Quality

A friend once told me, after he read Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance, that quality was hard to define. In this blog I start by trying to define it anyway.

For raw materials quality is a combination of aspects. A high quality raw material has to meet the following demands:

1. It is what it should be
In case you purchase pure beeswax, you expect it to be beeswax, not a synthetic wax or vegetable wax.

2. Does not contain foreign matter
Unless specified the beeswax should be pure beeswax and not contain parts of bees, dirt, paraffin or other materials. Unless specified is important, for in some cases it is not uncommon to sell products with quite some foreign materials in it as a starting material for making a better quality.

3. Is not refined more or less than specified
In case a vegetable oil is intended for food use, or certain technical uses some refining may be suitable, but this has to be specified. Refining usually makes the product more expensive (for refining costs money), but there are exceptions, for instance in case refining makes the product more stable. That way it keeps longer and can therefore be cheaper in the end.

4. Is well described
Origin, production, refining, composition, organic status, but also physical and chemical aspects like melting point or iodine number should be described in a specification.

5. Is fresh (enough)
Not deteriorated, should keep for a reasonable time when stored well. Of course storing conditions should be specified.

6. Is stored and packed well
That way the quality will be better preserved.

High quality has two important enemies: price and availability. Assume you are a supplier of lavender oil and you have to sell it for € 100,00 per kg to get a reasonable profit, but the current market price is only € 80,00. The right thing to do may be to cut your cost, or sell your business, but it may be tempting not to cut your cost, but to cut your oil, for instance by adding synthetic linalool and linalyl acetate, that way lowering the price. Also: in case you have only 500 kg from the last harvest but your customers need 800 kg and offer a very good price: it is tempting, you want to please your customers.

Not only to get rich, but to keep your business that was founded by you great grandmother, to pay your debts, to make your customers happy: good reasons, but still a bad solution.