Why is your coconut oil yellow in colour? It is not clear white, so not pure

People say this out of their experience and perception about coconut oil. They are not to be blamed because they have seen that oil from good quality copra is white and that from lower quality copra is yellow. Our coconut oil is yellow not because of poorer quality copra but because of a different process. With improvements in oil extraction technology and consumer demand for packaged coconut oil, the coconut oil colour also may undergo a change. Though clear transparent white colour looks better, for want of better quality of coconut oil, the colour may have to suffer.

Manufacturing process of clear white colour coconut oil

Copra with 7-8% moisture is crushed in a rotary machine where lower heat is generated through friction, the oil is then kept in a barrel to allow settling of sediments to take out clear white coconut oil. This is the traditional method of coconut oil extraction and at small scale still followed in villages.

The problems here are

• Copra is high on moisture and resulting oil will get rancid fast
• Filtering through sedimentation takes a minimum of 7 days

A superior method where above problems are solved is to dry copra to 3% moisture, extract oil from copra through expeller and filter oil online through filter press immediately.

But the resulting oil turns slightly yellow because of

1. Copra drying by application of hot air at 80 degrees

2. Higher friction and heat during oil extraction in expeller

It has better aroma and longer shelf life.

We go a step further that is the roast the copra pieces after drying but before oil extraction. This further enhances the aroma and shelf life but oil becomes more yellow in colour. There is not loss of any nutrients as it is popularly believed, it is still great for cooking. The great aroma is not because of any perfumes added but what comes out of copra through roasting. Increased shelf life is not because of any preservatives or chemicals but because of complete moisture removal from copra.

Effect of roasting can be understood by comparing the taste of ground nuts or cashew nuts before and after roasting. We eat rice, wheat and vegetables after cooking/heating not without.

There may be many traditionalists who say the contrary is true. White colour oil is better than yellow colour oil. We, respect their view and understand why they hold to their view. That is why we have cold press coconut oil also. As a brand, we believe roasted coconut oil is better.