KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) encourages entrepreneurs to use palm oil as a primary ingredient in soap formulations.
Director-General Datuk Dr Ahmad Parveez Hj. Ghulam Kadir said the Oleochemical Incubation Centre located at the MPOB's head office offers a series of facilities for pre-marketing trials to produce various types of palm-based soaps.
Interested entrepreneurs are invited to conduct their pre-marketing trials at its soap production facilities at the MPOB's head office in Bandar Baru Bangi.
He said the service offers a full package of formulations, quality testing facilities, and a team of competent staff and officers to assist the interested parties in operating the facilities and formulating the palm ingredient into the desired products.
MPOB has invested about RM400,000 for its first soap pilot plant, which later was upgraded with a brand new Mazzoni soap pilot plant.
The pilot plant has a capacity of 10kg per batch, and each customer usually uses the facilities for production trials of 1,000 bars of soap.
"There were also a few companies from overseas, especially from the Middle East who sought analytical consultations such as Yemen Co. for Ghee and Soap Industry from Taizz in Yemen," he said.
MPOB said palm-based soaps are developed with ingredients of natural origin, safe and environmentally friendly, which suit the current consumer demand.
The addition of active ingredients provides unique and niche functions to the soaps, which is a strategy in product marketing.
MPOB's competent researchers facilitate the companies to formulate different types of soap bars with additives from unique herbal extracts and powders.
MPOB's annual Transfer of Technology (ToT) Seminar and Exhibition has been a platform for MPOB and its collaboration partners to announce the latest available technologies ready for commercialisation.