Palm oil comes from the fruit of the oil palm tree (mainly the African oil palm, Elaeis guineensis), grown in hot, humid tropical regions like Indonesia, Malaysia, and parts of Africa and Latin America.

What palm oil actually is

  • Palm oil is an edible vegetable oil squeezed from the fleshy orange-red pulp of the oil palm fruit.
  • A different oil, called palm kernel oil, comes from crushing the hard seed (kernel) inside the same fruit.
  • Each fruit bunch contains hundreds of small fruits, each roughly the size of a large olive.

Where the trees grow

  • Oil palm trees are native to West Africa, where people have used palm oil in cooking for thousands of years.
  • Today, most palm oil comes from large plantations in tropical areas close to the equator, especially between about 10 degrees north and south.
  • Indonesia and Malaysia together supply over 80–85% of the world’s palm oil, with countries like Nigeria, Thailand, and others in South and Central America and West Africa also producing significant amounts.

How it’s produced (quick journey)

  1. Oil palm trees are planted in plantations and start producing fruit bunches after about three to four years.
  1. Workers harvest the heavy fruit bunches year-round, since the trees don’t have a single “season.”
  1. The fruits are sterilized with steam, stripped from the bunch, and mechanically pressed to release crude palm oil from the pulp.
  1. The kernels are separated and crushed to produce palm kernel oil, often used in soaps, cosmetics, and some foods.

Why it’s such a big deal now

  • Palm oil is the most widely used vegetable oil in the world and appears in food (like biscuits, instant noodles, margarine), cosmetics, detergents, and even biofuels.
  • It’s popular because oil palm trees have very high yields per hectare compared with other oil crops like soybean or sunflower, making it cheap and efficient.
  • At the same time, expansion of palm oil plantations has been linked to deforestation, loss of wildlife habitat, and social issues in producer countries, which is why “sustainable palm oil” is a major topic in recent news and campaigns.

A quick way to picture it

When you hear “palm oil,” think of vast, green rows of tropical oil palm trees near the equator. The bright orange fruits they carry are crushed and pressed to produce the smooth, neutral oil that ends up in everyday products all over the world.

TL;DR: Palm oil comes from the orange-red fruits of oil palm trees grown on plantations in hot, rainy tropical regions, mainly Indonesia and Malaysia, with the oil pressed from the fruit’s pulp and kernel for use in foods, cosmetics, and many household products.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.