In the second of our series of articles on sustainability, Judith Murdoch on behalf of Efeca explores the importance of palm oil globally and its place within the fish and chip market today.
As the drive for sustainable production and traceability in the food chain continues, it is now more important than ever that both consumers and businesses act responsibly and for suppliers to source ingredients sustainably.
Palm oil is an edible vegetable oil that comes from the fruit of oil palm trees. Two types of oil can be produced from this one fruit. Palm oil, which comes from squeezing the fleshy fruit, and palm kernel oil, which comes from crushing the kernel or the stone in the middle of the fruit.
It’s All Around
Palm oil is in close to 50% of the packaged products found in supermarkets, everything from pizza, doughnuts, and chocolate, to deodorant, shampoo, toothpaste, and lipstick. It is also used in animal feed and as a biofuel in many parts of the world and is one of the major sources of oil used in the fish and chip shop market today.
Heavy duty frying is part of everyday life for a fish and chip shop and palm oil is one of the best oils for this. It has a longer life compared with other vegetable oils, which means changing the oil less frequently. Palm oil is an incredibly efficient crop, producing more oil per land area than any other equivalent vegetable oil crop.
Globally, palm oil supplies 35% of the world’s vegetable oil demand on just 10% of the land. To get the same number of alternative oils like soy, rapeseed, or sunflower oil you would need anything between four and ten times more land.
More Than Just an Oil
Palm oil is an important crop for the GDP of emerging economies and there are millions of smallholder farmers who depend on producing palm oil for their livelihoods. In fact, more than three million smallholders and small-scale farmers – the equivalent of the Welsh population – make a living from palm oil globally. This allows many smallholders access to health care and education, as yearly incomes are higher from palm oil production compared with other crops.
Smallholders account for about 40% of the total global palm oil production so palm oil production is not just about large corporations.
Time to Think Sustainable
Palm oil has been seen as a major driver of deforestation of some of the world’s most biodiverse forests, which contribute to global warming. But there is another way and that is by using sustainable palm oil. When the fish and chip shop sector thinks about sustainability it tends to focus on fish. The industry over the last two decades has spent considerable effort ensuring that all the fish used comes from sustainable sources and it is now the turn of the frying oil to be sourced from sustainable sources. This is achieved by buying RSPO (Roundtable for Sustainable Palm oil) certified sustainable palm oil. FriWite is produced using only RSPO certified sustainable palm oil. When fish and chip shops use FriWite they can be assured that the utmost is being done to protect wildlife, people, and the environment. This makes FriWite a winning combination with its pure and light fry, extended frying life, and no hydrogenated fat. Q Palm and Q Gold also use sustainable ingredients. By choosing sustainable palm oil, we can all contribute to reducing and ultimately halting deforestation, while importantly protecting the livelihoods of many smallholder farmers globally.