Canada’s ‘Olive Oil’ by Lorne McClinton
The Furrow, Spring 2007

Highwood Crossing’s extra virgin, cold-pressed canola oil is becoming the oil of choice for top chefs across Canada. With its deep, golden-yellow colour, and rich bouquet, it bears scant resemblance to its pale, nearly odourless, commercial cousin. Tony and Penny Marshall have been pressing and marketing their certified organic oil on their family farm near Aldersyde, Alta., for more than a decade.

“People are just blown away by our canola oil,” says Tony Marshall. “It’s got flavour. It’s got taste. It’s got bouquet, and it’s got incredible color. The oil is like an extra virgin olive oil out of the Tuscan region in Italy. In short, it’s a totally different product that people have ever seen before.”

“It’s a remarkable oil,” agrees Anne Desjardins, renowned chef and owner of l’Eau a La Bouche, in Sainte-Adele, Quebec, and a member of the Relais & Chateau association that represents the world’s finest restaurants. “I serve it with a very special salad I make with butternut squash. It goes especially well with squash. I also serve it with scallops because the oil’s nutty taste really suits them.

The Marshalls’ farm has been in their family for more than 107 years. They switched over to organic production in the mid-1980s, but their land base still didn’t allow them to truly exist off the farm’s revenues. The search for ways to add value to the crops they grew eventually led them to establishing their own on-farm, certified organic, oil-pressing facility.

“It was something that really appealed to me because of its uniqueness,” Marshall explains. “From a marketing point of view, it was attractive because we were able to offer a product that nobody else was doing.”

 Canada’s olive oil. One of the Marshalls’ first marketing challenges was convincing people that their oil was more than just another canola oil. Commercially pressed canola oil is normally considered an all-purpose utility oil. Marketing the oil as “Canada’s olive oil” was a way to let people know that it was special.

 Marshall says its makeup stacks u well against olive oil. It has 50% less saturated fats that extra virgin olive oil but contains similar quantities of omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids. Unlike olive oil, the canola oil can be refrigerated without congealing.

While it can be heated for cooking, Marshall says doing so would defeat the purpose of using a cold pressed oil. At $15 per 500ml bottle, price alone is a deterrent and most people use it in different ways.

While the oil is distributed across Canada, 95% of sales are made locally in Alberta. Desjardins had heard of it and tried it while she was promoting her cookbook in Calgary.

“I was invited to go to Calgary and cook at the Cookbook Store as a quest chef,” Desjardins explains. “David Thulgar, a passionate foodie who was helping me prepare my event, brought a bottle in. I tasted it and said ‘Wow!’ It’s absolutely astonishing; not at all like the other canola oils. People have asked me why I use it. It is a very expensive oil, but I’m the chef; I’m the owner and it’s a choice I make.

The Marshalls do everything they can to cultivate the oil’s image as a high-end product, starting with a heavy glass bottle imported from Italy. The oil is always fresh since they don’t keep any inventory of pressed oil on hand. Every week they crush just enough oil to meet their orders.

“What we do here is very low-tech, very simple,” adds Marshall. “We’re not scientists. We don’t filter the oil. We just press it. It’s like the wine business. You can tell the difference in the oil from year to year based on what the growing conditions were.”

Pressing is a slow process. Only 3 to 5 litres are pressed an hour at low temperatures (under 40 degrees Celsius), in an oxygen-free environment. That’s because heat, light, and oxygen can damage the quality of the product. Oil production is strictly limited to just the first pressing.   They don’t re-press the meal and don’t use solvents to try to squeeze out every possible drop of the oil. In their operation, a tonne of canola only yields approximately 300 litres of oil.

Chefs like Desjardins continue to play a large role in Highwood Crossing’s marketing plan. They specifically target chefs in hotels and restaurants that feature fine dining and regional foods. They also work closerl with young chefs attending the Stratford Chef School in Stratford, Ontario.

“It just keeps getting bigger and bigger,” Marshall says. “We now get calls from chefs from Halifax, Victoria, San Francisco and New York.”