The popularity of coconut oil has skyrocketed in recent years. It seems as though everyone is starting to realize what traditional South Pacific cultures with virtually no heart disease knew for centuries: coconut oil is one of the healthiest fats on the planet and is a boon to health when plentiful amounts are present in the diet.
Even Dr. Oz recommends coconut oil. When a TV medical doctor is extolling the virtues of coconut oil, you know it has well and truly gone mainstream!
The problem is that good quality virgin coconut oil is not particularly inexpensive. And with more and more budget conscious families demanding coconut oil, the big box wholesalers like Costco have been faced with a dilemma – how best to capitalize on the coconut oil frenzy while keeping the price dirt cheap.
I’ll admit that I’ve been suspicious of the big box wholesaler brands of coconut oil for quite awhile. The price just didn’t jive with the price I knew to be necessary to ensure a quality, pure product.
It seems that evidence is now emerging that my suspicions have been justified.
Mary M. messaged me on my Facebook page just yesterday complaining about the big jar of Costco coconut oil (picture above). She writes:
“I just opened and began using a big container of coconut oil (got it at Costco) that I’ve had for maybe 3 months and it has sat on my pantry shelf (outside in my garage, I live in Texas so it’s gotten hotter than 100 degrees).
It smells like burned marshmallows, or maybe the inside of a pumpkin on Halloween. Since I can’t find any web sites that describe the smell (other than “yucky” and “very, very bad”) for rancid coconut oil, could you please help me out? I can’t stand to put it on my face….but can I still cook with it?”
Absolutely not.
You don’t want to ever use, cook with, or put on your skin an oil that smells bad!
Mary’s email about her jar of Costco coconut oil raised two big red flags to me. First of all, I’ve been using coconut oil and virgin coconut oil for many years and I have never had it go off, even when kept for a year or two in my garage where the temperature easily reaches a 110-120F on humid August afternoons.
Coconut oil is an extremely stable oil and should never have gone bad such as what Mary M. experienced, provided it is pure, 100% coconut oil and it was filtered properly so that none of the coconut protein was left in the oil.
The second red flag about this Costco coconut oil was the wording of the label. There is no such thing as “extra virgin coconut oil”. It is either refined coconut oil or virgin coconut oil. A friend of mine who is the owner of a company that is a quality purveyor of virgin coconut oil had this to say:
“… any product that uses the term ‘extra virgin’ and it does not pertain to olive oil is using the term outside its definition… Trying to market something that does not exist.”
Does this mean use of the misleading term “extra virgin coconut oil” indicates an inferior product? Not necessarily. It is simply a red flag that further investigation to ensure a quality product is required particularly if the product is found on a shelf at Costco or other large retailer for a price that is too good to be true.
Why Inexpensive Costco Coconut Oil is Likely of Poor Quality
There are a couple of potential reasons why Mary M’s Costco coconut oil went bad.
First of all, it might not have been 100% pure coconut oil at all.
Not pure coconut oil? Not so far fetched. This is what the olive oil industry has been doing for years, blending cheaper oils with extra virgin olive oil and marketing it as pure extra virgin olive oil. Since the majority of the oil is indeed “pure” extra virgin, they get away with labeling it as such even though other cheaper usually rancid oils are present. However, what restaurants do is even worse. Most use “olive oil blends” for cooking that are actually 75% canola oil and only 25% olive oil. If you ask them what they use for cooking, most in my experience will simply respond “olive oil” even when this is not really true.
If Mary M’s Costco coconut oil had vegetable oils or cheaper hydrogenated palm oil blended in, even if organic and in small amounts, it would be prone to going off sitting in a hot pantry for a few months causing the entire jar to stink after awhile.
Another possibility is that the oil was improperly filtered and is inferior quality coconut oil subject to rancidity as a result. My friend mentioned earlier who is the owner of a company that sells quality virgin coconut oil had this to say when I asked him about Mary’s coconut oil problem and how it could possibly go rancid:
“The only thing I have seen is during the filtering process. If they run it too fast or do not change the filters, one can get pieces of coconut (protein) in the product. You will not see it other than with time you might see a slight change in color on the bottom of the container. And this product can culture at the bottom of the container and it will have a culture smell.”
Another friend who also owns a company that sells high quality virgin coconut oil had this to add:
“It is possible that it was not 100% Coconut Oil. However, I suspect that it was just very old oil and not fresh. Since there is so much demand for Coconut Oil, fresh lots will be sold for money and may not be available at discount stores.”
Was Mary’s Costco coconut oil cut with a small percentage of cheaper oils to boost manufacturer and/or coconut oil reseller profits, poorly filtered causing the coconut protein bits to “culture” the oil, or just old, manufacturer’s defect oil?
It’s anybody’s guess, but one thing is for sure. It was not fresh, high quality Grade A coconut oil. Good quality, pure coconut oil that has been properly filtered does not go bad in a hot 100F pantry even if in a plastic tub. Cheaply priced coconut oil at a discount store runs the risk of being old, improperly filtered (manufacturer’s defect) and not the best choice for your health.
Is it a high risk? Maybe, maybe not. There’s certainly not enough data to confirm one way or the other at this point. As for me, I’m personally not willing to trust a huge corporation to properly source my healthy fats – the fats that build my children’s brain and support their immune function.
The lesson to be learned from Mary’s experience from my perspective is that you get what you pay for whether it be coconut oil or any other food item. Buying coconut oil at Costco, Walmart or some other big box retailer that bases stocking decisions primarily on low price obtained via buying huge quantities at once is a big risk that what you get is going to be poor quality coconut oil that is either potentially blended with cheap oils or is a Grade B, poorly filtered product. Cheap oil that is subject to rancidity and loaded with free radicals risks your health.
It may look and smell fine when you open the jar, but the real test is does it stay looking and smelling fine in a hot pantry or garage after several months?
You can’t tell just by looking at it or tasting it that is 100% virgin coconut oil that has been properly filtered.
Just like with extra virgin olive oil, the only way to ensure a quality product is to buy from a quality small business, not a big box retailer like Costco that buys large amounts of inventory from manufacturers and dumps it on the consumer market at ultra cheap prices. While you may get a decent product for a cheap price some of the time, I personally am not willing to take the chance with my healthy fats – the most critical aspect of Traditional Diet – that it will be a quality purchase 100% of the time like what would happen if I bought from a small, trusted producer.
Anything can happen and frequently does as a food item makes its way through the Industrial Food Distribution System!
UPDATE: Since this article was published in June 2013, dozens of other consumers have emailed me with stories of rock bottom priced, poor quality coconut oil being purchased not just at Costco, but other Big Box retailers. Buyer beware!
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist
More Information
Coconut Oil May Not Be Right for You
MCT Oil: The Coconut Oil Dregs
There is an article on Evolving Wellness website and is about “How to Choose a Coconut Oil” The woman researched Carrington Farms oil and found it to be exactly what is says it is.
Hold on! One of the wonderful qualities of having a detective for a husband is that he is rather quick to point out that there is always two sides to altercations or issues between people or entities. I have had MANY brands of coconut oil from the just plain ol nasty tasting to great tasting ones, and by the way the nasty one was expensive. Just because something costs more does not always mean that it is of higher quality. Eating healthy quality foods does NOT need to be expensive.
I shot them an email asking them to tell us what process their oil undergoes. I like to ask open ended questions. I also perused their website. http://www.carringtonfarms.com and found the name of a nutritionist that wrote an article for them and shot her an email. The website looks rather uninformative, but so are some of the small scale production websites as well.
Because there is some questionable practices I will not be buying their products, BUT that doesnt mean they have a POOR product because one lady had a bad experience. If that were the case, Radiant life and all other companies who sell FCLO should be avoided as well.
We DEFINITELY do not need to leave our brains checked in at the door, whether we are going to costco or reading the healthy home economist, THINK things through before you speak.
Although I understand Sarah’s point of view and taking a leary perspective of large organizations, we still need to be methodical. When we find out truth then we blast!
Thanks Michelle! Would you be willing to share the “questionable practices” you learned of in your research?
Sarah, your posts carry a lot of wieght with a lot of people. Writing an entire post about this oil based on one email and conjecturing from there is a disservice to all your readers. You have done this before, damaging the reputation of good companies and products and it is not well done of you.
You owe someone a public apology. This woman did her research and Carrington Farms is a good oil:
http://www.evolvingwellness.com/essay/how-to-choose-a-coconut-oil-comparing-best-and-worst-brands
This article gives people concrete ideas for how to assess quality coconut oil and how to determine if you are getting scammed from cast off items at discount stores. It has very valid points and it is an important topic to shed light upon. I don’t expect everyone to agree with my point of view and that is perfectly fine. There isn’t a single post on this blog that 100% of people agree with.
With all due respect, I disagree with your statements (a)This article gives people concrete ideas for how to assess quality coconut oil and how to determine if you are getting scammed from cast off items at discount stores. (b)It has very valid points and it is an important topic to shed light upon.
I am not one bit sharper in assessing coconut oil quality and nor do I know how to determine whether or not I am getting scammed. Where are the valid points, Sarah? Are you expecting us all to place a jar of coconut oil in the garage to figure out if it is pure or not?
Yes, indeed the purity of coconut oil is an important topic in my mind since so many of us living the WAPF diet consume coconut oil.
Your article is titled ‘Why Buying Coconut Oil at Costco is Risky Business’ which in my mind is slamming Costco for selling coconut oil irrespective of brand. My neighborhood Costco carries only Carrington Farms brand which you say is adulterated, however, several readers say their neighborhood Costco carries Nutiva which is a reputable brand. So are you out to malign Costco’s reputation for selling impure coconut oil? By the way, I did not know as of your article that coconut oil is graded. Perhaps, this is one aspect of coconut oil I have learned about from your post yet does me no good since the resellers of coconut oil are not required to provide this information to the consumer
If the coconut oil sold by Costco is impure, you should have provided the result of an independent third party study done on several brands and in doing so educated your readers to be smart consumers. You have not done so.
Regrettably, Sarah I have not learned any thing from this article.
Bonnie, in all fairness to Sarah, whom I highly respect, I think she was referring to the article in the link I posted above her response, not the “post” to which we are all responding. The article gives many concrete ways to assess the quality of the oil you are buying.
Are you denying that this article will lead your readers to believe coconut oils purchased from Costco are “cast off items”? All because of one anecdotal experience of rancidity which could have happened for a number of reasons (including contamination by the purchaser)? You would have been better to say, “Hey guys! This person had this experience, and we don’t know WHY it happened, but let’s keep our eyes out to be sure this is an isolated incident.”
I have been using coconut oil for the last 10 years or so, before it became the rage. I bought Tropical Traditions and they were the pioneers here. Very good oil. I would expect that most oil is sourced from similar if not the same locations. Kind of like sewing machines being made by only 2 manufacturers but “labelled” with different names, Brother, Pfaff, Singer, Kenmore, etc. You are pretty much being duped into thinking a certain brand is better just because of marketing, and you pay more for it (and, incidentally, get ripped off). I worked for a marketing company too and, that’s what sells an item. Nutiva is also an excellent oil. But, your illustration of the use of “virgin” is silly because it doesn’t mean anything, especially if the brand you recommend also uses it and you deem it to be good. It just affects your credibility really.
I also bought some Carrington oil and find no difference at all with it and any of the other oils I have used. In Canada, they don’t use the “extra” term as we won’t allow it on labeling. I wrote to Carrington and they told me this. The reason the oil is less expensive is because Costco has “huge” buying power and can pay less per unit. It also may depend on marketing, why the price is less. Maybe Carrington does not need to market due to having Costco as their client. You really should not be slamming Carrington for their oil until you can indeed confirm where they get it from. It just might be the same place that Radiant Life gets theirs.
I think Radiant Life is a good company but I do know that their prices are inflated, no doubt because they are small. For example, their Bioastin is $39.99 for 50 caps. Another place I buy from sells it for $25.99. I just can’t afford to pay these inflated prices for the same thing. I bought some fermented CLO from them (2 bottles) and paid a whopping $32 for shipping to Canada, which is outrageous. If other companies can afford to ship up to 4 lbs for $4, why can’t they? As the quote goes, “a fool and his money are soon parted” (This is not a quote from the Bible either, by the way). I don’t want to be that fool. Please do more research before making broad and incorrect statements about products.
By the way, Carrington Farms’ coconut oil costs $30 on their website for the one Costco sells. So, it’s buying in bulk, as Costco does, which makes it affordable (thanks Costco).
Love this! Thanks for sharing. 🙂
Hi, interesting post. I live in Canada and I buy that Costco brand of coconut oil, but I just checked and my coconut oil actually says “VIRGIN, COLD-PRESSED”, and NOT extra-virgin oil.
Hmmm, I wonder why the labelling is different.
UPDATE: I stated above that I contacted Carrington Farms about their product and even though it’s the weekend I received a prompt response. 🙂 I was sent a link to their FAQ sheet BUT in ADDITION they stated this to help answer questions…
“We are able to offer the price to Costco that you see due the economies of scale. They buy upwards to 60 truckloads of coconut oil per month so we are able to ship and manufacture economically. However, our same brand sells for a much higher price in a local health food store since it is much more expensive per jar to ship them a case of 6 then per jar on a truckload. In all our research there seems to be no difference between ‘Virgin’ and ‘Extra Virgin’. Our Canadian label says Virgin as that is the rule for labeling there, in the US we use Extra Virgin on the label. The coconut oil is the same. There are no other oils, or ANYTHING, added to our pure expeller cold pressed coconut oil. We use only raw fresh coconut meat taken from Organic coconuts and press it in the Philippines. “
UPDATE: I stated above that I contacted Carrington Farms about their product and even though it’s the weekend I received a prompt response. 🙂 I was sent a link to their FAQ sheet BUT in ADDITION they stated this to help answer questions…
“We are able to offer the price to Costco that you see due the economies of scale. They buy upwards to 60 truckloads of coconut oil per month so we are able to ship and manufacture economically. However, our same brand sells for a much higher price in a local health food store since it is much more expensive per jar to ship them a case of 6 then per jar on a truckload. In all our research there seems to be no difference between ‘Virgin’ and ‘Extra Virgin’. Our Canadian label says Virgin as that is the rule for labeling there, in the US we use Extra Virgin on the label. The coconut oil is the same. There are no other oils, or ANYTHING, added to our pure expeller cold pressed coconut oil. We use only raw fresh coconut meat taken from Organic coconuts and press it in the Philippines. “
Thank you, Christine. This research should have been done by Sarah prior to posting such a ridiculous post based on one woman’s experience.
Thank you, Christine.
I’ve been shopping at Costco for many years and I think your assertion that they’re only interested in the lowest price, at the cost of quality, is very unfair. In my experience, they do negotiate for, and pass along, the best prices for their merchandise, but NOT at the expense of quality. I believe they are committed to providing both and do their best.
In fact, even though it has been 3 months, if Mary wanted to take her container of coconut oil BACK to Costco, unlike any other food store I know they would happily take it back and refund her money – and they’d want to know what was wrong with it so they could address it with the supplier, or stop doing business with that company.
I once wrote to the President of Costco about a problem with a phone plan I purchased there, and got an immediate $2,000 refund check. That’s pretty amazing customer service.
Putting Costco and WalMart in the same category is ridiculous and unfair. Costco pays their employees a real living wage and provides insurance and benefits – and still turns a profit. Unlike what we know about WalMart. Very unfortunate of you to make that comparison.
As someone who is *very* concerned with supporting ethical companies, I have done my research on Costco (as I did with other “big box” stores that I won’t step a foot into). Costco reputation is extraordinarily stellar. No company is perfect, but this one strives to be. I happily spend my money there for things I can’t find from my local farm and farmers markets.
This may have been mentioned already, but I didn’t have the time to read through all the comments. When I think of burnt marshmallow, I think of hot plastic. Is it possible the plastic bin it’s in was leaching into the coconut oil because of the high heat?
I think this brand Costco carries tastes great and I have never had any issues with it!
I usually buy my coconut oil from Wilderness Family Naturals through a co-op, but our Costco price is very comparable to WFN so I made the switch. I prefer the taste of Carrington Farms, and the convenience of buying in smaller quantities and not investing $220 at a chunk works better for our family (we go through a 5 gallon bucket per year). It tastes very fresh and has a wonderful, slight coconut flavor that does not interfere with cooking. I am so glad to find it locally. It makes me laugh to think that the Costco price is considered “cheap” and pared with the word inferior. I disagree.
We’ve been using Nutiva for several years until Costco started selling Carrington Farms. Our family like the taste of Carrington better than Nutiva. As a matter of fact my kids can eat the Carrington brand straight from the jar unlike Nutiva which I had to melt in hot cocoa just to make the kids take their daily coconut oil supplement. I buy a lot of jars for fear they might discontinue selling at Costco so by the time I get to open a jar it would be several months old already. So far I have not experienced any of the bad things stated by other other commenters on this blog. I am just happy that Costco is able to sell this wonderful product at an affordable price because my family of 6 do not take any other vitamin supplement aside from Coconut Oil so we consume one jar every month!