Palm oil is consumed worldwide in more than 100 countries. In some parts of the world, palm oil is often still consumed in its unrefined state, as an ingredient of traditional dishes, where it contributes its characteristic golden red color and unique flavor. Palm oil is abundant, and is increasingly recognized as having a role to play in a healthy balanced diet. It has been the oil of choice overseas for generations, used as a cooking oil, in baking, for frying foods, to make margarine and as a component in many processed foods.

You may be surprised to learn that many of the foods at your kirana store are made using palm oil as an ingredient. Here's are just a few examples, Click on any of them to read more detail:

Cooking oil:

It is extremely stable to high temperatures especially during frying, has a lesser tendency to smoke, foam or form sticky unhealthy polymers….

Industrial Frying Fat:

Palm oil is most suited for this purpose and is widely used for processing instant noodles, potato chips, aalu bhujiya, farsan, mathri, french fries and doughnuts.

Shortening:

Quality shortening is now produced worldwide with palm oil and its products. It is perfect for making breads, cakes, pastries, creams and other baked foods.

Vegetable Ghee:

Vegetable ghee (vanaspati) is a very popular product here in India, as also elsewhere in the Asian sub-continent and West Asia. Palm oil can be used on its own or blended with other vegetable oils to produce vegetable ghee of superior quality and texture.

Ice Cream:

Palm oil is today a common ingredient in the manufacture of ice cream.

Non-dairy Creamers:

A fat blend compromising palm oil, palm kernel oil and other fats can be used to replace milk fat in non-dairy creamers or coffee-whiteners.

Confectionery Fats:

By optimizing the fractionation conditions, several grades of palm mid-fractions with different solid-fat-content and melting characteristics can be produced. These have applications in the confectionary industry in which they replace coca butter partially or wholly. These coca-butter replacers or substitutes are well accepted by the industry today.


Today's consumers are quality conscious and demanding. Of the oils and fats on the market, palm oil perhaps best meets their exacting criteria. It is healthful, abundantly available, relatively inexpensive, and technically suitable for most food products. Perhaps this is why palm oil has become the largest internationally traded vegetable oil in the world, proving its acceptance in the global market.

About 90% of palm oil currently goes into food applications and the remaining 10% goes into non-food applications especially cosmetics. Here are some examples. Again, you can click on select links to get more detail specific to your sector needs.

Soaps:

It is possible to produce soaps that have superior foaming power and color with palm fractions compared to most traditional sources including tallow.

Epoxidised Palm Oil:

Epoxidised oils are used extensively as plasticisers and stabilizers. Increasing their epoxide content can generally enhance the quality of plastic products and this is easily achieved by the incorporation of epoxidised oils.

Palm Based Oleo chemicals:

Oleo chemicals such as fatty acids, esters, alcohols, nitrogen compounds and glycerol are traditionally based on tallow and coconut oil. Pam oil and kernel oil are being increasingly accepted as excellent substitutes.

Fatty Acids:

Palm based fatty acids are used as processing aids in the rubber industry since they have superior softening and plasticing effects.

Alpha-silphonated Methyl Esters (SMEs):

Palm stearin is an economical and suitable raw material source for the production of SMEs.

Palm Oil Based Diesel Substitutes:

Vegetable oils have a history of use as diesel substitute. Palm based methyl esters (palm diesel) have undergone extensive testing for this purpose. Cold starting of engines, reduced carbon particles content in the exhaust fumes and less smoke production are some of the advantages of palm diesel.

Fatty Alcohols:

Fatty alcohols are produced from fatty acid methyl esters. Palm based fatty alcohols are expected to gain prominence in these areas of application in the near future.

Glycerol:

Glycerol has several important and varied applications. It is often used as a carrier for pharmaceutical products; as a humectants in cosmetics and tobacco and as an ingredient in the production of emulsifiers. Glycerol is an important by-product of the palm based oleo chemical industry in Malaysia.