What goes into the price of a litre of chekku oil
Seed, yield, power and bottling: why wooden-pressed groundnut oil costs ₹340 a litre.
Bringing your own groundnuts to the mill
How custom pressing works at our Salem mill: what to bring, how long it takes and what you take home.
Many families around Salem grow a little groundnut or sesame, or buy a season’s supply from a farmer they trust. We press it for them. It is the oldest service the mill offers, and the one Kavitha’s father started with in 1994.
Bring at least 10 kg of shelled, dry groundnut or cleaned sesame. Groundnut should snap cleanly when bitten; if it bends, it is still damp and will give less oil. Remove stones and shrivelled kernels at home, because they go straight into the chekku. Come before 11 am on any weekday so we can run your batch the same day.
We weigh your seed in front of you and write it in the register with your name. A 15 kg batch of groundnut takes about 90 minutes in the chekku. From good groundnut you can expect around 400 ml of oil per kilo, so 15 kg gives roughly 6 litres. Sesame gives a little less, about 350 ml per kilo, and we add palm jaggery to the gingelly batch only if you ask.
Pressing costs ₹28 a kilo, so a 15 kg batch is ₹420. You take home your oil, unsettled, in your own steel or glass cans, and the oil cake too if you want it for cattle or the garden. Let the oil stand for three days before you use it; the fine sediment sinks to the bottom and the clear oil can be poured off.
