Oil Supplier Index 2025

Oils and fats are essential in cooking practices across the globe. However, certain fats, like trans fatty acids (TFA) and partially hydrogenated oils (PHO), pose serious health risks such as increased risk of heart attacks and death. Therefore, it is essential to have a clear understanding of the policies and practices adopted by edible oil manufacturers and suppliers to ensure that populations worldwide have access to safe and healthy products.

Mandatory TFA policies are currently in effect in 60 countries which together hold 55.4% of the world population. Of these, 56 countries have best-practice policies in effect, covering only 46% of the world’s population. WHO considers two approaches taken together to be best practice:

1) restricting the intake of TFA (iTFA) to 2g per 100g of total fat and

2) banning Partially Hydrogenated Oils (PHOs).

At the industry level, progress and commitments to remove and eliminate TFA have been made by some of the world’s largest food and beverage manufacturers. However, PHOs or altered oils meant for human consumption are still being produced and used in countries with weak or no regulations e.g. Sub-Saharan Africa, South America and Southwest and Southeast Asia.  As suppliers of PHOs, edible oil manufacturers/suppliers should be held to account for the production and sales of PHO and be transparent about their practices to prevent its presence in the global food supply chain.  

This project expands on the Access to Nutrition initiative’s (ATNi) efforts to encourage the private sector to contribute to improved health outcomes by eliminating partially hydrogenated oils from the food supply chain. It additionally furthers work that ATNi carried out on behalf of the World Health Organization (WHO) to monitor 11 of the largest global food and beverage manufacturers (all IFBA members at the time) on their commitment to eliminate iTFA to <2g per 100g of fat and oils in their full product portfolios.