Impact of Labelling on Palm Oil in the US Market

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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Palm Oil Market Share in the US

The visit of Ambassador Demetrios J Marantis, Deputy Trade Representative of the United States, to Malaysia in early March 2010 to discuss the trade related issues between the two nations denotes a significant starting point for the enhancement of trade relation between Malaysia and the USA. The visit of Datuk Seri Mohd Najib Tun Abd […]