Where our seed comes from, around Salem

Everything we press is grown within about 120 km of the mill. Kavitha knows most of our 70 farmers by name, and the seed tells you a lot about the oil, so here is where it comes from.

Groundnut comes mostly from red-soil farms around Attur and Namakkal. The main crop is sown with the northeast monsoon and harvested in January and February, and a smaller summer crop follows where there is well water. We buy bold kernels, shelled at village hullers and dried on the farm for a week before they come to us. Ganesan, near Thammampatti, has sold us groundnut for 22 years.

Sesame grows in the drier pockets around Omalur and Mettur, often as a short crop after paddy. Black sesame gives our gingelly oil its colour and stronger taste. The plants are cut, stacked upright to dry and then beaten over a tarpaulin to release the seed, which we clean twice before pressing. Copra comes from the coconut farms around Pollachi, about 200 km away, our one exception. Farmers there sun-dry split coconuts for five to seven days until the kernel loosens from the shell.

If you visit the mill on a Sunday morning, you can often meet a farmer or two delivering seed. On the first Sunday of February, after the groundnut harvest, we open the mill for a morning so customers can see the season’s first pressing and taste the new oil on hot idli.