It separated

Confirm it is separation and not something else

A clear layer of oil on an otherwise normal product is separation. A darkened or crusted surface, a smell of old oil, or a product that has gone hard underneath is a different page. The two get reported in the same words by customers, so ask for a photograph before concluding anything.

If you have no stabilizer, there is nothing to fix

The product is behaving correctly. What may be wrong is the label, the jar shape or the expectation set at the point of sale, and all three are fixable. Adding a stabilizer to stop complaints is a reformulation and changes what the product is.

If separation is worse than usual, look at the grind

A coarser grind than normal, or a batch ground warm and filled hot, will separate faster and further. Those are process drifts worth catching, and the batch log is what tells you whether this batch was different.

The jar shape is doing more than you think

A shouldered jar traps product where a knife cannot reach, so the oil that rose never gets recombined and the bottom third is dry and crumbly. A straight-sided jar can be stirred properly. If complaints cluster on one jar format, that is the reason.

Set the expectation on the label

Oil separation is natural, stir before use, and store upside down between uses if you want to be genuinely helpful. That last one works and almost nobody prints it.

Store it upside down and it mostly solves itself

Oil rises to whichever end is up, so a jar stored inverted redistributes as it sits and the next person to open it has far less to stir. It costs nothing to print and it is the most useful line you can give a customer about a product that separates.

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