Palm oil is a tropical woody plant oil, which is the most widely produced, consumed and traded in the world. It, together with soybean oil and rapeseed oil, is called "the three largest vegetable oils in the world" and has a history of more than 5,000 years.

Palm oil is squeezed from the palm fruit of the oil palm tree. Palm oil and palm kernel oil are extracted from pulp and kernel respectively. Traditionally, palm oil contains only the former. Palm oil can be refined and separated to obtain products with different melting points, which are widely used in catering industry, food industry and oil industry respectively. As the main palm oil producing areas, Southeast Asia and Africa account for about 88% of the total palm oil production in the world. Indonesia, Malaysia and Nigeria are the top three producers in the world. At present, China has become the largest importer of palm oil in the world, and the annual consumption of palm oil is about 6 million tons, accounting for 20% of the total market.