Rapeseed Oil

With the fields currently full of beautiful yellow oil seed rape crop, we thought it was time to tell you a little bit more about how incredible these fields full of sunshine are. 

Rapeseed oil is made by pressing the seeds from the plant, oil seed rape. 

Contrary to popular belief oil seed rape is not a new crop. Whilst it has recently grown in popularity its use in Britain can be dated back to when the Romans brought it to England to be used to burn in oil lamps. 

Oil seed rape is easily recognised by it bright yellow flowers, which blossom in May and June. The fields quickly become favourite foraging havens for bees and other insects, as the flowers provide them with nectar, in return for some help with pollination. After the flower has died off the seed pod continues to harden and grow until its then time for combining. The combine separates the tiny black seeds which we then dry and store ready for the pressing. 

Rapeseed oil has a wealth of natural health benefits. You can find out more information about the health benefits of rapeseed oil here.

Harvesting Oil Seed Rape

There are many concerns over the use of glyphosphates such as round up within the harvesting process, which we absolutely share. Because of this we never use them on our standing crops of oil seed rape. Some farmers use them to speed up the maturing of the crop so that it dries quicker meaning they can harvest earlier. We don't agree with this method, so we use a Swathing machine, which is essentially a mower which cuts the crop and leaves it in rows (swaths) which then dry out naturally. Once the crop has reached the optimum moisture level we then “pick up” the crop with a combine harvester.

However we only use the swathing machine when the crop is slow to mature. Last year (this years seed) the weather was fantastic in the run up to harvest and it wasn’t necessary to use the swathing machine, and we combined the standing crop as it was dry enough.

Although the sprays are “safe” we don't like the idea of spraying the standing crop just before we harvest it, we also don't use any pesticides on the crop as we have some bee hives on the farm, and the bees forage in the oil seed rape when it is in flower.

Cold Pressing

Our rapeseed oil is cold pressed. Cold pressing is the simple and traditional method of producing oil. The seed is simply pressed (or squeezed) at a low temperature, which means that the oils natural rich golden colour and nutrients are preserved. Once the oil has settled, it is filtered and then bottled. It really is as simple as that. No heat, no chemicals just pure and healthy home grown oil. We only press our seed once, this ensures that we only produce the highest quality, undiluted cold pressed rapeseed oil.