Cold-pressed canola oil proves liquid gold for Liam and Fiona Mann

These West Australian canola farmers have grown their pot of gold from a unique value-adding project.

Liam and Fiona Mann from Eradu in Western Australia press their own canola oil, which is marketed under their Block 275 label. Picture: YM Photography

Fields of canola could turn into a gold mine for one West Australian farming couple.

Liam and Fiona Mann, from Eradu, about 450km north of Perth near Geraldton, have embarked on a value-adding journey for their canola with the goal of making their leased country punch above its weight.

The couple don’t own any land but lease from Fiona’s parents an area of 680ha of arable land. A clear understanding that this was not a viable stand-alone farming area meant they looked at ways to diversify their income stream.

That has included contract spraying and harvesting, which generates steady income in good years.

But Fiona said they were looking for ways to earn income, regardless of whether the season was good or not, and that’s where the contracting business came unstuck.

“If we are having a bad season, then the rest of the district is too, so while our crop yields will be low and earn less, we also suffer because no one wants contracting work done either,” Fiona said.

“What we are trying to do is make our income sustainable and to generate cash flow that is less reliant on the weather.”

The idea to press their own canola oil came from Liam, who moved from Scotland about 17 years ago to work in agriculture in Australia.

“We have friends back in Scotland who press their own rapeseed (canola) oil and the idea came from there,” Fiona said.

“Liam is our blue-sky thinker and I’m the one who then sets about getting the process of making it happen.

“At the same time as wanting to try to cold press canola oil, we also did not want to overcapitalise, and we didn’t have the capacity to go out and spend a lot of money to buy all the equipment we needed.

“People say just go talk to the bank manager but when you don’t have land, you can’t get that seasonal finance. We needed to be really careful and budget every expenditure.”

GRADUAL PROCESS

As well as compiling the equipment to launch their cold-pressed canola oil venture, they had to upgrade their harvester and spray equipment so the contracting business could continue to operate.

That meant it has been a gradual process to buy the canola oil processing equipment piece by piece, which sat in the shed since 2017

But a pressing need to get the operation off the ground saw them embark on their new enterprise last spring, turning their homegrown canola into cold-pressed canola oil and marketed under the Block 275 brand.

Each batch takes 100 hours to crush and press, with a 30 per cent yield of oil to seed. Their first batch of 2.5 tonnes of canola produced 850 litres of oil — far below commercial extraction rates, but Fiona said that was the point — cold pressing produced a higher quality, better tasting oil.

Time input is significant — the press needs to be filled every three hours with canola seed, then the extracted oil has to be taken away.

Block 275 label cold-pressed canola oil is bottled in attractive, dark brown glass to add a touch of class. Picture: YM Photography

And while the system could be automated, Fiona said it was important not to over capitalise early in the development of the enterprise.

What they haven’t skimped on is presentation. It’s a deliberate move to attract premiums for their cold pressed canola oil and target top end, knowledgeable consumers who were prepared to spend more knowing the story about the product.

To that end, they hired a graphic designer from Melbourne to develop a label, and bottle the oil in attractive, dark brown glass to add to its professionalism.

Black labels, with a logo showing how a river runs through their land, are simple and striking.

The oil retails for about $18 for 500ml or $36 a litre, well beyond the generic canola oil bought in supermarkets.

Fiona said the quality of the cold-pressed canola oil was so different it needed to stand out in its presentation and marketing to attract attention.

Initially, Fiona said they hoped to get the oil into their local IGA supermarkets to sell, but the uptake had been beyond their expectations.

Attendance at a few key food events across Western Australia had not only alerted consumers to their product but also chefs, who were intrigued by the bright yellow colour of the oil as well as its flavour.

“When people taste it, they really like it, but it is about getting their heads around the fact that it is not the canola oil you see in the supermarket, but something very different,” Fiona said.

One decision they have made is to stay away from growing GM canola on their property. While they have no problem with GM, its perception within their target market is a problem. “We are not anti-GM by any means, but we know the market we are targeting won’t tolerate it, and it’s enough of a quantum leap for people to think about canola oil differently to then try to get them to think about GM,” Fiona said.

EARLY PROMISE

It’s early days yet with just five tonnes crushed last year in two pressings and another batch earlier this year, but the promising feedback and the growing number of stockists across Perth and Western Australia have encouraged the couple.

“We are a long way off from using even all our own canola, but it is a start and with the response we have had, we are interested how the east coast might react and also export markets,” Fiona said.

The farm is run in a rotation of wheat, canola, wheat and then lupins. Each year, about 150ha of each of the crops in the rotation are grown, so about 150ha of canola is planted every year.

In the Northern Agricultural region of WA, rainfall can vary from 200mm to 330mm, so canola yields can range from 0.5 tonnes a hectare to two tonnes a hectare.

Fiona, an ex-agronomist, has calculated the rolling average yields since they took over the farm in 2013, and said they came in at 2.13 tonnes/ha for wheat, 1.05 tonnes/ha for canola and 1.36 tonnes/ha for lupins.

It’s why every post must be a winner as they strive to maximise returns.

Fiona said she wanted to put a full year’s figures under the financial microscope before deciding if cold pressed canola oil was a winner or not, but her gut feeling was that they were onto something.

“We would love to think that it will be a significant income stream for our business,” she said.

“I did say to Liam what happens if we cannot grow enough canola to satisfy our markets, and he said if it does that well, we will have enough to buy some land!”

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