The Palm Oil Problem

Palm oil is in roughly 50% of all supermarket products — from cookies and crackers to shampoo and lipstick. It's also one of the leading drivers of tropical deforestation, responsible for destroying millions of hectares of rainforest in Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America. NoPalm Ingredients has a radical solution: grow the same fats in a lab, using food waste as fuel.

The Dutch startup feeds potato peels, food processing scraps, and other agricultural side streams to specialized oleaginous yeast in industrial fermentation tanks. The yeast converts these sugars into food-grade fats and oils that are functionally identical to palm oil, shea butter, and cocoa butter. Named one of four global finalists for the 2026 Curt Bergfors Food Planet Prize, NoPalm is turning waste into wonder.

The Opportunity

The global palm oil market is worth over $65 billion. Even capturing a small fraction of that with a deforestation-free alternative represents a massive business opportunity. NoPalm's approach is particularly compelling because it solves two problems at once: eliminating demand for destructive palm oil while also upcycling food waste that would otherwise go to landfill.