Although it only grows in a limited swath of sub-Saharan African parklands, the wild shea tree supplies the entire world with enough shea nuts to meet the growing demand for both shea oil and shea butter. African civilizations have been processing shea nuts by hand for centuries, using tedious traditional methods of shea butter extraction…
One of the earliest domesticated crops in human history, flax has found a wide range of applications through the millennia. As a valuable source of food, animal feed, fiber, flooring, and many other uses, it’s no wonder why the Latin name of this ancient herb translates as “most useful.” Every part of the plant is…
Conditioning oilseeds, or cooking them before extraction, is one of an oil mill’s most important processing steps. But cooking wasn’t always a convenient process, especially in the past when hydraulic batch presses were the predominant extraction equipment in the industry. After Anderson developed the continuous process of crushing oilseeds in the early 1900s, the company…
When Ali Baba commanded, “Open Sesame,” in the famous Arabian folk tale, a sealed cave full of treasure magically opened before him. Likewise, processors today can unlock a veritable treasure trove of profits by tapping into the potential of this tiny ancient seed to extract high-quality sesame seed oil. One of the oldest cultivated oilseed…
Marketed by some as the best part of waking up, coffee is a crucial ingredient in the morning routines of many people around the world. While most of the global coffee supply ends up ground and brewed to create the classic breakfast beverage, the unique properties of the bean and the oil it contains give…
When the outer layer of brown rice, or bran, is removed to make white rice, it sets off a ticking time bomb for processors. The milling process activates an enzyme in the bran that quickly breaks down lipids—destroying the valuable fat that could otherwise be extracted as rice bran oil. Moreover, raw rice bran has…
As the world’s most abundant oilseed crop, soybeans supply the most common source of vegetable protein in animal feeds and human foods. Although soy’s prime purpose is to produce meal for animal feed, the meal remaining after oil extraction can be further processed into other useful ingredients. In the form of texturized soy protein (TSP),…
It’s no wonder why the source of cocoa beans, the cacao tree, was named “food of the gods” (Theobroma). The distinctively chocolatey flavor of cocoa products has been a favorite of countless civilizations throughout time—satisfying cravings both bitter and sweet, while supplying a bounty of beneficial qualities beyond food. However, many overlook the complexities of…
Although large-scale soybean processors dominate the commodity vegetable oil markets, these solvent extraction plants can’t produce organic products because of the hazardous chemicals they use. So, while small-scale mechanical oil mills may not be able to compete in terms of overall production volume or oil recovery rates, they can differentiate themselves by specializing in organic…
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