Store Biography

The Bells of Bell & Loxton have been farming at Upton Barton in South Devon for the past 50 years. This is a family business which is run from the family farm.

Jonathan, who grew up here, has a degree in Agriculture and has worked in farming for the past 30 years. His love of food – and his passion for good quality natural products and making the family farm more sustainable led him to develop Bell & Loxton’s cold pressed rapeseed oil for cooking, dressings and mayonnaises. Jonathan a keen environmentalist loved the idea of a home-grown product with less food miles that tasted as good as its Mediterranean counterpart, was healthier and more versatile, was irresistible.

Bell and Loxton is a family affair with Jonathan and his wife Rachel and Jonathans parents Geoff and Cherry.

Rachel is also from a farming background and is passionate about healthy eating and looking after the countryside. Her background lies in marketing so no doubt you will see her at shows and fairs and busy working behind the scene while Jonathan is out and about getting the day to day job done!

Cold pressed rapeseed oil

A healthy, home-grown alternative to Olive Oil. Bell & Loxton’s cold pressed rapeseed oil is a completely natural product with many advantages over other culinary oils. These include:

• the lowest saturated fat content of any culinary oil with 54% less than sunflower oil
• ten times more omega 3 than olive oil – with 9.6% by weight compared to only 0.1% for sunflower oil and 0.7% for olive oil
• a good source of Vitamin E
• no artificial preservatives or colours
• trans-fat and GM free
• Rapeseed oil can get much hotter than olive oil before it begins to burn so is perfect for roasting, grilling and frying
• Delicious in drizzles, dressings, dips and mayo.

Cold processing the process…

Once harvested, our rape seeds are pressed at a low temperature to extract their natural oil which is then filtered and bottled on the family farm. None of the nutrients are lost and the oil retains its beautiful golden colour and subtle nutty flavour. A natural process for a natural product.

The alternative…

Mass production is a very different story: the seeds are steamed to rupture the cell membranes, which can alter the composition of the oil. This is often followed by the addition of solvents to release the last of oil, then it is finally subjected to a series of chemical processes that decolour, deodorise and de-flavour it to leave a non-descript cooking medium, stripped of all its natural goodness. Hence cold pressed has a completed different taste to the mass produced oils.

Why aluminium bottles?

They’re very practical, they won’t fall over and break, they take up less space, they’re lighter for you to carry home and for us to transport.

Aluminium wins hands down on recycling – it takes far less energy to recycle than glass.
All oils break down with natural sunlight so keeping the oil in the dark maintains the quality of the oil making it last longer and as good as the day it was bottled. And finally aluminium looks good too – bringing style to your kitchen worktops.