Dear Ms Niesa, The oil is heated to speed up the reaction and bring the gums to the best condition for filtering out. The best conditions at every processing step are found by experiment and although it is usually best to adhere to the recommendations of the plant designers, you can always fine tune them if practical experience with your own oil indicates it. Regards, FP (21.11.2011)

Dear Ms Esther, Palm Olein is made by hundreds, probably thousands, of refineries all over the world and each one is free to set its own specification. But the PORAM standard gives MP 24C max. The other values you mentioned are not specified in any recognised official standard I have seen, but I note that many traders are offering CP10C and lower. Smoke point is only mentioned in the specifications of some small traders without laboratories or even testing equipment and their values cannot be trusted. Both smoke point and auto ignition point depend very heavily on the FFA and method of test and have very large experimental errors. Regards, FP (21.11.2011)

Dear Mr Poro, The usual grades for retail sales are RBDPO and RBD Palm Olein. You cannot ask for your own specifications, you must accept or reject the seller's specifications. If you have the choice, chose the lowest FFA and colour values. Prices will be quoted to you by the sellers when you tell them exactly what you want, size of delivery, packaging details and delivery point. Regards, FP (21.11.2011)

Dear Mr Haonguyen, 1) Yes, lower moisture content means the soap is drier. 2) Normally sufficient water is added to bring up the final moisture content of the soap bar to the required level, but please note I cannot get involved in the details of practical soap making. For that you must either attend classes at college, or visit a soap factory for a few days. Regards, FP (21.11.2011)

Dear Mr Siddik, I do not know what you mean by "butter substutes". If you mean cocoa butter substitutes, then it will be too soft and only suitable for cake coatings. If you mean dairy butter substitutes then you could use it in blends with other oils. But commercially neither would make sense, because cocoa butter is the most expensive fat on the market, used primarily for genuine chocolate and mixing it with any other oil would make it no longer suitable for that and destroy its price. Regards, FP (18.11.2011)

Dear Mr Siva, What you have is palm olein, not palm oil and CP10 stands for Cloud Point 10 degC. Similarly CP8 etc. You must be careful to use the correct name of oils when you do business, because if you ever have to go to court, I do not know what will happen. Regards, FP (18.11.2011)

Dear Mr GAJJAR, Yours is an interesting question and I investigated the price relationship between PS, PFAD and PO my self as a matter of interest, not very long ago. What I found was that there was indeed a broad correlation in their prices, in the sense that when PO price went up a lot, so did the price of the other two products, but the correlation was not close enough to allow prediction of trading prices. The reason is that PO refineries take in CPO and produce RBDPO, P.Olein (PL), PS and PFAD together, with most of the costs common to them. So they charge whatever they can according to demand, to maximise their proceeds. Regards, FP (17.11.2011)

Dear Mr Haonguyen, Chemically speaking, soap is the product of reaction of fats with metal hydroxides, usualy sodium hydroxide. But commercial soaps often contain fillers to reduce cost or give special properties. Because the fat is the biggest component in weight, properties and cost, soap buyers usually require to know the total fatty matter (TFM), which then ensures the supplier does not change his soap too much without their approval. This is simply the percentage of fat in the soap sample you test, on dry basis. So the higher the TFM, the purer and costlier the soap is likely to be. What value you decide to fix in your purchasing specifications is up to you. Note that for personal soap, the free alkali and pH values are also very important as they show how irritating it is likely to be for sensitive skins. But it is no use having specifications, unless you are also prepared to test what is delivered to you, on a regular basis and take appropriate action. Regards, FP (17.11.2011)

Dear Mr Jain, Sorry I have no knowledge of BMD trading. You will have to enquire from BM itself, or join here and ask one of the experienced traders. Regards, FP (14.11.2011)

Dear Mr Thomas, Sorry, I cannot understand your English. Please ask some one to help you and try again. Regards, FP (14.11.2011)

Dear Mr Brechtvdm, There are good statistics on the production of primary commodities such as soy beans and PO because the governments of countries keep records and publish them. But the purposes for which those commodities are used in all the countries of the world together, it is impossible to keep track. Who would do it, and why? Also there are trade secrets involved. No company will tell you the formula of its margarine or of its biodiesel. So we mostly rely on estimates from trade associations, trade magazines, conference lectures and similar sources. Regards, FP (10.11.2011)

Dear Mr Kubeček, I cannot recommend suppliers for anything on this page and I thought every one knew it by now. But the Czech republic imports 26,000 tonnes PO annually, so there will be several people offering it for sale. Do make enquiries. Regards, FP (09.11.2011)

Dear Mr Krishna, Your questions are on topics I only cover in private consultations and I regret I cannot answer them here. Perhaps you can find out from other planters, although you then run the risk of repeating their mistakes. Regards, FP (09.11.2011)

Dear Mr Niknabard, Compared with HPKO, PK Stearin has higher contraction, demoulds more easily, has longer shelf life before bloom and most importantly, it eats much better. That is why it can command a much higher price on the market. The only advantage of HPKO is that it is cheaper. So before you change, think over the matter carefully and do customer tests. Ideally, you should let the products age for the appropriate time before tasting tests, because substitute chocolate gets waxier with time. Regards, FP (05.11.2011)

Dear Mr Varshney, You will find very many addresses and other information useful for business if you take a subscription and join this website. That is its purpose. Regards, FP (30.10.2011)

Dear Mr Lim, I have been wondering what kind of relationship you mean, but your reference to gap leads me to believe you mean price relationship and price gap. If so, then the answer is yes, there is a high degree of correlation between the prices of those two oils. PO is practically always cheaper because it is a solid fat (MP 37C) and consumers are willing to pay a higher price for general purpose liquid oils and also PO has a lower cost of production and its producers are using that advantage to expand its sales. Regards, FP (30.10.2011)

Dear Mr Bartley, I think the abbreviations CP refer to the cloud point of palm olein and I cannot understand why you say they were for PO. It is an unforgivable mistake to confuse PO and palm olein as their price is different and it can cost you a lot of money. If your seller is indeed referring to PO, then you better ask him to explain in full English. Regards, FP (25.10.2011)

Dear Mr Hasan, I do not know what is "best" soap because in depends on opinion and one man's meat is another man's poison. However there is no limit to the amount of PKO you can add and get more and more lathering, but it is much more expensive than PS and so you must be realistic. In regard to glycerine, the calculated mid range yield is 10.9% and it is the same for both soft and hard grades of PS. You cannot be too precise in such matters because the molecular weight of oils falls in a range. In regard to the graining index, I have never heard of the term and it is not mentioned in any of the books I have. Regards, FP (24.10.2011)

Dear Mr Handoo, I have never heard of a problem such as yours. A small rise in FFA is normal, but yours is huge. I do not think it has anything to do with the design of your plant, it is probably the quality of your CPO on which you have said nothing. However, to establish the root cause with cerainty, I have to ask many questions and there will be too many ifs and buts for this column. Concentrate on the quality of your CPO. Regards, FP (20.10.2011)

Dear Mr Handoo, If your deodoriser is well designed and you are operating at its designed flow rate, then decreasing the flow rate will not have any effect on the PFAD FFA. If however that is not the case, then the FFA will increase and your plant designers will be interested to know about it. Regards, FP (19.10.2011)