Thailand’s bottled palm oil price drops slightly

After Thailand’s price of bottled palm oil has kept surging and surging for months, it has now finally come down a bit. Prices in department stores and supermarkets on 1 litre bottles have dropped from 69-70 baht, to 64-65 baht. The director-general of Thailand’s Internal Trade Department, Udom Srisomsong, pointed out that prices may differ between stores, though.

Udom stressed that prices must reflect actual production costs. He said some have complained and claimed that, as the prices of raw palm seeds peaked at around 62-63 baht per kilogram and have now dropped to 42-43 baht per kilogram, the prices of 1 litre bottles of palm oil should be about 42-43 baht.

There has been a palm oil shortage in Indonesia since the Russia-Ukraine crisis has impacted the supply of vegetable oil in the country, making palm oil more expensive. Indonesia is the world’s largest palm oil exporter. Palm oil is only grown in the tropics, and is by far the most consumed and traded edible oil in the world.

It’s estimated that, when walking into a convenience store in Asia, almost 50% of the products would involve palm oil in their manufacture or are an actual ingredient.

The palm oil crisis has plunged much of the world into a conundrum. Now that palm oil prices have skyrocketed, prices of other vegetable oils have now gone up as well, such as soybean and sunflower oil.

SOURCE: Thai PBS World