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Red Gold

The Heartland Of West African Palm Oil Trade Is Right Here In The Niger Delta.

Who We Are

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Abodunde Farms Limited places relationships with the small-holders in our local community, and wider region, at the heart and center of our business.

Abodunde Farms Limited is a regional manufacturer and wholesale distributor of crude palm oil (CPO) under the Oba Tobi brand name. We are based in the Akoko-Edo Local Government Area in Edo State, Nigeria. The area is part of the tri-state region of Edo, Kogi and Ondo States and includes major cities and towns like Owo, Ikare, Okene, Lokoja, Ajaokuta, Auchi and Ekpoma.

 

 

While there are no large scale plantations or corporate mills in our immediate region, SME's like ours work closely with thousands of small-holder farmers and dealers at ancient markets and other rural trading posts, to create a regional palm oil ecosystem at scale.

The Niger Delta, Accounts For 60% of Nigerian Palm Oil Production.

Our Products

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Crude Palm Oil (CPO) is the primary product we produce at our factory, most of which is sold to regional dealers with customers in the Food industry.

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Palm Kernel Nut (PK) is the seed of the palm fruit. We sell whole palm kernel nuts  & the whitish kernels to kernel oil extraction plants.

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Fibers and Shells are residual products of the milling process and are  used for wide ranging applications across various  industries, including renewable energy.

Sourcing

Our palm oil production starts with sourcing the highest quality fruit (commonly referred to as FFB - Fresh Fruit Bunches).  Oil palm farming around the world is generally carried out in three systems: Industrial sized estate plantations, medium and small holder plantations intercropped with other crops, and natural wild groves.​ There are no corporate sized plantations in our market, but according to Market Development for the Niger Delta (MADE), there are 4000 small holder plantations and wild grove farmers in our region.

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There are three varieties of palm fruit, namely Dura, Pisifera and Tenera. Tenera is a crossbreed of the Dura (female) and the Pisifera (male). We source only Tenera because it can yield 30% more oil than the equivalent fruit weight of Dura or Pisifera. Edo State has the largest densities of the highly sought after Tenera variety in Nigeria.

In the 1960s, Nigeria was the world’s leading producer of palm oil. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, and  The National Palm Produce Association of Nigeria (NPPAN), Nigeria now imports (25%) of all its' palm oil.

Milling

Modernized SME mills like Abodunde Farms Limited (producing 1000-10,000 liters of oil per day), require the use of electrical, mechanical, thermal and chemical energy. The production capacity, complexity level, automation and  energy consumed vary by machine and quality of end product desired.

1. Bunch Reception

We receive Fresh Fruit Bunches (FFB) at the factory, then weigh and inspect them for ripeness before placing them on a conveyor to sterilizing station.

3. Threshing

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At the threshing station a circular mechanical process is used  to shake the palm fruits from their bunches before being sent to the digestion station.

2. Bunch Sterilization

Our sterilization process uses steam with pressure at 40 psi (140°C) for 75 – 90 minutes which softens fruit for release from the bunch, enzyme inactivation and oil extraction.

4. Digestion

We digest the fruit in a  steam-heated cylindrical vessel fitted with a central rotating shaft carrying a number of stirring arms, this releases the palm oil in the fruit through the rupture or breaking down of the oil-bearing cells. 

5. Pressing

Screw pressing is our method of palm oil extraction. Mechanical screw palm oil pressing machines are used to extract the oil out of digested palm pulp which is a mixture of oil, water, fibre and nuts.

7. Vibrating Screen

Crude palm oil carries all types of matter like fibers from the fruit, dirt, and shell fragments. It is important to remove these large particles first.  We do that with a vibrating screen which applies vibration and to a sieving process.

6. Nut Recovery 

The residue from pressing the fruit is a  mixture of nut and fibre. We dry the mixture and seperate nut from fiber. At this stage we package some of the whole nuts for sale and load the rest  in a palm shell and nut separator machine that crushes the nut shell to release the kernel inside, which is also packaged for sale.

8. Clarifier

In palm oil mills, clarification tanks serve the purpose of separating the sludge the free oil and the coarse oil droplets. The clarifier tank consists of various compartments, for crude palm oil, settled palm oil, water, and the heater unit. Our final oil product  is obtained through water displacement.

9. Plate Filter

A plate filter is mainly used to remove non-glyceride within the crude palm oil, like fine grounded nuts shell, trace metals and substance of oxidation. It is also an ideal solution for oil filtration blocking and stumble oil discharging.

10. Drying 


Due to high amounts of water used in the purification process, a treatment referred to as oil drying and cooling is required. The purified crude oil goes into a vacuum evaporation system.

11. Storage 

To prevent excessive crystallization, our oil is stored within a temperature range of 5-10 â—¦C above melting point. Organic crude palm oil can be stored up to 12 months under good conditions.

Quality Control

At Abodunde Farms Limited we believe that producing  quality crude palm oil involves 5 pillars, we call them the 5 M's:  Materials, Method, Machine, Management and Man.

Material

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Machine
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A mill cannot produce quality oil without quality raw material. Abodunde Farms Limited  has a rigorous sourcing and produce intake system.

CPO quality can be affected by sub standard equipment, poor maintenance,  and an inability to access spare parts and good technicians with expediency. All of which will terminate the entire processing cycle.  Abodunde ​Farms Limited invests in high standard foreign and local equipment, and we invite certified milling equipment engineers to  conduct monthly training for our onsite technicians.

Method
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Management

The lack of a routine mill inspection process affects the quality of the end product. Abodunde Farms Limited has daily, weekly, and monthly cadence to inspect all processes.

Management's commitment to supporting production, and facility operations in order to achieve the quality standards set by the customer is very important. At Abodunde Farms Limited we expect all managers to provide continuous guidance and direction so that employees understand the importance quality. 

Man (Human)

Employee welfare is a necessary aspect of  Improving production quality  and maintaining a high level of employee moral that any efficient product line requires. While Abodunde Farms Limited has an 85% extended family roster, our standards for employee development, and accountability are no different, and are perhaps higher than you would expect to find at leading SME's in Nigeria.

Palm Oil in West Africa:

A Long History.

For thousands of years, the oil palm, which is indigenous to West Africa, has had an intimate relationship with humans. An explosive expansion of oil palm groves throughout western and central Africa in the wake of a dry period around 2,500 years ago enabled human migration and agricultural development. Archaeological evidence shows that palm fruit and kernels and their oil already formed an integral part of West African diets 5,000 years ago. 

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Togo, West Africa - Slaves transport barrels of palm oil, the top resource of the country. Source: Alamy 

 

The End of Slavery: Palm Oil "Ruffians" and Canoe Houses.

 

​​International palm oil trade took off with the abolition of the slave trade to the Americas in 1807. At the time, the main sources of fats and oils in northern Europe were animal-based: tallow, lard, whale and fish oils – products which it was a challenge to secure regular supplies. There was therefore a ready market for palm oil, became known as the “grease the wheels of the industrial revolution” in the early 19th century.

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​West African producers successfully responded to growing European palm oil demand through the gradual modification and expansion of existing small-scale production methods. â€‹

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Palm oil factory likely in either Opobo or Bonny, c. late 19th century, Niger Delta, Nigeria, (Image © Jonathan Adagogo Green / The Trustees of the British MuseumCC BY NC SA)

Increasing from 157 metric tons per year in the late 1790s to 32,480 tons by the early 1850s, Palm oil was brought to the United Kingdom by small-scale West Africa traders who came to be known as “palm oil ruffians”. The trade is not for the faint-hearted. Once a year, traders would spend up to six weeks traveling in small schooners to trading stations on the West African coast. 

Unlike the large industrial concessions that were later established in Southeast Asia, West African palm oil trade was, and is still largely driven by wild and semi-wild groves in the hinterland of the Niger Delta Oil Rivers where there is an abundance of wild oil palm groves. However, they were only reachable via thousands of canals and tributaries in the delta, couple this with a low density network of roads, and the notorious centuries long insecurity and violence of the Niger Delta, and sourcing natural resources in the Niger Delta is what amounts to "African Queen" or "Blood Diamond" adventure.

In the early 19th century, Bonny was one of the major trading ports in the Oil Rivers region of today’s Nigeria. This image shows hulks anchored off the town, with canoes approaching to trade. (Image © National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London)

European traders lived and traded entirely on hulks – former, abandoned sailing ships. This was partly to avoid deadly diseases such as malaria and yellow fever, but also because local authorities did not permit them to build private residence on land. Inland trade was controlled tightly by local brokers and village chiefs. So European traders gave native traders goods such as cooking utensils, salt and cloth “on trust” on exchange for palm oil from inland areas of production. 

 

One was the unintended consequences of European trade in the Niger Delta was a new class of African merchants, who freed themselves from some of the restrictions of traditional society and were able to accumulate personal wealth and power to rival that of the local kings. Sometimes, indeed, as at Komenda on the Gold Coast or with King Jaja of Opobo in the Niger Delta, the emergence of the trading city-states represented a social revolution as well as political innovation. The kinship system gave way to the “House” system, by which both freemen and the large numbers of former slaves needed to operate trading canoes and trading settlements were bound together by common economic interests into large indigenous corporations headed by the leading merchants.

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"Canoe houses" were even established by former slaves who had returned from America, and Brazil. Many started by gaining useful contacts and training in the service of European merchants. 

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King Jaja of Opobo’s canoe (unknown photographer, 1882). Of Igbo slave origin and part of a Bonny canoe house, Jaja rose to power through the palm oil trade. He established his own state, Opobo, which became the largest European trading station on the West African coast. Powerful brokers like Jaja commanded fleets of 300-400 large canoes, each of which could hold up to 2,400 gallons of palm oil. (Image: Nationaal Museum van Wereld culturenCC0)

Industrial revolutions: 19th & 20th Century.

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British soap makers, Lever Brothers, made the switch to palm oil early. In 1897 the photo above taken at their portside facility in Liverpool, thousands of barrels of soap-making ingredients, including palm oil and nuts imported from West Africa, are being unloaded from boats and stacked in rows. (Image: Henry Bedford Lemere).

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Soap making was one of the first areas to be industrialized at scale, and in a world with increasing hygiene standards, manufacturers found palm oil to be an ideal substitute for the animal-based fatty wax traditionally used in soap manufacturing.

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​In the late 19th century, chemists discovered that hydrogenation could be used to process vegetable oils into margarine. â€‹As industrial revolution continued into the 20th century, palm oil became an important lubricating agent for all types of engines and equipment. It also served an important role in tinplating, enabling the mass production of canned industrial foods. This increased demand required the colonial powers continue expanding their reach elsewhere in the tropics. A game-changing development was slowly beginning: the rise of the oil palm plantation. Within a few short decades, expanses of Southeast Asian forest had been cleared, creating a fast track to industrial-scale monoculture, corporate plantations, thus ending West Africa’s position as the global hub of mass produced palm oil, albeit the market for West African produced palm oil in Africa, remained of global scale.

​Changing Fortunes: Indigenous Wealth to Foreign Monopoly. And back to Indigenous Blessing.​

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To understand the future of this commodity in West Africa, it is important understand the past of the modern international trade.

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Early on in the modern trade of palm oil, expatriate firms were reluctant to move into the interior of West and Central Africa, and African traders benefited. These advantages were lost as foreign firms began to move inland starting in 1905, trading directly with the natives. Indigenous fortunes worsened with the construction of railways and roads that intensified foreign penetration of the interior, swallowing up what remained of the indigenous market. 

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​In the mid 20th century, large deposits of crude oil were found in the Niger Delta, and "Black Gold" quickly replaced "Red Gold" as priority by the Nigerian government (still largely ruled by British proxy). In the 21st century, SME agriculture is back on the rise in Nigeria & West Africa, so it is important to remind ourselves that it is only when palm oil is properly regulated by the indigenous people on whose land the raw material is sourced, has it proven sustainable. As indigenous palm oil companies begin making a comeback in West Africa, the outdated model of colonial profiteering now faces a reckoning. 

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Sources: Dialogue Earth, University of Cambridge

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We believe that our primary responsibility is to grow, source and produce natural, hygienic, quality, and life enhancing food.

 

 

We are committed to supporting our local community through our business activity.

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HQ: 1 Federal Road, Ibillo-Ekor, Edo State, Nigeria

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Admin: 21 S. 11th Street, Philadelphia, PA, USA 19107

 

W: www.AbodundeFarms.com

E: Info@Abodundefarms.com

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Abodunde® Farms Limited. All Rights Reserved. 2025.

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