Food Lipids: Chemistry, Nutrition, and Biotechnology

many as one-third of the 300 million coconut trees in the Philippines will become
nonproductive over the next 10 years. Significant coconut oil producers are shown
in Table 2. Production in these secondary countries, spurred by government investment,
it expected to increase. Coconut production in any given year is heavily influenced
by weather factors, including rainfall amounts and the impact of typhoons.
The second major source of lauric oils is palm kernel. Malaysia is the largest
producer of palm kernel oil accounting for 54% of the world’s production in 1992–
1993. Other large producers are shown in Table 2. Unlike coconut production in the
Philippines, palm (along with palm kernel) is produced by large sophisticated plantations
and enjoys major government and private investments that are allowing it to
forward-integrate into end-use derivatives. As a result, palm kernel oil production is
projected to increase significantly through the year 2002, with yields of 2175 metric
tons as new plantations become productive.
In the world of foods, where, typically the whole triglyceride is utilized as one
of the components, lauric oils can be replaced—to some degree—by the nonlauric
oils, especially as specialty fat blends are developed that mimic the physical properties
of these lauric fats through a series of processing steps including special hydrogenation
and fractionation. In the industrial area, however, lauric acid derived
molecules invest unique properties into the surface activity of the resulting compound
and formulation, and they allow for little or no substitution of the fatty acid moiety
without a direct effect on performance. This is especially true in the soap, detergent,
and personal care markets, where the C12 moiety provides unequaled detergency
Table 2 World Lauric Oils Production (million metric tons); By Country, 1992–1993
Country
Production
Coconut oil
Percent of
world total
Production
Palm kernel oil
Percent of
world total
Cameroon 0 0 22 1
Colombia 0 0 31 2
Ecuador 0 0 11 1
Ghana 0 0 13 1
India 267 9 0 0
Indonesia 664 23 336 20
Ivory Coast 47 2 31 2
Malaysia 32 1 925 54
Mexico 106 4 0 0
Mozambique 39 1 0 0
Nigeria 0 0 176 10
Papua New Guinea 37 1 21 1
Philippines 1301 45 0 0
Sri Lanka 36 1 0 0
Thailand 40 1 27 2
Vietnam 107 4 0 0
Zaire 0 0 22 1
Others 212 7 89 5
Total 2888 100% 1704 100%
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