I bought some Spectrum organic cooking oils at the Grocery Outlet and think they are worthy of a review. As usual, I’ll include a Green Stars rating for Spectrum’s social & environmental impact.

Is cooking oil a high-impact product? In other words, is it a priority, as far as ethical choices go? Cooking oils vary widely in terms of social and environmental impact, so I do think it’s worth spending a little time to learn about them.

The chart below shows how much our use of oilseed crops has grown since the 1960’s – co-driven by demand for cooking oil, animal feed, and biodiesel. As you’d expect, some negative impacts have worsened in response to the increased demand. A recent GSP post takes a look at cooking oils from sustainability and health perspectives.

Spectrum organic cooking oils

Spectrum Organics began making cooking oils in 1986 in Petaluma, California, prioritizing organic ingredients and chemical-free extraction. In general, any cooking oil labeled organic must be extracted by mechanical rather than chemical means (e.g., cold-pressed or expeller-pressed).

In 2005, Spectrum Organic Products was acquired by the Hain Celestial Group which owns a variety of personal care (Alba Botanica, Avalon Organics) and food (Imagine, MaraNatha) brands.

I’ve purchased a few Spectrum oils over the years – most recently peanut oil, on sale at the Grocery Outlet – and have found them to be good. The peanut oil, although it wouldn’t be my oil of choice for everyday cooking, adds nice roasted peanut flavor and an interesting mouthfeel to stir-fries or pan-fried noodles.

I appreciate that most Spectrum oils come in glass bottles – it’s one of the best ways to package oils, alongside the paperboard tins used by La Tourangelle (another good Grocery Outlet find).

Spectrum Organics: Social and environmental impact

There’s not a ton of information available on the Spectrum Organics website. This often happens when brands are acquired by larger corporations. So I took a look at the parent company, the Hain Celestial Group, and worked my way through the corporation’s most recent impact report. I’m going to do a separate GSP post on this as it’ll take a while to get into it. But I’ll summarize some key points in my review of Spectrum, below.

Ethical rating for Spectrum cooking oil

I’m rating Spectrum oils 4 out of 5 Green Stars for social and environmental impact, on average. Within the Spectrum range, the organic oils score higher: 4.5 Green Stars. That’s all based on the following:

• Many of Spectrum products are certified organic. Check out my recent GSP post analyzing whether to support organic agriculture (spoiler alert: yes!).
• Besides the broad arguments outlined in that post, choosing organic cooking oils is important for specific reasons. It avoids the use of Neonics, a class of pesticide used on oilseed crops that’s a major factor in the decline in our bee population. Choosing organic also avoids the use of glyphosate, demonstrated to hurt butterfly populations amongst other things. See my GSP post on cooking oils from sustainability and health perspectives for more detail. I plan to cover glyphosate in more detail now that the Monsanto-influenced paper claiming that glyphosate is safe for humans has been retracted.
• A good barometer of a company’s ethics is its policy on palm oil sourcing. Spectrum only has one palm oil product (shortening) – it’s sourced from Colombia and is certified both fair trade and organic, avoiding most of the human and environmental downsides of palm oil.
• Spectrum also sells a fair trade version of its coconut oil. There are also non-organic versions of some oils (a bit weird for a brand named Spectrum Organics) but they are at least non-GMO certified, which helps avoid the use of glyphosate and neonics (but doesn’t guarantee it).
• Spectrum Organics doesn’t provide much information on company operations, such as ingredient sourcing.
• Parent company, Hain Celestial, published regular impact reports with extensive reporting on metrics like greenhouse gas emissions. I’ll cover Hain in some detail on the GSP (spoiler alert: results in the report are better than average). However, Hain doesn’t provide specifics on Spectrum’s social and environmental impact, so there’s still a gap there.
• Most products are packaged in glass bottles or jars.
• Ethical ratings for individual products will vary, with organic and fair trade products rating around 4.5 Green Stars and the others scoring 3.5 to 4 Green Stars.

Summary scores (out of 5) for Spectrum oils:

• 4.5 gold stars for quality and value.
• 4.5 Green Stars for social and environmental impact for Spectrum’s organic products (3.5 to 4 stars for the others)

What do you think? Comment below with your rating if you like!

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Check out sister site The Green Stars Project for a wider discussion on ethical consumption and social/environmental issues. Here are few articles relevant to cooking oils:

Cooking oil drama! Is this seed oil blend actually ideal?

Certified organic: should we really support it?

Case study in palm oil ethics: Earth Balance