Coconut Copra Production: Peeking at the Process Behind

Copra is the dried, white meat of the coconut. One of the coconut derivatives, copra, has become essential in producing coconut oil (CCO) and its further products. Some coconut suppliers, like coconut product Indonesia, still export their products as crude coconut oil. 

The coconut, of course, goes through several phases of production before ending up as copra. Let’s see how it is made. 

Harvesting and Transporting 

What we need to make a good-quality copra is ripe coconuts. They need to be 300 days of age and 2 to 4 kg in weight. 

For harvesting, you can let the coconuts fall by themselves or intentionally pick them. The latter may occur a whole year with a period of monthly or every two or three months. A 30-m coconut tree usually can produce about 40-80 fruits at maximum and minimum 20 fruits. 

Copra production processes usually take place where the coconut trees grow. Therefore, it is ideal to transport them immediately to the processing site once harvested. 

Husk Peeling, Shell Removing, and Splitting

The following processes will be sorting out the coconuts, peeling the husks, removing the shells, and breaking the coconut into half (to drain the water). 

Since it will affect the quality, the ideal time interval usually takes 0 to 4 hours between the splitting and drying. The longer the distance, the higher risk of copra damage.

Drying 

The drying process aims at extracting the oil contained in the coconut flesh. Good coconut copra has only about 6 – 7 % of moisture content. Higher than that, the copra will be highly vulnerable to mold and damage, leading to its low quality. 

There are commonly two ways of drying, i.e., natural heat (sun drying) and artificial heat (smoke drying and oven drying). 

Sun drying is a traditional method of drying the half-split coconuts in an open space facing the sun for about two days. Afterward, the workers gouge the coconut meat out of the shells and dry them for about three days. 

Smoke drying allows the coconuts – arranged on bamboo shelves – to have contact with the smoke of the combustion process. The artificial heat comes from burning dried coconut shells. 

Whereas the oven drying system will arrange the coconuts in a drying oven, tightly close them, and heat them to 40 – 80 degree Celsius of temperature. 

CCO – one of the copra derivatives – has become the raw material for making cooking oil, detergent, margarine, or even biodiesel fuel. PT. Kelapa Asli Indonesia is one of the leading suppliers of high-quality coconut product Indonesia choices.