Out of Africa into the world: Palm oil trade under global value chain and sustainable initiatives
With a History dating back 5000 years, palm oil has come to be the most consumed, produced and trade type of vegetable around the world. It is regarded as an inexpensive value choice for vegetable oil food use and has wide applications to various downstream industries such as cosmetics products production.
Today, Southeast Asia countries, predominantly Indonesia and Malaysia the largest supplying region; while the consuming markets are widespread around the world by all major economies, both developing and developed countries, so it might come as a surprise to find out that palm oil originated in West Africa before and was only introduced into Malaysia about a century ago.