food south-africa food-processing
What is the legal significance of explicitly designating an ingredient as a fruit oil?
<p>A South African food item lists an ingredient as olive (fruit) oil.</p>
<p>Another South African food item lists an ingredient as non-hydrogenated palm (fruit) oil.</p>
<p>I’ve never seen such designations on ingredient listings and assume that it has some legal significance to specify that it is a fruit oil (as in an oil of the olive fruit, rather than the seed) in South African law.</p>

<p>This may be historical with a quasi-legal underpinning. Apparently, regulations that might have banned palm kernel oil were repealed, but they would not have banned palm fruit oil. It is most likely there to inform consumers that these are the fruit oils, and not palm kernel or olive seed oil (the latter would not be generally used in food, the former is almost universally what people outside Africa mean when they speak of &quot;palm oil&quot;). Palm kernel oil is regulated in the US in a way that palm fruit oil is not, and I can't find any evidence that olive seed oil is legal in food, in the US.</p>
