to extract crude oil from copra

  • Expeller – It is a fully closed arrangement, moisture should be completely removed from copra.
  • Rotary – It is an open conical grinding machine, some moisture must be present in copra for lubrication.

Debate – which is better?

For expeller

  • Moisture causes rancidity in oil. So a better extraction mechanism should mean remove moisture. So expeller oil will have longer shelf life.
  • Expeller squeezes more oil from copra than rotary. So extraction efficiency is better and oil cost will be lower. Oil cake will have lower oil content wasted.
  • Greater quantity of copra can be crushed in expeller by increasing its size and supplying more power. This allows automation of entire process for larger scale.
  • Oil extracted through expeller from dried copra can be filtered online through a filter press. Oil extracted from rotary from moist copra can only be filtered by sedimentation process which will take 7-10 days. So expeller gives faster throughput and requires lesser inventory.
  • Because copra is heated to some extent, the oil smells and tastes better.

For rotary – only argument

  • Copra is not heated, so the properties of coconut is retained.

What are the properties of coconut that would have been lost by heating? Common answer is vitamins. Any coconut oil contains 99.9% fat and 0.1% moisture. That means there is no other nutrient in coconut oil. Forget Vitamins, coconut oil has no carbohydrates, proteins and minerals. It is only fat.

Heating may go upto 80 degrees in expeller and 60 degrees in rotary. At both theses temperatures the fats don’t undergo any change. If heating of food is bad, then why do we cook rice, roast chapathis, pasteurise milk? Shouldn’t we consume them raw?

From rotary, it goes further down to wooden rotary instead of steel rotary.

  • Extent to which oil is squeezed from copra is even lower. So oil yield is lower, labour cost is higher and hence oil cost is much higher.
  • Heat generated is even lower. So there is no value addition of heat
  • Wood absorbs moisture and oil and retains it. This is very bad for food hygiene and safety.
  • When wood press is not used bacteria and fungus develops on the surface

So, we have argued that rotary oil is inferior to expeller oil and further wood pressed oil takes it a step further and is more inferior and more expensive.

Now, in expeller, roasting of copra before oil extraction increases the quality to another level by enhancing flavour, taste, aroma and shelf life.