Oil Palm Fruit Naturally Produces Two Distinct Vegetable Oils : Palm Oil and Palm Kernel Oil

The fruit of the oil palm, commonly associated with Elaeis guineensis, contains an outer fleshy mesocarp surrounding a hard kernel. A particularly important characteristic of oil palm is that these two parts provide two commercially valuable vegetable oils with significantly different compositions and properties. MPOC therefore describes oil palm as a unique crop producing two distinct oils from one fruit.

Palm oil is extracted from the fleshy, fibrous mesocarp of the oil-palm fruit. The extracted crude oil is known as Crude Palm Oil (CPO) and can subsequently be refined and fractionated into products such as RBD Palm Oil, Palm Olein and Palm Stearin. Mars likewise describes CPO as being extracted from the fleshy mesocarp of oil-palm fruits.

Palm kernel oil is obtained from the seed or kernel located inside the fruit. The kernel is separated, cleaned and processed to obtain Crude Palm Kernel Oil, which can then be refined into RBD Palm Kernel Oil and fractionated into Palm Kernel Olein and Palm Kernel Stearin. Mars' CPKO page confirms that the oil is extracted from the kernel rather than the fruit flesh.

No. They originate from the same fruit but are chemically different oils. Palm oil has higher proportions of palmitic and oleic acids, whereas palm kernel oil is a lauric oil with much more lauric and myristic acid. This difference affects melting behaviour, processing characteristics and downstream applications in food, soaps, detergents, personal care, specialty fats and oleochemical manufacturing.