What is Palm Oil?

Palm oil is an edible vegetable oil derived from the mesocarp (reddish pulp) of the fruit of the oil palms, primarily the African oil palm Elaeis guineensis, and to a lesser extent from the American oil palm Elaeis oleifera and the maripa palm Attalea maripa.

Palm oil is naturally reddish in color because of a high beta-carotene content. It is not to be confused with palm kernel oil derived from the kernel of the same fruit,or coconut oil derived from the kernel of the coconut palm (Cocos nucifera). The differences are in color (raw palm kernel oil lacks carotenoids and is not red), and in saturated fat content: Palm mesocarp oil is 41% saturated, while palm kernel oil and coconut oil are 81% and 86% saturated respectively. Along with coconut oil, palm oil is one of the few highly saturated vegetable fats and is semi-solid at room temperature. Like most plant-based products, palm oil contains very little cholesterol.

Palm oil is a common cooking ingredient in the tropical belt of Africa, Southeast Asia and parts of Brazil. Its use in the commercial food industry in other parts of the world is widespread because of its lower cost and the high oxidative stability (saturation) of the refined product when used for frying.

Palm oil facts

Palm oil trees can grow up to 20 metres tall with an average life of 25 years.

Palm oil grows across or 10 degrees north / south of the equator.

The tree starts to bear fresh fruit bunches (FFBs) after three years.

The oil palm tree is also know as Elaeis Guineensis.

Each individual piece of fruit on fruit bunch contains 50% oil.

The nut, referred to as a kernel, at the centre of each piece of fruit, is where palm kernel oil is extracted from.

Palm oil can be harvested 12 months of the year.

Each tree can produce 10 tonnes of fresh fruit bunches per hectare.

On average 3.9 tonnes of crude palm oil and 0.5 tonnes of palm kernel oil can be extracted per hectare.

Leftover fibre from the palm kernel mill process provides a product called palm kernel expeller. This is used in

animal feed, but can also be used to make products like paper or fertilizer.

Palm oil requires 10 times less land than other oil-producing crops.

It is entirely GM free

Palm Kernel Oil

The seed inside the palm fruit is called the kernel, which, not surprisingly, is the source of palm kernel oil. Because it

is rich in lauric acid and high in saturated fat, palm kernel oil is a stable cooking fat that is resistant to oxidation and

rancidity and works well in food manufacturing. It’s naturally white in color and solid when cool, becoming transparent

and liquid as it is warmed.

Red Palm Oil is Virgin Palm Oil

Oil from the fruit of the palm is called palm oil; it has less saturated fat than palm kernel oil (about 50

percent vs. about 80 percent). In its natural, unprocessed state, palm oil is a deep reddish-orange color

as a result of abundant carotenes like lycopene and beta-carotene—the same nutrients responsible for

the color and many of the health benefits of tomatoes and carrots. Beta-carotene is an excellent

antioxidant, and the body can convert some beta-carotene into vitamin A. However, true vitamin A is a

fat-soluble vitamin found only in animal fat; so rely on palm oil for its numerous health benefits but not

as a quality source of vitamin A. Red palm oil also has a high level of tocotrienols, making it an

outstanding source of vitamin E and a powerful antioxidant.

Virgin red palm oil is used as cooking oil, but its health-promoting properties are so significant that it is

also packaged and sold in capsule form as a nutritional supplement. For ease of digestion, it’s best to

take the supplement with meals, and the oil also improves the absorption of many nutrients in the food.

White Palm Oil

When refined, palm oil loses its color and its antioxidant properties. Like palm kernel oil, white palm oil is stable, has

a clean “mouth-feel,” and is used extensively in food manufacturing. Processed palm stearin is sometimes called

palm shortening and easily replaces hydrogenated shortenings in commercial baked goods and fried foods. White

palm oil is sometimes called RBD oil, meaning it has been refined, bleached, and deodorized. These processes can

certainly destroy many of the valuable nutrients available in organic red palm oil. However, white palm oil is still far

superior to trans fats and is currently considered a possible alternative to the dangerous trans fats that are currently

being reviewed by the FDA.

Palm Kernel Expeller

Palm kernel expeller is a by-product of the crushing and expelling of oil from palm kernel. Known for its balanced

energy and protein, high fibre, good level of residual oil and high palmitic acid, it is widely used in compound feeds

for adult ruminant livestock such as dairy cow, beef cow and sheep.

Palm Kernel Expeller

History

Human use of oil palms may date as far back as 5,000 years; in the late 1800s, archaeologists discovered a substance that they concluded was originally palm oil in a tomb at Abydos dating back to 3,000 BCE. It is believed that Arab traders brought the oil palm to Egypt.

Palm oil from Elaeis guineensiss has long been recognized in West and Central African countries, and is widely used as a cooking oil. European merchants trading with West Africa occasionally purchased palm oil for use as a cooking oil in Europe.

Palm oil became a highly sought-after commodity by British traders, for use as an industrial lubricant for machinery during Britain's Industrial Revolution.

Palm oil formed the basis of soap products, such as Lever Brothers' (now Unilever) "Sunlight" soap, and the American Palmolivebrand.

By around 1870, palm oil constituted the primary export of some West African countries such as Ghana and Nigeria although this was overtaken by cocoa in the 1880s

Where is palm oil grown?

Palm oil (elaeis guineensis) is a tropical oil, growing only within 10 degrees north or south of the equator. These

growing regions house vast areas of tropical rainforest rich in biodiversity on the continents of Asia, Africa and South

America. Demand for edible vegetable oils has grown strongly in recent decades and palm oil plantations have

expanded rapidly in number and size to meet the global demand.

Industries using palm oil

Palm oil and palm kernel oil based ingredients are found in approximately 50% of products on supermarket shelves,

including food and non food items. Palm oil in many countries is used as a simple frying oil, but many other markets

make use of both palm and palm kernel oil:

Consumer retail food and snack manufacturers

Personal care and cosmetics (mainly palm kernel oil)

Biofuel and energy

Animal feed (palm kernel expeller)

Pharmaceutical

Industrial

Foodservice/service industry

Palm kernel and palm oil uses are widely varied because they can be processed and blended to produce a vast

range of products with different characteristics. The below ingredient names are found on the packaging of 50% of

the products stocked on most supermarket shelves, being either palm oil or palm kernel oil based.

Social Impact Oil palm is a valuable economic crop and provides a source of employment. It allows small landholders to participate in the cash economy and often results in improvements to local infrastructure and greater access to services such as schools and health facilities. In some areas, the cultivation of oil palm has replaced traditional practices, often due to the higher income potential of palm oil.

However, in some cases, land has been developed by oil palm plantations without consultation or compensation of the indigenous people occupying the land. This has occurred in Papua New Guinea, Colombia, and Indonesia. In the Sarawak state of Malaysian Borneo, there has been debate over whether there was an appropriate level of consultation with the Long Teran Kanan community prior to the development of local land for palm oil plantations. Appropriation of native lands has led to conflict between the plantations and local residents in each of these countries.

According to a 2008 report by NGOs including Friends of the Earth, palm oil companies have also reportedly used force to acquire land from indigenous communities in Indonesia. Additionally, some Indonesian oil palm plantations are dependent on imported labor or undocumented immigrants, which has raised concerns about the working conditions and social impacts of these practices.

Social and Environmental impacts with palm oil

Environmental issues

In Indonesia, rising demand for palm oil and timber has led to the clearing of tropical forest land in Indonesian national parks. According to a 2007 report published by UNEP, at the rate of deforestation at that time, an estimated 98 percent of Indonesian forest would be destroyed by 2022 due to legal and illegal logging, forest fires and the development of palm oil plantations.

Malaysia, the second largest producer of palm oil, has pledged to conserve a minimum of 50 percent of its total land area as forests. As of 2010, 58 percent of Malaysia was forested.[16] Palm oil cultivation has been criticized for:

Greenhouse gas emissions. Deforestation in tropical areas accounts for an estimated 10 percent of manmade CO2emissions, and is a driver toward dangerous climate change.

Habitat destruction, leading to the demise of critically endangered species (e.g. the Sumatran elephant, Sumatran tiger, the Sumatran rhinoceros, and the Sumatran Orangutan.

Reduced biodiversity, including damage to biodiversity hotspots.

Cultivating crops on land that belongs to indigenous people in the Sarawak and Kalimantan states on the island of Borneo and the Malaysian state of Sabah.

Certified sustainable palm oil (CSPO) is palm oil that has been grown on a plantation that has been managed and certified according to theprinciples and criteria of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO). This means the plantation was established on land that did not contain significant biodiversity, wildlife habitat or other environmental values, and meets the highest environmental, social and economic standards as set out by the RSPO. WWF believes that encouraging greater uptake of CSPO is the best way to go about halting the environmental and social impacts of unsustainable palm oil production. The good news is that the amount of CSPO available to buyers is increasing. In 2013, 15% of the world’s palm oil had been certified as sustainable, up from 10% in 2011. This is the equivalent of more than 8 million tonnes grown on certified plantations, covering 2.4 million hectares. While supply of CSPO is increasing, significant challenges remain. In 2012, only 52% of CSPO was sold as certified product, which has frustrated some producers who have committed to sustainability, largely in response to concerns from consumer markets, but are not always seeing demand for their certified product from those same markets. Growers that are making the effort to implement the RSPO’s standards, which includes action on ensuring traceability, minimizing the use of hazardous chemicals and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, need to be rewarded for doing so. WWF is urging retailers and manufacturers to use the data available from the RSPO to start buying from the leaders rather than the laggards. By doing so, they will be sending a sustainability signal that will affect the whole supply chain and help halt the devastating consequences of unsustainable palm oil production.

Sustainable Palm Oil