Palm Oil Developments No.52 (June 2010) p5-9

Impact of Labelling on Palm Oil in the US Market

AHMAD BORHAN Ahmad Nordin, MOHD ARIF Simeh , MOHAMED RAZALI Mahidin , FAIZAH Mohd Shariff

Palm oil has been used in food preparation for over 50 centuries in many parts of the world. Nowadays, it is accepted by consumers worldwide in many forms, such as cooking oil, margarine and shortening, and also is used extensively as an ingredient in fat blends and a vast array of food products. Food manufacturers prefer palm oil because it has unique quality, does not require hydrogenation process, and lengthens the shelflife of products. These advantages are difficult to imitate at the same cost with soft oils, which often have higher market prices and need additional processing such as hydrogenation for the same characteristics. USA is one of major soyabean oil producers and also produces other liquid oils, whereby the production share of the country accounts for 10% of the global production of oils and fats that totalled about 16.4 million tonnes in 2009. Food manufacturers solidified part of the oils by the process of hydrogenation, to produce solid fats as imitation of traditional butter and named it margarines. The process increases the melting point of fats and gives food a longer shelf-life, but little did that they realized that partial hydrogenation process produced undesirable trans fatty acids.



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