Converted biodiesel plant produces the good oil
A former fuel plant is driving a new business – high-quality cooking oil production. Heather Chalmers takes a look.
South Canterbury paddocks covered in bright yellow spring flowers are the first step of an expanding homegrown South Island business, turning oilseed rape – regarded as a commodity crop overseas – into a high-value liquid gold.
Producing this liquid gold is Canterbury-owned Pure Oil New Zealand, which operates a large commercial oilseed crush plant at Rolleston, south of Christchurch, turning the small black seed into high-quality food-grade oil.
Since starting in 2012, production has tripled from 5000 to 6000 tonnes of seed, up to 15,000t now. Imported rapeseed oil, also known as canola, is a familiar staple on supermarket shelves, where it is sold as a cheap salad and cooking oil, with millions of tonnes of seed grown world-wide.
Big overseas export growers are Canada and Australia, with the term canola a contraction of Canada and ola, for ‘‘oil low acid’’. Pure Oil is taking a different highvalue approach – cold-pressing the seed in the same way as a quality New Zealand-grown olive oil to preserve its colour, flavour and nutritional benefits.
While most of its business is supplying large food manufacturers, both in New Zealand and overseas, Pure Oil has also moved into the retail market, selling its culinary cold-pressed extra virgin rapeseed oil in supermarkets.
Continuing to look for new opportunities, Pure Oil is this year trialling growing sunflowers for their oil. It is also investigating human food uses for plant proteins from rapeseed meal, a by-product of the oil-extraction process.
Initially built by Solid Energy to produce biodiesel, the plant was bought by a consortium of Canterbury business people with interests in food and seed production in
2012.
Biofuel was never an option for the new owners, who considered the production of food-grade oil a more viable business, said managing director Nick Murney.
‘‘The design of the plant is perfect for producing high quality oils; that is why we bought the assets. The process we use fits the niche, value-add pathway.’’ While cold-pressed rapeseed oil was new in New Zealand, it was a big market in Europe and Britain. It is for everyday use, whether for bacon and eggs, or frying potatoes, or a roast, so the oil is an all-rounder in the kitchen.’’
Holding a 30 per cent share each are Southern Packers, a group of large-scale Mid and South Canterbury onion and potato growers, and Ashburton-based seed company Midlands Holdings Ltd. Murney and consultant agronomist Roger Lasham both have a 20 per cent share.
The plant is huge and still only at 65 per cent capacity, but the company was market driven, rather than production driven, said Murney. The crush plant has capacity to process 90 tonnes of seed a day, producing 36t of oil and
54t of meal.
About 55 arable farmers supply rapeseed for crushing, mainly in South Canterbury and Southland, but also North Canterbury and Manawatu.
Most of its business was bulk lines of oil sold to food manufacturers and about half of its revenue came from exporting a specialty high-oleic oil. Pure Oil NZ started with two products, a standard oil and a high protein meal by-product of the extraction process. It now had nine products in the market; seven types of oil and two meal products.
Equipment imported from the United States was adapted to produce a specialised high-energy, high-protein meal for the dairy industry, aimed at intensive dairying, particularly indoor operations. Work by its agronomists and growers meant rapeseed was a proven crop. ‘‘It’s a dryland crop and suits heavier soils.’’
Production will take a hit next harvest as the wet autumn and winter meant farmers struggled to get crops in the ground, with plantings significantly down on the budgeted 4000 hectares.
‘‘Growers replaced quite a bit with spring-sown crop, but this yield is half of autumn-sown, so we will have a shortfall.’’
The crop was not grown in the prime arable region of MidCanterbury to avoid pollination cross-contamination with highvalue hybrid brassica seed crops.
‘‘The quality of our seed, along with the cold-pressing process, provides the ability to produce a high-grade oil,’’ said Murney. Premium seed was selected at intake for higher quality lines of product such as The Good Oil retail brand. ‘‘You get one shot at cold pressing. We have made an effort to keep The Good Oil reasonably priced, so it can be an everyday oil, rather than pricing it as a specialty oil.’’
Unlike bulk commodity overseas production, Pure Oil’s cold pressing process uses no chemicals (solvents) or added heat during the oil extraction process. It was also unrefined, preserving its natural colour and taste, unlike many overseas oils which were bleached and deodorised.
These added processes eliminate most of the health-giving properties of the oil, which is high in vitamin E and has half the saturated fat of olive oil, qualifying it for the heart tick.
As rapeseed oil has a high smoke point, it is ideal for deep frying.
Pure Oil is trialling growing 60ha of sunflowers this season to gauge how these perform in terms of agronomy. Five farmers are growing 15 to 20ha each, trialling two to three varieties in conjunction with the Foundation for Arable Research. The next step will be to see how well sunflower seed performs during oil extraction. Sunflower oil had potential in the domestic market in the production of potato crisps, and as an oil in infant milk formula.
Human food uses for plant proteins from rapeseed meal, which was 37 per cent protein, are also being investigated.
‘‘It is at the feasibility stage, but there is a groundswell of interest in plant-based proteins for environmental sustainability and nutrition reasons.’’
As Pure Oil used a cold-pressed oil extraction method, the meal – while sold for stock feed at present – was still suitable for human consumption.
‘‘Elsewhere in the world, the heat and chemicals used in the extraction process means it can only be used for stock food. The cold-press process is a strength of the business, because of the quality of the product,’’ said Murney.
Waimate arable farmer Guy Wigley has grown 100 to 150ha of oilseed rape every season for the last five years for Pure Oil and said it was an excellent mainstay in the cropping rotation. ‘‘We always grow good crops of wheat following oilseed rape.
‘‘I plant oilseed rape in March, before the main wheat planting. I also harvest it early in January, before wheat, which spreads out the workload.’’
More than half his property is sown in wheat, with ryegrass seed and oilseed rape used as break crops, says Wigley who is Federated Farmers’ arable industry group chairman.
‘‘It is not as high value as some other brassicas on a per-tonne basis, but the yield is adequate to make up for this.
‘‘You can grow it on a broadacre basis, whereas highvalue hybrid vegetable seed crops tend to be smaller plantings and have considerable isolation requirements away from any other brassica crop to avoid crosspollination.
‘‘I can come back to those paddocks in three or four years and grow oilseed rape again, whereas a lot of the high-value brassicas require a break of seven years or more between crops to avoid seed contamination, as seeds can stay in the ground.’’