Robert selects the finest nuts, while Zak gets ready to start grating. The other two are not really needed, but wanted to get in the photograph. We keep repeating, it is vitally important to use the finest nuts. The cold-process method will not yield much oil if the nuts are not fresh and mature.

Zak grates the nuts. He is extremely good at this. It is nowhere near as easy as it looks. He grates a whole coconut in under ten seconds, and still has all his fingers.

Seriously, it is a skilled job, requiring a skilled person, and we employ the best there is.

Dodong and Edgar extract the coconut milk, by pressing the grated coconut, using manual presses. This is extremely hard work, as it is important to collect as much milk as possible. We only press once, so it has to be productive.

The residue from the grated coconut is sold as animal feed.

After pressing, we have our coconut milk. This is ready to be transfered to the settling room, where it will be allowed to stand in clean, hygenic conditions for between 12 and 17 hours. The time taken depends on several factors. Having spent a considerable amount of time discovering the requirements needed to produce the best oil, we are not prepared to inform our competitors on the internet. (Sorry !!)

The oil is separating from the protein and the skim milk. All this work for so little oil. ( It is a very fine oil though.)

The oil is "harvested" by first removing the protein, then, using an almost flat ladle, scooping out the oil. Both Robert and Manilyn have very steady hands, which is incredibly important in this job. Any hint of moisture mixed with the oil and it is rejected, for reasons that will become evident later. ( Yes, they really do dress as though they are performing a heart transplant. The purity of our oil is our number one priority. One mistake and our reputation is tarnished forever ).

We now have our oil, and begin the procedure to assure it's purity, the first and second filterings, both using 8 microns filter paper. The first filtering takes place directly after the oil has been harvested, the second filtering takes place a day later, after the oil has settled. We don't need to filter twice, but it's that reputation thing again.

After the second filtering, we have a very clear oil. However we still have a minute moisture content. We could use heat to rid the oil of this moisture, there is probably nothing wrong with that. It simply goes against our understanding of "virgin" oil.

What we actually do, is allow the oil to stand for about 4 weeks, until the final moisture separates from the oil. Then we discard the moisture, which settles at the bottom of the pale, when filtering again. We actually filter twice more, this time with 5 micons filter paper. Unfortunately in discarding the moisture we inevitably discard some oil as well. What price a great reputation !

We now have Cocovida Virgin Coconut Oil, "probably the finest virgin coconut oil in the world". (OK, we stole a small part of that slogan) It just needs to pass the quality control of both our CEO Mel, and Catherine B. Lee ND, who when she is not working for Cocovida, is a consultant on food safety to several international companies.

Finally we get around to bottling and labelling.

All that work for so few jars and bottles. Then we get asked why it costs so much...... BECAUSE IT IS THE BEST, simple as that.