Khaleejtimes

Anwar Ahmad

20 April, 2011

ABU DHABI – Malaysian crude palm oil companies eye the UAE in particular, the GCC countries and the Middle East in general for their better trading partners.

A number of companies from around the world, which deals in Islamic Finance gathered at Amanie-Failaka Symposium 2011 in Abu Dhabi, looking for new partners for Islamic and conventional funds management for low risk and higher returns.

Talking to Khaleej Times on sidelines of the symposium, Azaraie Mohamad Ghazi, director of AbleAce, a Malaysia-based company, who spoke on palm oil, said, “We have started trading in crude palm oil with the GCC region recently, while few companies based in Dubai have signed contracts with us.” The figures for the total palm oil trade with the UAE were not available with Ghazi. “In fact, we are looking for partners here and see how best we can tap the GCC markets. We are here and got our system ready. Our products are approved by the Islamic Muftis of the Middle East,” Ghazi said. Palm oil products in general are hugely cultivated crop in Malaysia and we do marketing for it for many years.  This palm oil is used for edible and toiletry purposes generally, he said. Read the rest of this entry »

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By Bart King

Reuters

20 April, 2011

Beauty company Avon Products, Inc. is the first in the industry to commit to 100 percent certified sustainable palm oil.

Although Avon is not a major user of palm oil (less than 100 tons annually), the company has made the commitment to purchase GreenPalm certificates covering all of its global palm oil use beginning in July. The certificates help drive demand for sustainable palm oil, increase the supply for sustainable palm oil, and maintain biodiversity and habitat for endangered species.

In support of this commitment, Avon has joined the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO). Although more than 80 percentof palm oil is used for food products, it is also an ingredient in many cosmetics and personal care products. Palm oil production has come under criticism for destroying rain forests and peatland across Southeast Asia, leading to habitat destruction and high carbon emissions. Read the rest of this entry »

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By Martin Hickman

The Independent

7 April, 2011

Fast food chain KFC is to stop frying chicken in palm oil.

The company says it is removing the vegetable oil from deep fat friers to gain a “double benefit” by reducing climate change and heart disease.

Used widely as a cooking oil, palm oil employs hundreds of thousands of people in developing countries but has a poor health and environmental record. Forests in Indonesia and Malaysia have been cut down to make way for plantations and the oil is high in artery-clogging saturated fat.

From this month KFC will use high oleic rapeseed oil at its 800 outlets in UK and Ireland, at an estimated cost of £1m a year.

The move will cut levels of saturated fat in its chicken by 25 per cent, according to the company. Read the rest of this entry »

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Myjoyonline.com

4 April, 2011

Asian agribusiness giant Wilmar International has taken over the Benso Oil Palm Plantation.

It comes after it successfully acquired shares in the oil palm plantation in a cash offer.

About 1,200 shareholders tendered in their shares during the offer. Wilmar now has nearly 80 percent interest in BOPP.

The company last year completed the takeover of manufacturing and marketing of Unilever’s frytol cooking oil.

Wilmar International operates in 20 countries around the world and has expertise in lauric oils and palm oil production and marketing.

It made the acquisition through its African subsidiary.

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By Khurrum Anis

Sept. 9 (Bloomberg) — Pakistan, the world’s third-biggest importer of palm oil, may buy 10 percent less of the commodity in October and November than in July after the country’s worst- ever floods destroyed villages, a traders’ group said.

“Who will buy the oil when there are no people to sell it to?” said Ikram Chaudhary, secretary of the Pakistan Edible Oil Refiners Association, in a phone interview from Islamabad. “Our imports may decline after floods washed away our selling points.” Imports in July were 147,666 tons, according to the country’s Federal Bureau of Statistics.

Pakistan’s record flooding, which has begun to recede in some places, has claimed the homes and livelihoods for 17.2 million people and killed more than 1,500, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said. A majority of the displaced belong to rural areas, where palm oil is used to make ghee, a local cooking fat. Read the rest of this entry »

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24 August, 2010

The Ecologist

The Norwegian government has sold its investment in one Malaysian logging and palm oil company but remains a big shareholder in another accused of destroying rainforest and orang-utan habitats

The Norwegian government is under pressure to sell its investments in Sinar Mas, a controversial palm oil and timber group, which has admitted illegally clearing high conservation value forest.

The country’s oil assets have made it one of the biggest investors in the world, with a fund of more than $450 billion managed by the state-owned Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM).

It manages these funds on ethical grounds and this week said it had sold its investments in Malaysian firm Samling Global, accusing the company of illegal logging and saying there was an ‘unacceptable risk of contributing to current and future severe environmental damage.’ Read the rest of this entry »

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By Nathan Gray

Confectionery News

23 August, 2010

Adding red palm olein to chocolate spread could boost its antioxidant power and nutrient availability, according to new research published in the journal Food Chemistry.

The study, suggests that adding up to 20 per cent red palm olein (RPOL) into a functional chocolate spread could lead to nearly 20 times higher concentrations of carotenes.

“It was observed that when butter was replaced with 20% RPOL, all antioxidants were found to increase significantly,” wrote the researchers, from the Food Science and Technology Department at Alexandria University, Egypt.

Palm olein has been suggested as a potential functional ingredient for the replacement of vegetable oils and cocoa butters in confectionary products because it contains a wide variety of antioxidants and functional ingredients, including carotenes, tocopherols and tocotrienols. Read the rest of this entry »

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Business Times

20 August, 2010

THE European Union (EU) has always been a major importer of palm oil. Even before Malaysia hit the big time in the palm oil business, the EU had already been importing substantial quantities from Western African countries, the home of the oil palm.

Those days, much of the EU’s palm oil purchases came from Nigeria and Cameroon. The real motivation behind the EU’s everlasting love affair with palm oil had a lot to do with the oil’s versatile nature.

In the EU, even to this day, palm oil is almost indispensable in the manufacture of both food and non-food items.

In the food applications, palm oil is a much sought after ingredient for making margarine, shortening and specialty fats. While in the non-food area, palm oil has always been the preferred raw material for soap and detergent manufacture.

This explains why the import of palm oil into the EU has always been among the highest in the world. Read the rest of this entry »

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