PUERTO VALLARTA, Mexico – The canola industry might be confusing its customers with technical mumbo jumbo and the introduction of a new product line.
That concern was raised by marketing experts, scientists and delegates attending the Canola Council of Canada annual meeting in Puerto Vallarta.
During a session on the last day of the conference, a delegate asked if consumers might be scratching their heads when they hear about one type of canola oil with high levels of omeg 3 and monounsaturated fats and another with no trans fats but lower omega 3 levels.
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The first is the generic canola oil that consumers can find in grocery stores while the second is a new line of high stability oil manufactured for the industrial fried food sector.
Stable oil does not require hydrogenation, meaning food makers can produce french fries and other snack foods that are free of the trans fats health professionals are warning about.
Dave Hickling, the council’s vice-president of canola use, said the group recognizes the potential for confusion when commercializing two products with different profiles, but added it has been careful to segment the markets.
“We’re going to try to keep those messages separate,” he told delegates.
The high oleic canola is pitched to the food service industry, while regular canola will continue to be marketed as a heart-smart alternative to other edible oils sold in supermarkets.
But the confusion doesn’t stop there.
One presenter at the conference took exception to claims being made by fellow presenters.
Suresh Narine, director of the Alberta Bioplastics Network, said the industry is sometimes guilty of overselling canola’s health benefits.
Narine said he was shocked that Curtis Ellison, a professor of medicine at Boston University, was encouraging people to eat more canola-based margarine. He said even margarine made from the new line of high stability canola oil contains harmful ingredients.
Converting any liquid oil to a solid state requires high levels of either trans fats or saturated fats. In other words, getting rid of trans fats doesn’t necessarily make the product healthy.
“The problem is saturates are as dangerous as trans fats.”
He later told Baylor College pediatrics professor Theresa Nicklas that contrary to what she said in her presentation, there is little vitamin E in canola oil because most is removed in the refining process. Narine said this type of misinformation will come back to haunt the canola industry.
“What we end up doing as an academic body is we end up confusing the consumer. As a result we have consumers with very little loyalty to our brand.”
He said the industry would be better served by ensuring all the information it releases is scientifically accurate.
