Vegetable oil processors cook up new national promotion body

TWO Scottish vegetable oil processors have combined with colleagues in England to help set up an organisation aimed at protecting and promoting the quality of home-produced oils.

Mark Bush, of Summer Harvest, Methven, and John Sorrie of Ola Oils, Inverurie, have both set up their businesses in recent years aimed at selling oils from oilseed rape crops grown in this country.

Now they have linked up with ten other producers in England who are also involved with cold pressing a variety of crops such as hemp, flax, strawberry seed and borage, in order to produce oils for both the culinary and healthcare markets.

The new organisation, the British Association of Cold Pressed Oils Producers, will help protect standards within this sector where the current level of sales is reckoned to be around 5 million annually and where demand is increasing by around 25 per cent each year.

The chairman of the new organisation Henry Noon said they wanted to ensure the industry operated to the highest standards possible.

"These oils are delicious, healthy and truly British products. They have exceptional health benefits and are a natural source of fatty acids and natural vitamins. He predicted an increase in the range of use of such oils in the future.

Bush also believed there was the potential for a major expansion in the market.

His product sold under the Summer Harvest label, is going into shops and restaurants.

The cold pressing of the seeds to produce the oil results in a lower yield when it is compared to heat produced oils but Bush said their more traditional method of production protected the naturalness of the oil.

He added that a great deal of the olive oil coming into the country was produced by cold pressing and this practice had been used right back to Roman times.