Palm oil options: Who’s successful the race? Abstract
- Fermentation‑derived oils are rising because the strongest palm alternative contenders
- Clear Meals Group quickly scales microbial oil manufacturing with main 2026 ambitions
- No Palm Components builds demo facility to develop yeast‑primarily based fats capability
- Äio advances fermentation fat utilizing wooden by‑merchandise for a number of purposes
- Plant‑primarily based and CO₂‑derived fat present promise however stay earlier in growth
A scarcity of credible options might have left commitments by European meals manufacturers and retailers to eradicate palm oil few and much between.
As an alternative, focus has largely shifted to sustainable sourcing – pushed in no small half by the looming enforcement of the EUDR.
However nonetheless dogged by disruption, regulatory problem and lingering client wariness – a 2023 research discovered that German customers, for instance, are way more comfy with ‘free from’ palm oil claims versus ‘sustainably produced’ – appetites for viable options to the controversial fats proceed to bubble beneath the floor, with loads of progress quietly made by researchers within the final 12 months.
So, which palm alternative appears set to cross the industrial end line first?
Fermented frontrunners
The frontrunners look set to be one in every of a raft of yeast-based options in growth, with many ticking off main milestones in 2025.
UK-based meals tech agency Clear Meals Group, for example, say its acquisition of an R&D facility in Liverpool in September places it in a major spot to scale up manufacturing of its bio-equivalent cultivated palm various in 2026.
Made utilizing lab-grown yeast, its substitute is equal to palm in each dietary and fatty acid make-up, in addition to being impartial in style and color, and – following its acquisition of the 12-acre website in Knowsley, it now has entry to 1 million litres of fermentation capability for the product.
“With this acquisition, CFG is now uniquely positioned to provide microbial oils at industrial scale, considerably lowering the capex required to produce sustainable oils and fat at aggressive value factors to agricultural equivalents throughout meals, cosmetics and pet meals markets,” says a spokeswoman for Clear Meals Group.
One week previous to the deal, the agency additionally acquired approval for its CLEAN Oil 25, a fermentation-derived beauty oil developed alongside THG LABS and Croda, in Europe, the UK and the US.
And it’s removed from the one agency centered on fermentation making strides.
Additionally in September, Dutch start-up No Palm Components, confirmed it was teaming up with analysis organisation NIZO Meals Analysis to ascertain a demo facility for its personal yeast-based palm oil various at NIZO’s meals innovation campus in Ede within the Netherlands.
The agency creates microbial fat and oils by crushing aspect streams corresponding to potato peels, rejected greens and every other biomass that comprises sugar, natural acids or alcohol to ferment with a wild yeast pressure.
It at the moment operates a pilot line with a 400-litre fermenter however when manufacturing at its demo website kicks off in H2 2026, that capability is ready to extend from lots of of tonnes to 1,200t/yr over time, stated its No Palm COO Jeroen Blansjaar. “That is the essential step that paves the best way for our first industrial manufacturing facility, which we goal to construct along with a aspect stream companion at their website,” he added.
And Estonian start-up Äio isn’t far behind. The Tallinn-based biotech agency, which makes use of yeast to show by-products from the wooden and agricultural industries, like sugars extracted from sawdust, into fat by way of fermentation, efficiently accomplished a one-tonne manufacturing cycle of its palm various earlier this yr – a 300-fold improve from its lab capability.
Although the corporate has stated it’s focusing on cosmetics purposes to begin with, it says its Encapsulated Oil will finally be utilized in plant-based patties, baked items and confectionery merchandise
Different fat gaining tempo
Whereas fermented options to tropical fat made important headway within the final 12 months although, they aren’t the one contender within the race to compete with palm oil.
Although a bit farther from industrial scale-up, different options have additionally gained floor in 2025.
In October, for instance, Palm-Alt, a plant-based various to palm created by meals researchers at Queen Margaret College (QMU) in Edinburgh, acquired a money injection from the Scottish authorities to speed up its growth.
The substitute is made utilizing a plant-based mix of rapeseed oil, fibres, and proteins, and has been positioned as a more healthy various to palm-based shortening in bakery merchandise, containing as much as 25% much less fats and 89% much less saturated fats.
Following preliminary trials in 2023, its builders have moved from the lab to an industrial setting at Alternative Northeast SeedPod, a food and drinks innovation hub in Aberdeen. A number of UK meals producers at the moment are stated to have entered licencing discussions with Edinburgh Improvements, the QMU commercialisation arm managing the Palm-Alt patent, whereas £239k from the Scottish authorities’s Proof of Idea Fund will probably be put towards additional growth and vary extensions.
“After seven years of analysis and growth it’s thrilling to see the extent of curiosity and enthusiasm from the meals trade and our present companions,” stated Catriona Liddle, head of the Scottish Centre for Meals Improvement and Innovation at QMU.
Additionally after a few years of analysis, Swiss-based Mibelle Group unveiled its personal progress in making a palm oil various in September. This time utilizing carbon dioxide.
Working with LanzaTech and the Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology IGB, the meals and cosmetics producer stated it had developed a CO2-based ingredient that might substitute palm oil in cosmetics and different on a regular basis merchandise.
Two successive fermentation processes are used to transform the greenhouse fuel right into a palm oil-free fats mix – first, by ‘brewing’ C02 into alcohol, and second, turning this into specialised fat utilizing specialised oil yeasts.
“Following profitable analysis within the laboratory, now we have now been in a position to begin growing the pilot course of,” stated Susanne Heldmaier, head of analysis and technical innovation on the Mibelle Group. “This is a crucial subsequent step, on the finish of which we can have the primary portions of a high-quality fats. This may allow us to develop beauty merchandise that not solely shield our pores and skin but additionally contribute to defending the atmosphere.
“Sooner or later, with the assist of our uncooked materials suppliers, we hope to have the ability to convert an increasing number of palm oil-based uncooked supplies to this sustainable answer.”
As, it appears, do loads of its competitors within the race to cut back worldwide reliance on palm.
