Refining removes the natural impurities to improve colour, flavour and shelf life. Total refining capacity of canola oil in Canada is over 1 million tonnes annually and essentially parallels our crude oil production. It is spread across the country in close proximity to both canola oil production and the Canadian population. Virtually all the seed processors are now integrated into oil refining as well. The only exceptions are the Cargill facility in Saskatchewan and the idle Canadian Agra facility in Manitoba.
Canola oil is also very popular in Japan.
Its presence, and dominance, in Japanese diets is due to Japan's import of canola seed as compared to the import of oil from Canada. The consumption of edible oil in Japan entered a slow growth phase in the last half of the 1980's and no substantial increases in volume of oilseed crushing occurred. However, one commodity that did sustain high growth was canola. The greatest reason for that was the recognized improvement in the quality of the protein meal in canola. Rapeseed meal was traditionally a fertilizer for Japanese tea, tobacco and citrus farms, however, canola meal allowed the Japanese industry to direct a large proportion of the production to the Japanese feed industry.