Here at Meliora Cleaning Products, we always try to source our ingredients locally - but we can’t always get everything directly from our home state of Illinois. This led to the discovery of Century Sun Oil, our friends over in Wisconsin!
Who’s Century Sun Oil?
Century Sun Oil is a provider of sunflower oil. Founded in 2009 by Pam and Dale Johnson, they produce certified organic high oleic sunflower oil.
Their whole operation is located on a 140-year-old family farm just outside of Pulaski, Wisconsin. They even utilize some of the original dairy buildings on the farm in their daily operations!
They oversee the entire process from planting the sunflower seeds, monitoring the soil nutrition and the crops with partner farmers, harvesting, cold pressing, filtration, bottling, packaging, shipping - everything.
Since they’re USDA Certified Organic, they avoid the use of harmful chemicals in all parts of their production system.
About Century Sun Oil’s History
We talked with Century Sun Oil. According to Owner Pam Johnson,
“We had some land that we wanted to experiment with growing seeds possibly for biodiesel, after talking to several people we determined since we had a state-certified facility and plenty of room to expand we decided that a higher value cooking, cosmetic oil would better suit our vision. A healthy cooking oil was our first vision and soon discovered that our oil was great for cosmetics as well.”
Century Sun Oil’s Eco-Friendliness
With the exception of custom machines for pressing, the majority of their equipment used in their facility is recycled dairy equipment. The facility is a repurposed dairy barn that has been in Dale’s family for 140 years. Currently, their seeds are grown by organic farmers in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa so it is truly a Midwest product.
Success and sustainability are intertwined at Century Sun, with a people-planet-profit triple-bottom-line approach that we appreciate at Meliora! Financial success for the company is measured in increased sales across several industries. People-focused success comes from facilitating healthy changes through the use of this healthy cooking oil. They even have an animal feed division specifically for farmers and feed mills that’s focused on providing nutritious feed for animals. Planet focus comes from the operations and focus on reducing waste. Selling their residual meal from processing to local organic animal farmers is the biggest reducer of waste in the product production cycle.
All components of their process are used either by humans or animals, making them a zero-waste company.
They also work with local organic farmers and provide them with an alternative crop for rotation in their fields in order to keep the soil healthy.
We love working with nearby companies to ensure a healthy supply-chain for the manufacturing of all of our products. You can find out more about Century Sun Oil on their site or their Facebook. And if you have other favorite zero-waste companies we should check out, please let us know!