Colgate-Palmolive and NoPalm partner to cut palm oil from soap

Colgate-Palmolive has entered a multi-year partnership with Dutch biotech firm NoPalm Ingredients to industrialize soap bars made from fermentation-based oil alternatives rather than palm oil. The collaboration aims to bring sustainable, yeast-derived oils developed from upcycled agri-food side streams into mainstream personal care products, focusing on soap bars. This move comes as the industry reduces its reliance on traditional palm oil and embraces eco-conscious alternatives.

Palm oil has a big environmental and ethical footprint. Its high usage in products has led to widespread deforestation, especially in tropical countries like Indonesia and Malaysia, where rainforests are cleared to make way for plantations.

This threatens biodiversity and endangered species, while simultaneously adding carbon to the atmosphere. The personal care industry has been repeatedly scrutinized for issues like labor exploitation and unsafe working conditions on these plantations, driving the demand for ethical and traceable sourcing supply chains.

According to NoPalm, the oil alternative offers a 90% lower carbon footprint and 99% less land use than traditional oils. Colgate-Palmolive emphasizes that while it continues to support responsibly sourced palm oil, alternative solutions are crucial to meet future demand sustainably.

Personal Care Insights speaks with Lars Langhout, CEO and co-founder of NoPalm Ingredients, about the palm-alternative fermentation-based oil and its potential influence on personal care formulation.

What is your oil alternative made from, and how does it compare to palm oil in personal care products?

Langhout: Our alternative to palm oil is produced through a patented, non-GMO yeast fermentation process that upcycles food industry side streams — transforming waste into high-value, functional ingredients.

By fine-tuning our fermentation parameters, we can tailor the fatty acid profile of our oils to match or even outperform traditional vegetable and tropical oils in specific applications. This allows us to create targeted solutions across various personal care applications — such as skin care, hair care, or solid cosmetics — while significantly reducing environmental impact.

Our oils deliver the same sensory and functional performance formulators expect from palm-derived ingredients — without the deforestation footprint.

In tropical countries like Indonesia and Malaysia, rainforests are cleared to make way for palm oil plantations.How do you source the ingredients for the oil?

Langhout: We partner with industrial food producers to source sugar-rich side streams — such as potato peels, vegetable cuttings, or dairy by-products — that would otherwise be discarded or underutilized.

Our business model is to co-locate our fermentation facilities directly at the source of these side streams. This eliminates transportation-related emissions and costs and ensures full traceability and transparency from input to output.

Our non-GMO yeast converts these nutrients into intracellular oil, which is then extracted and refined into high-quality functional lipids.

How does the fermentation process work, and what are its benefits?

Langhout: We use non-GMO yeast in a biomass fermentation process inspired by beer brewing — except instead of producing alcohol, our microorganisms produce oil. Unlike many companies focused on genetic strain engineering, our core innovation lies in optimizing the fermentation and downstream process.

This approach enables a faster innovation cycle, fewer regulatory hurdles, and a low-CAPEX model. It is a robust and scalable platform, allowing us to produce quickly at industrial volumes and offer pricing competitive with today’s conventional oils — because customers expect sustainable solutions without paying a premium.

How is your oil more sustainable than palm oil?

Langhout: Sustainability is at the core of our innovation. An independent Life Cycle Assessment conducted by the Bühler Group found that our process uses 99% less land and emits 90% fewer CO2 emissions than conventional palm oil production.

Because we do not rely on land-intensive monocultures, we avoid the major drivers of deforestation and biodiversity loss while also addressing food waste by valorizing side streams. This truly circular approach decouples oil production from agriculture, unlocking new levels of sustainability for the personal care industry.

How do you make sure your ingredients are traceable and ethically sourced?

Langhout: By producing locally and co-locating with food manufacturers, we gain direct control over the source and quality of our feedstocks. Every side stream we use is traceable back to its origin, and we only work with partners who meet strict environmental and social criteria.

Our fermentation process replaces long, opaque commodity supply chains with short, transparent loops. This allows us to offer traceability from the original food side stream to the final cosmetic ingredient — meeting the rising demand for ethical and transparent sourcing in beauty.

Besides soap bars, what other types of personal care products could your oil be used in?Colgate-Palmolive says it continues to support responsibly sourced palm oil but alternative solutions are necessary.

Langhout: Our flagship oil — set to launch commercially in 2026 — has already been tested by leading personal care and cosmetic companies across multiple product categories. In skin care, for example, it acts as a unique emollient with a distinctive sensorial signature. In solid formats, its fatty acid profile contributes to desirable melting behavior and product stability.

The feedback has been unanimous: our oil delivers a novel skin feel not currently available in the market, combining a sensorial experience with technology that helps preserve the beauty of our planet. 

We recently scaled our yeast oil production to a 120,000-liter industrial fermentation run. This achievement validates the technical and commercial viability of converting food side streams into functional oils at scale and confirms that our proprietary fermentation and downstream processing technology reliably delivers high quality, palm-free oil at industrial volumes.

Thanks to our recent industrial-scale production milestone, we are now preparing to deliver large-volume samples to accelerate development across these applications.

It is a breakthrough for sustainable ingredient innovation — and a clear signal that circular, fermentation-based oils are ready for mainstream adoption in personal care.