PALM oil plays an irreplaceable role in ensuring global food security in the vegetable oils and fats industry.
Yet, there are so many attacks on the sustainability of palm oil that there is a need to produce synthetic products in place of natural products.
According to the director-general of the Malaysian Palm Oil Board as quoted in New Straits Times, a startup based in New York sought to produce synthetic palm oil as an alternative to natural palm oil.

The company uses microbes to convert food waste and industrial byproducts into synthetic palm oil through a fermentation process and claims that the product can replace the plant-derived version.
However, scientific findings and studies by renowned research institutions have discovered the superiority of palm oil in terms of nutritional values and versatility applications.
The director-general said, palm oil contains Vitamin A and E which has rich sources of antioxidants such as carotenoids, tocopherols and tocotrienols and is free of cholesterol and trans fatty acids.
Meanwhile, the synthetic palm oil produced by the startup in the United States lacks the originality of having nutritional value and the startup could not produce vitamins A and E that are rich in natural palm oil.
From an economic perspective, the synthetic palm oil cannot be priced competitively compared to the original palm oil as the raw material used to produce it may also not be from renewable sources.
According to the news reports, the reason for the company to produce the synthetic palm oil, is due to allegations that palm oil is a major driver of deforestation and one of the leading causes of climate change.
However, based on the record of the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation, oil palm cultivated areas account for less than one per cent of global agricultural land of around five billion hectares when compared to other oilseed crops (five per cent) other crops (23 per cent) and livestock, the largest at around 71 per cent.
Oil palm is the most productive crop with a yield of five to nine times higher than other crops and has high productivity of about four tonnes of oil per hectare a year and affordable to most people.

https://tvsarawak.com/no-synthetic-palm-oil-can-replace-the-original-one/
Source: tvsarawak.com
Edited by: Sheera Abg Mansor