Quality of Indonesian CPO

Quality of Indonesian CPO

From Bisnis Indonesia

Some five million tons of Indonesia's crude palm oil (CPO)
cannot be traded due to damage. According to palm oil plant
expert Takal Barus (Bisnis Indonesia, Oct. 23), improper
processing in state-owned estate companies' plants has caused the
damage.

As an engineer now still engaged in the palm oil industry, I
have noticed that beta carotene as the precursor of vitamin A as
well as tocopherol and tocotrienol as vitamin E, found abundant
in fresh oil palm fruits (over 1,500 ppm), are reduced to only
400 ppm in CPO due to an inferior system of processing. After
CPO's processing into cooking oil, only a maximum of 50 ppm of
carotene is left in various Indonesian CPO products. Ironically,
advertisements have formed the public opinion that the clearer
the oil, the higher its quality.

Why does the carotene grade of Malaysian CPO exceed 500 ppm as
required by India? Why is Malaysia capable of producing reddish
yellow cooking oil (CPO's original color) with 400 ppm of vitamin
A and 800 ppm of vitamin E?

The answer is very complex. But if we suspect the technology
we derive from Malaysia of having been modified in such a way
that our CPO quality becomes always low, it is unwise and
childish. The draining of condensate water in the back pressure
vessel (BPV) as instructed by Malaysian experts has not caused
the damage of our CPO, as indicated by Takal Barus.

NURKHAMID
Karawang, West Java