BROOKS, Alta. – Consumers have many choices when it comes to vegetable oil. It’s Simone Demers Collins’ job to help them choose canola oil.
The market development and promotion co-ordinator for the Alberta Canola Producers Commission enlists growers in her quest by equipping them with pens that have pullout information on comparative saturated fats in various oils.
Canola oil leads the pack on the pull-out. It is followed in descending order of saturated fat content by safflower, flaxseed, sunflower, corn, olive, soybean, peanut, cottonseed, lard, palm oil, butter and coconut oil.
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Canola was worth $1.71 billion in Alberta farm cash receipts in 2010, said Demers Collins. Promotion of canola oil is vital to protecting and increasing that revenue.
Concern over trans fat in food helped canola marketing, she told a producer meeting Nov. 24. It gained traction in restaurant use but not necessarily in the consumer market.
“Palm oil is gaining market share,” she said, noting a November palm oil conference in Malaysia attracted more than 1,000 registrants.
“We never get 1,000 people at a canola conference,” she said.
Olive oil is also competitive and remains popular among chefs.
To encourage more canola oil use, Demers Collins emphasizes canola oil as healthy, versatile, affordable and local.
Its low percentage of saturated fat and high smoke point are selling points for health and economic reasons. An oil with a high smoke point can be used longer before replacement.
Demers Collins said the Heart and Stroke Foundation recommends two to three tablespoons of unsaturated fat per day, which costs 15 to 22 cents if delivered in canola oil.
Cold pressed canola oil costs 52 to 78 cents and extra virgin olive oil costs 78 cents to $1.17.
She recently organized an oil tasting for Toronto area food writers to show off the variety of canola oil available. She presented three cold-press oils from Alberta and one each from Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec.
“The ones from Alberta are fairly similar as opposed to the ones from the rest of the country. There are some very distinctive flavours and there are colour changes that occur because of the way they process, but also the type of seed that they are using in different parts of the country,” she said. “That flavour profile is what allows for variety and it’s what allows for interest.”
