Why Red Palm Oil Is So Expensive | So Expensive | Insider Business

today Victor is climbing trees up to 40 feet high equipped with a homemade ax a rope and his own bare feet which he's using to reach something very valuable the fruits that'll be turned into red palm oil standard palm oil or Palm kernel oil is known for being quite cheap but red palm oil can cost the wee times as much when it's shipped to the US or the UK it can sell for even more up to twenty dollars for a single liter where were they see Percy before [Music] workers like Victor face snakes and the risk of falling just a harvest their foot what makes red palm oil different from palm oil and what exactly makes it so expensive this is what farm oil looks like our local palm oil actually prefer to cook with red palm oil because of the taste red palm oil has a mildly floral flavor and a buttery texture from oil generally is used for our local food all the time all the time all the time [Music] here in ondo State Nigeria making this local favorite is a labor-intensive and artisanal process thousands of fleshy Palm fruits are transformed into yellow brown sludge and then red orange oil over the course of a week it all starts on oil palm plantations like this one in the village of aye every few weeks expert climbers are called in to harvest the Palm husks trees here can be as high as 60 feet climbers like Victor don't wear any protective gear relying on just handmade harnesses and axes to help them up the palm trees and this is Victor makes new ropes with fresh Palm fibers whenever he feels his current one isn't strong or tight enough this is important because old rope can become brittle and snap I sometimes some people didn't use their life see my own now we found another people they will see they use it don't sit now you don't hold and run they break you are the Clown they're too gentle no rush use my ass will hook up for your age it takes three years for oil palm trees to bear fruit but once they do they can be harvested year round 200 where we Embassy won't land this walk well all these things now where I won't cut it now do it now the biggest obstacle Victor faces once he's climbing is snakes won't cut that snake and that person before the risk of falling has led some workers to stop climbing and instead help with collecting the Palm hursts from the safety of the ground foreign it's very difficult to separate the fresh fruit from the thick spiky Palm husks so they're left out to dry this time also allows the fruit to ferment which elevates the oil's flavor after three or four days the fruits are ready to be dehusked yeah Randy and other workers use axes to break the husks and sift the fruits to separate them from dirt they collect the fruits in large sacks and transport it to a processing site [Music] in the nearby Village of ileze Randy delivers the Palm fruits to his wife Deborah who is one of the many workers toiling away to transform the fruits into red hormone the saxa fruit are dumped into buckets and large drums I see this all for that one drone so like this is like this if you don't forget some people if they sell I didn't say you don't know water is added to the drums to boil the fruits local so we know they tested any decoration after one hour the fruit is ready to be drained and taken to the Miller inside this rock it's a boy don't change what would they do before if they don't go cotton for Farm if we don't pick and finish we guess the more people who don't do by ourselves we don't carries Meats do our very well if they don't cook and finish not there they wouldn't matter which but the male still involves a significant amount of Labor as someone must manually load and empty the fruit after the mill it's time for another recently acquired machine a hydraulic press the fruit which has been milled into a pulp is pressed to release its oil no kernel oil is released here because that would require the seeds to be dried and cracked some locals do produce kernel oil but since it's more difficult to make without special Machinery it's not as common while oil Palms originated in West Africa colonization led to the rapid expansion of oil palm plantations throughout Southeast Asia eventually southeast Asia took over the global palm oil industry and as other oils also grow in popularity West Africa never quite caught up West Africa's rainy season which typically lasts from May to October is also an ongoing issue raining season is rainfall if you clamp entry means that you maybe you don't plan one key yourself because I'm wearing for the pantry good draw so when it's raining no one is climbing the trees which means the fruit often goes rotten and thanks to climate change the rainy season has been lasting longer causing more damage this decreases the already low supply of palm fruits and raises the price of red palm oil in contrast Palm kernel oil plantations Harvest on a massive scale and rely on heavy machinery for the bulk of their production [Music] support to with my friends who my engine family engine will not get money to buy big one or the one-way go give us a guarantee say this one will feel you sunlight five yeah we're not going to stop us tonight after enough oil has been collected in the large bowls underneath the Press workers carefully scoop the orange red liquid into other bowls and buckets the oil is poured into drums for a final boil after one hour the fire is put out and the oil is left to cool off the finished oil is moved into buckets then funneled into Jerry cans Deborah says some customers travel all the way from Lego state which is about five hours away by car to buy her red palm oil some people think if we do more than 15 cake 30 30 liter these kegs sell for 30 each although the price can change depending on the supply of palm fruits I get plenty custom the price of red palm oil can also vary depending on location a four liter bottle is a supermarket in a bigger city like Lagos can cost around 18 making it the same price or even cheaper than some imported vegetable oils thanks to Nigeria's volatile exchange rates meanwhile the red palm oil that is exported outside of West Africa is exponentially more expensive ranging from 15 to 20 for one liter in the US and the cost may only be getting higher cooking oil prices have been on the rise thanks to weather-related supply shortages in countries like Argentina and Canada the Russian invasion of Ukraine also cut the world off from the Region's supply of sunflower oil and led Indonesia to ban some exports of its palm oil all this raised the global price of cooking oils even higher as a result the local cost of red palm oil in Nigeria has also increased but for many people the price is worth the taste how long I'm beautiful the price is thank you foreign [Music]

Channel: Business Insider

Views: 505,764

Keywords: Business Insider, Business News, Red Palm Oil

Id: 3CZKZDpd3F4

Length: 11min 25sec (685 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 12 2023