The oil palm (Elaeis guineensis) is a tropical tree native to West Africa, now cultivated across equatorial regions worldwide. Its fruit produces two distinct oils: palm oil from the flesh and palm kernel oil from the seed. Together, these make palm the single largest source of vegetable oil on Earth, found in roughly half of all packaged products in a typical supermarket.
Palm oil’s dominance comes from the tree’s extraordinary productivity — oil palms produce far more oil per hectare than any other oilseed crop. This efficiency is also what makes the crop’s environmental story complicated: it’s the most land-efficient oil, but massive demand has driven extensive deforestation in Southeast Asia, particularly in Indonesia and Malaysia.
Heart of palm, the tree’s inner growing core, is eaten as a vegetable. Harvesting it from single-stemmed palms kills the tree, though some multi-stemmed palm species (like peach palm) allow sustainable harvest.
How it's produced
Oil palms are grown on plantations in tropical lowland areas, primarily in Indonesia and Malaysia, which together produce about 85% of the world’s supply. Trees begin producing fruit 3–4 years after planting and remain productive for 25–30 years. Fresh fruit bunches are harvested by hand using long cutting tools, typically every 10–15 days.
The fruit must be processed within 24 hours of harvest. At mills, the fruit is steamed, stripped from bunches, and pressed to extract crude palm oil from the flesh. The kernels are separated and crushed separately for palm kernel oil. Heart of palm is harvested by felling the tree and extracting the tender core — a destructive process that has led to the development of cultivated peach palm plantations where regrowth is possible. Certification schemes like RSPO (Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil) exist to address deforestation concerns, though their effectiveness is debated.
What it costs the planet (per kilo)
* Based on what it takes to produce, from farm to factory gate.
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