Africa Gave the World Palm Oil. Asia Took the Profit. The Diaspora Still Buys It in Unlabelled Jerrycans.

Red palm oil is one of Africa's oldest exports and one of its most under-branded assets. This Brew Brief asks who owns the value, who is missing it, and who will finally build the brand.**

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## The Brief in 60 Seconds

- In 1961, Nigeria produced over 45% of the world's palm oil. Today Africa produces less than 5% of global supply despite holding about 20% of the world's suitable land.

- Indonesia and Malaysia together supply more than 80% of a global palm oil market valued at roughly USD 65–70 billion.

- Nigeria alone faces a deficit of more than 1 million tonnes a year, costing up to USD 600 million in imports.

- Nigeria's two listed plantation leaders, Presco and Okomu, posted combined 2025 revenues of about ₦529 billion, with net profits nearly doubling.

- The diaspora buys red palm oil every week, yet there is no dominant, trusted, premium African brand on its shelves.

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## The Red Gold Nobody Owns

Walk into any African grocery in Peckham, Houston or Brussels and you will find red palm oil. It usually sits in a recycled plastic bottle with a photocopied label, or no label at all. It is priced like a commodity and sold like an afterthought.

That should concern every serious African agribusiness investor. Red palm oil has everything a premium brand needs: origin, heritage, health credentials, striking colour, distinctive flavour and a fiercely loyal customer base. What it lacks is a brand.

## A Product Like No Other

Most of the world's palm oil is refined, bleached and deodorised into a neutral, colourless fat for biscuits, soaps and biofuels. Red palm oil is the opposite. It is the unrefined oil pressed from the palm fruit, keeping its deep colour and earthy taste.

That colour comes from carotenoids, the same compounds that give carrots their orange hue. Red palm oil is one of the richest plant sources of beta-carotene and carries vitamin E in its tocotrienol form. To West and Central African cooks, it cannot be replaced. Banga soup, egusi, red red and moambe simply do not taste right without it.

The global wellness market has taken notice. Vegan and specialty red palm oil was valued at about USD 0.85 billion in 2025, with sales reportedly growing at double-digit rates. Organic, cold-pressed and fair-trade versions command the strongest premiums. The premium segment is being built, but largely not by Africans.

## How Africa Lost the Throne

In 1961, Nigeria produced around 669,000 tonnes of palm oil, against roughly 95,000 tonnes from Malaysia. Nigeria held over 45% of world output, and Malaysia's early commercial plantations were built on West African palm stock.

The reversal has been total. By 2023, Indonesia was producing about 47 million tonnes, 59% of world supply, while Malaysia produced 19 million tonnes, or 24%. Asia Pacific now commands close to 70% of the global market by value.

Africa did not lose the tree. It lost the industrial system, the investment discipline and the trade relationships built around it.

## Africa's Market: A Deficit Dressed Up as Demand

Africa does not have a demand problem. It has a supply and value-capture problem.

Nigeria is the clearest example. The country produces about 1.4 million tonnes a year against domestic demand of more than 2.5 million tonnes. The resulting shortfall of over 1 million tonnes costs between USD 500 million and USD 600 million in imports annually, despite more than 3 million hectares of land suitable for oil palm.

The gap is widening. In the second quarter of 2026, Nigeria imported around ₦68 billion worth of crude palm oil from Liberia, Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana, nearly triple the first-quarter figure of about ₦23 billion. The government's new national strategy aims to lift Nigeria's share of the global market to 10%, an ambitious target from today's base of under 2%.

Across the continent, the pattern repeats. Africa was already importing over 7 million tonnes of palm oil a year, worth close to USD 5 billion, by the late 2010s, mostly from Asia. Egypt, Kenya and Tanzania lead imports by value. East and North Africa buy refined Asian oil, while West Africa's artisanal red oil rarely crosses its own borders in branded form.

## The Diaspora: Loyal, Underserved and Overpaying

Hard data on diaspora red palm oil sales does not exist, and that is itself revealing. Nobody measures a category nobody owns.

The wider market tells the story. The UK ethnic food market grew from roughly USD 1.9 billion in 2018 to USD 3.1 billion in 2024 and is forecast to reach about USD 6.2 billion by 2032, growing at more than 8% a year. African and Caribbean specialist retailers are moving online and building loyal national customer bases.

Diaspora customers buy red palm oil weekly and pay far more per litre than buyers in home markets. Yet they put up with:

- Inconsistent quality and colour from batch to batch

- Little or no traceability or certification

- Recurring fears of adulteration with industrial dyes such as Sudan IV, which have triggered past UK and EU recalls

- Packaging that would not survive a mainstream supermarket buyer's first look

That is not a mature market. It is a market waiting for a trusted brand.

## Who Produces It

**Smallholders** produce most of Africa's red palm oil, using traditional and often manual processing. Quality and safety vary widely.

**Listed Nigerian plantation companies** form the industrial backbone, and their results show how profitable the business can be:

- **Presco** posted record 2025 revenue of ₦331.2 billion, up 60%, and its market valuation climbed to about ₦16.4 trillion, placing it among the 20 most valuable companies on the Nigerian Exchange.

- **Okomu Oil** reported ₦174 billion in revenue in the first nine months of 2025, up 63%, with low debt and strong margins.

- Together, the two generated about ₦529 billion in 2025 revenue and roughly ₦202 billion in net profit.

**Multinationals**, including Wilmar, Olam and the Ivorian group SIFCA, control much of the refined and branded segment.

## Who Buys It

- **West and Central African households**, the core volume buyers at home and abroad

- **Food manufacturers and refiners**, many of whom import because local supply is short

- **The diaspora**, mainly Nigerian, Ghanaian, Cameroonian, Congolese and Sierra Leonean communities in the UK, US, Canada and Europe

- **Health and wellness consumers**, a smaller but higher-margin segment drawn to carotenoids and whole-food credentials

- **Brazilian and Afro-Caribbean cooks**, for whom dendê oil is central to Bahian cuisine

## Case Studies: Following the Value

**1. Wilmar: Owning the Brand, Not Just the Plantation**

Wilmar International shows where the money sits. Its Nigerian venture, PZ Wilmar, sells cooking oils under the Mamador and Devon King's brands, both market leaders in Nigeria. In 2025, Wilmar agreed to buy out its UK partner PZ Cussons' 50% stake, citing confidence in Nigeria's population growth and palm-growing potential.

*The value story:* a Singapore-listed company is betting heavily on Nigerian consumers, and it is doing so through brands, not bulk oil.

**2. Presco: Integration and Regional Ambition**

Presco evolved from a plantation operator into a vertically integrated regional player. In 2025 it completed its full takeover of Ghana Oil Palm Development Company, extending its reach across West Africa. Analysts point to its premium refined products as a key source of margin.

*The value story:* Presco is the closest thing Africa has to a homegrown palm oil champion, yet its products serve mainly industrial and domestic buyers, not the diaspora shelf.

**3. SIFCA: Africa's Refining Heavyweight**

The Ivorian group SIFCA owns Africa's largest palm oil refinery. Wilmar and Olam bought a 25% strategic stake back in 2007.

*The value story:* African palm assets attract serious global capital, often more readily than they attract African brand-builders.

**4. The Western Superfood Play**

US and European health-food brands have repositioned red palm oil as a premium wellness product, wrapped in organic and sustainability claims, at several times the per-litre price of a diaspora jerrycan.

*The value story:* the fruit is the same. The price gap comes almost entirely from story, certification and packaging.

## Six Missed Opportunities

1. **Origin branding.** Coffee has Yirgacheffe. Olive oil has Kalamata. Red palm oil has no protected origin, even though oils from the Niger Delta, Ashanti and Cameroon taste distinctly different.

2. **Trust as a product.** The adulteration scares are a branding opportunity in disguise. A brand offering batch testing, lab certificates and full traceability could win share on safety alone.

3. **Certified sustainability.** Europe places heavy weight on sustainability certification. Credible, deforestation-free smallholder oil could be positioned as the ethical alternative to Asian plantation oil.

4. **Product range.** Cold-pressed premium bottles, culinary sachets, recipe kits, cosmetic-grade oil and carotenoid extracts are each a distinct revenue line.

5. **The second-generation diaspora.** Young British-Nigerians and African-Americans want heritage products that look and feel modern. Today they can only buy their grandmother's ingredient in their grandmother's packaging.

6. **Mainstream retail.** Supermarkets are expanding their world food aisles, but buyers need consistent supply, regulatory compliance and a brand they can merchandise.

## The Brew Brief Verdict

Africa does not lack palm oil. It lacks ownership of the story.

The continent that gave the world the oil palm now imports refined oil from the countries it once supplied. Its diaspora pays premium prices for an unbranded product of uncertain quality. Meanwhile, global players buy into African plantations and African consumer brands because they see what local capital has been slow to act on.

The value is not in the tree. It is in the bottle, the label, the certificate and the trust. Whoever builds the first credible, origin-proud, diaspora-loved red palm oil brand will not just sell oil. They will own a category that has been hiding in plain sight for sixty years.

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**What Investors Should Watch**

- Delivery against Nigeria's national oil palm strategy and its 10% global share target

- Continued consolidation by Presco, Okomu and Wilmar across West Africa

- Tightening UK and EU food safety and deforestation rules, which will reward traceable suppliers and punish the rest

- The first serious premium red palm oil brand to win a major UK supermarket listing

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Africa Brew Brief is an investigative editorial series by Africa One Media, examining the commodities, trade flows and policy decisions shaping African agribusiness.*