COLD-PRESSED WOOD-PRESSED BELOW 42°C

Whole seed in.
Oil out.

That is the whole recipe, and it takes six stages to keep it that simple. Nothing is added
at any point. Nothing is taken out. What follows is every decision between the field
and the Fliptop cap, and the reason each one costs us yield.

Stage One

It starts before we press anything

A press cannot improve a seed. It can only fail to damage one.
Everything the oil will ever be is already in the seed on the day it arrives, which is why the raw material is the part of this process we are least willing to compromise. Our seeds are cleaned, sortexed and packed in moisture-controlled bags at export grade. They are dried by sun and air — never with sulphur, which is the fast route and the one that leaves a residue. We do not buy directly from farmers or from the mandi. We buy from suppliers who clean and dry in the natural way, because a seed that has been rushed at the drying stage cannot be rescued later in the press.

Driedby

Graded

Packed

Condition

Two seeds get extra handling

Stage Two

Wood, because wood does not conduct heat

Seeds are not crushed. They are pressed.
There are three machines in this category and the difference between them is not craft, it is physics. An expeller drives a steel screw at speed; it shears the seed rather than pressing it, and steel carries every degree of that friction straight into the oil. Temperatures inside an expeller reach the range of 180°C. Ghanis sit between the two. Some are fully wooden, some part wooden with a metal shaft or barrel, some fully metal. Ours is the first kind: 100% wooden processing parts, every surface the seed touches. Wood is a poor conductor of heat, so run at a controlled RPM the temperature simply has nowhere to go.

Contact

Action

Speed

Lineage

Stage Three

The number is the whole argument

42°C is not a description of the oil. It is the name on the bottle.
The cold-pressed category is defined by a processing temperature under 49°C. That is the ceiling the category is held to, and meeting it is the floor rather than the achievement. We run below 42°C, measured inside the kohlu for every batch, and we hold it by the only method that actually works: slowing down. Speed is what cooks oil. At two to four RPM friction never builds enough to matter. This is the traditional, authentic and ancient way of making oil, and it is worth saying plainly that it yields less. A slow press leaves oil in the cake. We accept that, because the alternative is a hotter press and a thinner oil, and there is no version of this where we take the yield and keep the argument.

Ours

Category

Expeller

Cost

Stage Four

We do not filter. We wait.

Sediment is not dirt. Most of it is the oil.
Our oil is neither filtered nor refined. It is left to stand, and gravity takes down the heavy solids on its own. Only what has to come out comes out; the rest is part of the oil and will never settle, because it was never separate from it in the first place. The industry does this differently for a reason. Sediment shortens shelf life, so oils are usually stabilised by chemical filtration, or run through a physical filter to strip the solids out. Both work. Both also mean the oil can no longer be called virgin. We take the long way instead and protect the oil at the two ends where it is actually vulnerable — properly packed seed going in, properly sealed bottles coming out — so that nothing has to be stripped to keep it from turning.

Method

Removed

Refined Oil

Never

Stage Five

Nothing goes in that did not grow

One seed in. One oil out.
Our oils are 100% pure and are never blended. This matters more than it sounds, because blending is the standard method for making a bottle cheap without saying so. Palm and soya cost a fraction of a traditional seed, and a bottle labelled for one seed can carry a great deal of another. They are not traditional oils and they are not healthy ones. We will never mix them in, which means our oils will never be the cheap bottle on the shelf. What we will do is keep making traditional oils that contain everything a body needs from a fat, with no chemicals and no refining anywhere in the chain.

Composition

Chemicals

Additives

Consequence

Oxidation is the enemy of an unrefined oil

Four sizes, and a ceiling

Because we do not chemically stabilise the oil, the packaging has to do that work. Oil is stored in small batches in airtight sealed containers, and bottled into lab-tested, food-grade, BPA-free glass in 100ml, 200ml, 500ml and 1 litre. We will never sell a size above one litre. A large bottle spends most of its life half full of air while in use, and air is what oxidizes an unrefined oil. Small formats mean only one bottle is ever open; the rest sit sealed and safe. A controlled, leak-proof pour keeps the neck closed the rest of the time.

Sizes

Glass/PET

Storage

Cap

Stage seven

What comes out the other end

Six decisions, one oil. This is what the process leaves you holding.

Composition

Naturally cholesterol free

No cholesterol and no trans-fatty acids, without anything being removed to get there. It is simply what a seed pressed cold contains.

Nutrition

Healthy fat, with its vitamins intact

Low processing temperature is the reason. Heat is what strips the vitamins out of an oil, and there is no heat here to do it.

Grade

Virgin, because nothing was used on it

No chemicals at any stage, and no filtration beyond gravity. Virgin is a description of the process, not a marketing tier.

Character

Thicker on the spoon, and it tastes of the seed

More viscous than a refined oil, with the aroma and colour the seed actually had. You can see the difference before you taste it.

In the pan

You use less of it

It is absorbed less in cooking, so the same dish takes a smaller quantity. The bottle lasts longer than the price suggests.

In the kitchen

Your chimney stays clear

A small thing that people notice within a month of switching, and a fair proxy for how little residue this oil leaves behind.

At the unit

Measured, not assumed

Instrumented

The unit is fitted with instruments for the parameters that actually move the oil — temperature and humidity, chief among them. A number nobody measures is a claim, not a specification.

Cleaned daily

The machine is cleaned every day, using natural ingredients. Wood is forgiving of a slow press and unforgiving of a dirty one.

Checked by hand

Copra is cleaned, cut and inspected piece by piece for fungus before it enters the press.

Cold-pressed • Wood-pressed • Below 42°C

The whole thing in five steps

The same five steps appear on every product page. They do not change per oil, because the process does not.

Whole seeds in

Skin, germ and kernel. Nothing is split off before the press.

A wooden kolhu

Wood, not steel. It crushes rather than shears, and it does not heat.

Two to four RPM

Slow enough that friction never builds. Speed is what cooks oil.

Below 42°C

Measured inside the kohlu for every batch. The number is the name.

Settled, not stripped

Rested using gravitational sedimentation. Never refined, bleached or deodorised.

Whole seeds. Whole flavour.

Six oils, one process. Every Below 42° oil is a whole seed oil.

Shop the six oils