Recently, nine coconut oil brands were banned by the Food Safety Department in Kerala.

The department has banned the brands Kera Plus, Green Kerala, Kerala A-One, Kera Super, Kera Drops, Blaze, Pulari, Coco Sudham, and Kallada Priyam from the state on Wednesday, 8 April, as reported by Asianet News.

Having spent 3.5 years in the coconut oil market, this doesn’t come as a surprise to me—adulteration is quite rampant. Here are a few relevant observations:

• A well-known, established brand that leads the coconut oil market in Dakshina Kannada and Udupi is adulterated. It’s a classic case of achieving market leadership by appeasing traders rather than consumers.
• If a brand from Dakshina Kannada ends with the letter ‘A’, it is almost certainly adulterated. Market leaders have inspired followers—unfortunately, even in malpractice.
• Coconut oil brands from re-packers are more likely to be adulterated than those from manufacturers.
• At the national level, a popular brand from Eastern India with a 5% market share and the tagline “Mera Pyar…” is not pure coconut oil. While legally they haven’t claimed it is, they also haven't clarified that it isn’t.
• KLF, a leading coconut oil manufacturer, has introduced blended coconut oil with sunflower oil to compete with adulterated oils on price.
• Oil millers from Kerala sell coconut oil at lower prices and buy copra at higher prices from coastal Karnataka traders. How is that sustainable?
• Consumers are losing faith in coconut oil—not because the oil itself is bad, but because the products reaching them are adulterated. It’s a classic example of an industry devaluing its own product.
• Genuine oil millers are suffering, as traders judge brands solely on price. A forum was even started in Kerala to protect coconut oil’s reputation.

Palm Kernel Oil

Palm Kernel Oil closely resembles coconut oil in chemical composition, especially in terms of saturated fatty acids. It blends easily with coconut oil and costs only about 60% as much. Adulteration becomes a tempting option. In North Karnataka, especially Belagavi, I noticed that around 90% of what is sold as coconut oil is actually palm kernel oil. One witty trader remarked, “Your coconut oil prices change with copra prices, but here it doesn’t—it only varies with palm oil prices.” I couldn’t help but laugh. At the time, the price of this so-called coconut oil was lower than that of its raw material—copra. The defence? People in villages prefer cheaper hair oil; after all, it’s still a vegetable product.

Chips/Paring Oil

In the production of desiccated coconut powder, the black skin of the coconut is removed. This skin, a byproduct, is rich in oil but of inferior quality. It’s dried and sold at around 65% of copra’s price. Many manufacturers mix this with copra during oil extraction. More sophisticated ones extract oil from it separately, refine, bleach, and deodorize it to remove the high FFA, dark colour, and odour—then mix it with pure coconut oil or sell it as is. There’s a large unit in Tiptur that does exactly this—turning waste into a product, or “Kasadinda Rasa” as we say in Kannada. Technically, it’s still coconut oil, but it’s intended for soap-making. The blame lies with re-packers who market it as edible oil.

These two forms of adulteration—using palm kernel oil and paring oil—can be easily detected by checking the Iodine Value (IV), which indicates the level of unsaturation in oil. Coconut oil, being 92% saturated, has a low IV of around 8 (acceptable range is 7.5 to 10). Paring oil has an IV of about 20, and palm kernel oil about 25. So, if coconut oil tests above 10 IV, it’s definitely adulterated.

Second-Grade Oil

High-quality copra is white and fragrant. Rotten copra is darker and smells pungent—and costs less. Millers often mix it with good-quality copra to extract oil that appears fine but deteriorates quickly. Copra, made from coconuts, comes in various grades. While edible grade fetches the highest price and is separated, second-grade copra is often not segregated properly. This can be detected by testing Free Fatty Acids (FFA) or Acid Value—lower FFA indicates better quality. High-grade oils have FFA below 0.7, while up to 2.0 is allowed for edible use.

Refined Coconut Oil

High FFA levels can be reduced by refining—neutralizing the oil using a base. Coconut oil made from low-grade copra or solvent-extracted from coconut cake is often refined. While it passes food safety chemical tests, it lacks taste, aroma, and nutritional value. We sell our coconut cake to a major extractor in Kerala. When I asked where he sold the resulting oil, he said there’s huge demand from re-packers. They blend inferior oil with refined oil to reduce FFA. Interestingly, refined coconut oil is cheaper than filtered coconut oil.

Again, refined coconut oil can be detected by checking FFA. Even the best unrefined oil won’t have FFA less than 0.4. Refining reduces it to 0. So, an abnormally low FFA reading indicates refined oil.

Until recently, I assumed that other brands could sell coconut oil at lower prices due to:

• Access to cheaper copra
• Lower manufacturing and overhead costs
• Better oil yield
• Smart buying when copra prices are low
• Willingness to settle for lower margins
• Long-term brand-building efforts

But now I understand the various malpractices in play. I’ll write a detailed post later on other unethical practices in the industry.