Global demand for vegetable oil and meal to supply feed, food, and fuel is pushing oilseed processors toward expansion and improved efficiency in 2024. High prices and increasing demands are driving investments in bigger, better oilseed processing plants around the world as facilities try to keep pace with ongoing growth. Wrapping up 2023 with an…
Maximizing Profits with More Energy Efficient Oil Mills
Pressing oil from high volumes of seeds and nuts can be highly energy-draining. Considering the multiple pieces of machinery involved in traditional oilseed processing and the steadily rising cost of operating that equipment, energy consumption is one of an oil mill’s largest operational expenses. By controlling and reducing energy use through each step of the…
Hemp Oil vs CBD Oil: The Difference Between Seed Oil and Cannabis Oil
When it comes to Cannabis sativa, the difference between a federally-scheduled drug and a valuable commodity can be as minor as a few tenths of a percentage. Although hemp seed oil and cannabidiol (CBD) oil are both derived from the same Cannabis plant and are often both referred to as “hemp oil,” they’re not the…
The Controversy Surrounding Mustard Seed Oil
The small but mighty mustard seed is perhaps best known for its namesake yellow condiment, but it’s not as widely recognized as a valuable source of oil. While mustard seed oil has a long history of use in food, medicinal, topical, and industrial applications, some of its bioactive compounds limit its popularity (and even its…
The Keys to Extracting Safflower Seed Oil
An often overlooked oilseed, safflower may not be as popular or prolific as its cousin crop, the sunflower. However, it still packs many of the same benefits into the specialty oil extracted from its seeds. In fact, safflower seed oil contains many of the same nutritional and functional properties as sunflower oil but at a…
Understanding Grape Seed Oil Extraction
Although grapes are one of the most popular fruits in the world, most grapes are grown not to supply produce stands but to produce wine. More than 60% of the global grape production is crushed every year to make vino—generating large amounts of leftover byproducts like grape seeds, skins, pulp, and other residues. Of these…
Meeting the global demand for shea oil and shea butter extraction
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…
Optimizing flaxseed oil production
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…
The Evolution of Conditioning Oilseeds Before Pressing
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…