The oil palm starts bearing fruit two or three years after planting and fruit continuously throughout its life of around 25 years. Palm oil: production, processing, characterization, and uses.  The first step in the palm oil production process is harvesting the palm fruit. Harvested bunches are transported to factories where they are first sterilised and then threshed. Once separated from the bunch, the fruits go through a digester, to then be mechanically pressed in order to extract palm fruit oil from the pulp.

The pulp of the mature fruit typically contains 56-70% of edible oil.Palm oil: Processing, characterization and utilization in the food industry. The kernels (soft inner part of the seed) are separated at this stage and pressed independently to extract palm kernel oil. Crude palm oil is further refined through physical and chemical processes depending on what the end product should be. Degumming, bleaching, and deodorization are typical refining activities. RBD Palm oil: Processing, characterization and utilization in the food industry. After CPO refining, the final step of the palm oil production process may be to fractionation(separate) the oil into liquid and solid phases.