Palm oil and palm kernel oil are two different products from the same fruit. Palm oil is pressed from the fleshy outer pulp of the oil palm fruit. Palm kernel oil comes from the kernel inside the fruit's hard nut, and it is extracted separately, after the palm oil.
Threshing and sterilisation
Fresh fruit bunches are steamed, and the individual fruits are separated from the bunch. The heat matters: it stops the enzymes that would otherwise start to break the oil down.
Digestion and pressing
The loose fruits are heated in a digester, which breaks down the pulp and frees the oil. A screw press then squeezes the digested fruit, and what comes out is a mixture of palm oil, water, fibre and cell debris.
Clarification and filtration
The crude oil is settled and filtered to take out water and impurities. What remains is crude palm oil.
Kernel cracking and pressing
The hard nuts left over from pressing are cracked to release the kernels, and the kernels are pressed on their own to produce palm kernel oil. In much traditional processing the nuts are dried and sold on to other operators, who make the kernel oil.
Beyond the kitchen
Palm oil and palm kernel oil are cooking oils, and they go into margarine and processed food. Outside the kitchen they are raw materials: processed into fatty acids and fatty alcohols, they are the base of the soaps, cleaners and cosmetics that lather, and they are raw material for industry more widely.
Why it matters to our members
In traditional palm oil processing in Africa, women do much of the pressing and the selling. The cooperative is working to place the machines for these stages in its chapters, so that the value stays with the woman who processes.
The machines we are working to place