and Magazine of the Ceylon Agricultural Society, 



395 



GERMANS PRODUCE AN EDIBLE 

 FAT FROM GOPRA. 



Washington, Feb. 12, 1909. — [The success of a 

 number of German manufacturers in producing 

 edible fats from copra, the meat of the coconut, 

 has aroused much interest in the United States 

 and has brought to the Bureau of Manufactures 

 a number of requests for detailed information on 

 the subject. Vice-Consul Joseph H. Leute, 

 of Mannheim, by instructions received from the 

 bureau, has forwarded a report which our 

 correspondent is enabled to present below : — ] 



Perhaps not the least of the renowned excel- 

 lence of German cooking is due to the use of good 

 baking and frying fats. Refined lard, so com- 

 mon in the United States, is little used here, 

 being disdained by the well -to-do. The poorer 

 people use cheap varieties of it, which the 

 butchers and sausage manufacturers usually 

 make. The better classes use beef fat, goose 

 grease and butter, some families (and these not 

 of the wealthy class either) going so far as to use 

 butter for everything. However, butter and 

 other animal fats have been soaring in price, 

 along with other articles of food, and so manu- 

 factured fats have been coming on the market. 

 The German law is fairly strict in the matter of 

 foodstuffs and their quality, so that really poor 

 fats cannot be sold. One Mannheim firm has 

 brought out " palmin," a cooking and baking fat 

 of purity and excellence. Its sale has enormously 

 increased and an export trade is developing. 



Palmin is a hard, snow-white vegetablo fat of 

 practically 100 per cent, purity. While the 

 process of its manufacture was originally secret, 

 so many factories manufacturing similar lines 

 have recently sprung up in Germany that it can 

 no longer be so considered. Palmin is made 

 from "copra," which is simply the dried and 

 smoked meat of coconuts. Heretofore the bulk 

 of the copra used has come from Ceylon. The 

 Mannheim firm is now contemplating erecting a 

 factory where it will prepare the meat itself, 

 which will mean, among other things, even more 

 scrupulous cleanliness than before. This copra 

 is treated with high-pressure steam to romove 

 all oils, water, etc. After the removal of the 

 impurities and water the fat secured is 100 per 

 cent, pure and only slight treatment is then 

 needed to make the finished product. 



GROWTH OF THE BUSINESS. 



The Mannheim factory started with an output 

 of about 2,000 pounds a day, or 700,000 pounds 

 a year, and a working force of 50 men The 

 output now is between 20,000,000 and 25,000,000 

 pounds a year, and the working force has grown 

 to about 80 men and 140 girls at Mannheim and 

 40 men at a branch factory at Williamsburg. 

 The product has found such favour that the 

 factory can scarcely keep up with the demand. 

 The main office will soon be removed to Ham- 

 burg and will have a force of 100 men. The new 

 factory to be erected there will be used mainly 

 for manufacturing copra. 



The following local prices for cooking fats 

 will make apparent the reasons for the growth 

 of the factory and of the sale of its product ;— 



FAT— SELLING PRICE PER POUND. 



Cents. 



Margarine ... ... ... 15 to 20 



Sausage fat ... ... ... 17 to 20 



Pork or beef fat— Not rendered ... 20 



Rendered ... ... ... 27 to 28 



Butter ... ... ... 30 



Goose grease ... ... ... 50 



Palmin ... ... ... 17J 



Palmin is neatly packed in oiled paper in J, 1, 

 5 and 10-pound blocks, and owing to its hardness 

 and snow-white colour, makes an appetising fat, 

 being also of great fat purity, while none of the 

 other fats contain less than 7 to 10 per cent of 

 water. Having such success with Palmin, the 

 Company has put on the market a substitute 

 for butter called "palmona." Contrary to the 

 methods used for introducing palmin, which was 

 pushed with real American advertising vim, 

 palmona has not been advertised at all. It has, 

 however^en joyed such immediate popularity that 



THE ENTIRE OUTPUT OF THE FACTORY IS USUALLY 

 SOLD FAR IN ADVANCE. 



Owing to its lack of water and oils, palmin is 

 very hard and cannot bespread. Palmona being 

 manufactured from the pure palmin, the latter 

 had to be worked until enough water was taken 

 up to make it pliable. As a matter of faot, 

 palmin will not take up _ water at all, and the 

 little spheres of fat remain absolutely unequal- 

 ised and can be seen on examining palmona 

 closely. They likewise do not take up the colour 

 of the egg yolks, etc., which are added to impart 

 a resemblance to butter. Palmona sells for 22| 

 cents a pound, while table butter costs 35 cents. 

 The factory guarantees its freshness for a period 

 of three weeks, for which purpose it has pur- 

 chased specially built refrigerator cars; the 

 plan is also to establish branch factories, 

 first in distant parts of the home market 

 and then in foreign countries. The ordinary 

 refrigerator cars of the state railways were 

 found inefficient, one reason being that 

 they have sliding doors which do not shut 

 tightly. Therefore specially constructed cars 

 with folding doors, etc., were built by a German 

 car-building firm for shipping palmin. The cars 

 were not bought outright, but leased or rented 

 to the palmin company at about §2,000 a year, 

 the constructing company carrying all risks and 

 insurance. At the end of five years the car be- 

 comes the property of the palmin company. At 

 present they have some twelve cars running and 

 eight more being built. The state railways 

 charge only the freight rates on loaded cars, re- 

 turning empty cars free of charge. The cars 

 naturally also have a considerable value as 

 advertisement. 



While the greater part of the company's pro- 

 duct is sold in Germany, it has a growing 

 foreign trade, the largest part of which is with 

 South Africa. Most of the latter business is 

 handled through London, because of the local 

 feeling, which will eventually lead to the estab- 

 lishment of a branch house in England and 

 thus further increase the demand. As other 

 markets are created, this will also be the pro- 

 cedure in countries with a high protective tariff, 

 — New York Oil Reporter, Feb. 15, 



