I’m excited to announce that Lancaster Fine Foods in Lancaster, Pennsylvania has accepted me as a client, and the test batch at their facility was successful. The mix of oils has changed significantly through the stability and taste testing process. The amount of coconut oil had to be significantly reduced to improve emulsion stability, and extra virgin olive oil and virgin avocado oil were removed from the formula for taste. While non-virgin olive and avocado oil would have tasted okay, the process used to extract and refine them does not meet my health standards. So the final formula will be mostly cold-pressed macadamia oil and a small amount of gravity-separated coconut oil.

The worldwide harvest of macadamia nuts this year was low, which along with increased demand has driven up the prices of macadamia oil. Unfortunately, in order to offer 8oz jars of Payo to grocery stores at a...

For previous posts about Payo, see the Kickstarter updates page.

I discovered that my previous manufacturer didn’t have the right kind of equipment (a high-shear mixer) for making shelf-stable xanthan-gum-free mayonnaise. So I’ve spent many hours on the phone in the past few weeks, first speaking with equipment manufacturers, finding out which types of mixers I could use, and then calling all dressing & sauce manufacturers I could find in the country, asking what equipment they used and what their minimum batch sizes were. Out of over 70 manufacturers, only a few do co-packing and have high-shear mixers. Out of those, I’ve only found one so far that have small enough minimum batch sizes. And they actually pick and choose which products they want to work on, so I need to send them an application and sample. I’m purchasing a lab-sized high-shear mixer, and once that arrives, I will test...