The natural goodness of coconut oil
Rito Cook Islands
It was a long boat trip from New Zealand to the Cook
Islands back in the 1970’s when Susan Wyllie was a young
girl. The details still remain vivid – the lighter that took her
from boat to shore, the pink frangipani flowers covering
the harbour and the coconut oil made by her grandmother,
Grandma Moari.
“She used to put flowers, tiare māori, in hers,” Susan says, the
grated coconut heated by the sun on corrugated iron from
which the oil would slowly drip off.
It was the abundance of coconuts, the freshly fallen brown
coconut (‘akari) that caught the attention of Susan and Robert
Wyllie when they made the decision to move to the Cook
Islands in 2006.
“We came here and it all happened,” Susan says, the family
building a life and a new business, Rito Cook Islands, on the
land where her grandmother once lived. The couple developed
the business together, based on several years of extensive
research, their premium quality cold pressed coconut oil, and
Susan’s health and beauty background.
Rito Cook Islands consists of a culinary oil and
skin care range - a pairing of long held traditional
knowledge on the benefits of coconut oil, and other
oils such as tamanu, with the assurity provided by
international research. It is also the only skin care
range produced in the Cook Islands.
“All our formulations are created by Dr Olga
Garkavenko, a microbiologist and biochemist in
New Zealand,” Robert says, the range containing
botanical and marine based active ingredients with
no parabens. “Whatever ingredients we can produce
ourselves we do.”
66 • Escape Magazine
Robert’s area of expertise lies in the production of the virgin
coconut oil which is made onsite in Tikioki up to five days a
week with around 12 coconuts producing one litre of oil. The
process is labour intensive – coconuts are husked and grated,
and the flesh gently dried on a drying table which is heated
by burning coconut husks and shells. The oil is then extracted
from the flesh using a hydraulic basket press.
“Everything is used,” Robert says of the production of coconut
oil. “With this being a small island you have to be aware of the
consequences of any waste.”
And he means literally everything. Husks are used to fuel the
coconut drying table, given to local vanilla growers or composted,
while the clean shells are used for art and crafts or used by the
locals to fire their umu ovens. The remaining high grade dried
coconut is utilised as an exfoliant in Rito Cook Islands soaps and
the bulk returned to the farmers to feed their pigs.
Sustainable production methods are integrated into every
part of the process, from sourcing of ingredients to the end
product. Rito Cook Islands plastic packaging is recyclable, a