Swelling domestic stocks for Malaysian palm oil, widely used by
bakers, left crude palm oil futures closing lower on Monday,
offering a slight relief for prices.
Unilever has announced that it is selling its edible oils business
and palm oil plantation interests in the Ivory Coast, and will
instead invest in a soap business in the country.
A US-Malaysian partnership has completed the first phase of
annotating the oil palm genome in a process it hopes will enable
increased oil yields and sustainability.
Unilever has pledged to use only palm oil certified as sustainable
by 2015, while also supporting calls for a moratorium on further
deforestation for palm oil in Indonesia.
The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) says it is on the
cusp of delivering on its promise to put sustainable oil on the
market, and will be unveiling its certification system at its next
meeting in November.