In an industry like food ingredients that is seemingly defined by the need for constant innovation, edible oils might seem to be fairly humdrum. Nothing could be further from the truth. The category of edible oils has been beset by multiple sources of pressure over the years, and the more producers of these ingredients do to meet these challenges, the more those challenges have increased.
While the Book of Ecclesiastes might say there is nothing new under the Sun, even now, oilseed experts are tending to sun-drenched fields of a number of innovative plants that will produce healthier, higher-functioning oils. Some interesting oils are lined up to flow into consumers and food manufacturers’ fryers and cruets. They include naturally developed oils, as well as modified strains of soybean, new strains of rapeseed, doubled ponds of algae—and even some unexpected sources—like tigernuts.