Palm oil is a type of edible vegetable oil that is derived from the palm fruit, grown on the African oil palm tree. Oil palms are originally from Western Africa, but can flourish wherever heat and rainfall are abundant.

Today, palm oil is grown throughout Africa, Asia, North America, and South America, with 85% of all palm oil globally produced and exported from Indonesia and Malaysia; but most of the time not using sustainable measures.

Oil palms are originally from West Africa, but were brought to South-East Asia at the beginning of the 20th century. The primary demand for the industry's expansion came from the British Industrial Revolution.

At the time, 250,000 tonnes of palm oil were being exported annually from South-East Asia. This figure has risen to over 60,000,000 tonnes today.

Malaysia was the world's largest producer of palm oil by the mid 20th century and this stayed true until the Indonesian government began investing into the industry in the 1970s.

This expansion officially pushed the country into the lead spot for top producer in 2007 and the nation now supplies the majority of the world's growing demand for this cheap edible oil.

In total, 50 million tons of palm oil is produced annually, supplying over 30% of the world’s vegetable oil production. This single vegetable oil is found in approximately 40-50% of household products in countries such as United States, Canada, Australia and England. Palm oil can be present in a wide variety of products, including: baked goods, confectionery, shampoo, cosmetics, cleaning agents, washing detergents and toothpaste.

Demand for palm oil has increased rapidly in recent decades. This boom in popularity can be attributed to a number of key qualities of the vegetable oil, namely its high efficiency, producing up to 10 times the amount of oil per hectare in comparison with other vegetable oil crops such as canola and soybean.

Due to this high yield and the fact oil palms thrive in high-rainfall tropical climates, Malaysia chose to begin producing palm oil in the early 20th century followed by Indonesia some 60 years later. Palm oil soon became a desirable choice for manufacturers, as it was made widely available, had a cheap price tag (due to low production costs in South-East Asia) and is diverse in its uses