When the first oil palms were planted back in 1969 Thailand was regarded as an unpromising region for this new crop. Fruit yields were limited by a severe annual dry season and there were few large areas of land available for commercial oil palm plantations. These constraints coupled with inadequate supporting infrastructure led to the view that Thailand’s oil palm growers could never compete successfully with the much larger and more developed palm oil industries in Malaysia and Indonesia.

Univanich Palm Oil PCL has led the way in changing that negative perception into a new reality. Thailand is now the world’s third-largest palm oil producer with annual production exceeding two million tonnes. In helping to promote this successful transformation the company has emphasized what it perceives as the “Four Pillars of Sustainability.”