Sawdust can replace palm oil - even in food

Palm oil is an essential component of about half of the products in your local supermarket - not just food, but also things like soap, cosmetics and laundry detergent.

But excessive palm oil cultivation can be destructive to the environment. It's known to destroy the habitats of endangered species, contribute to CO2 emissions, and degrade land.

RAZOR's Reya El-Salahi visits Estonia, to meet the scientists who want to replace palm oil with an industrial waste that's found in nearly every country - sawdust.

And this sawdust can be used to make food.

Raul Rinken, the project manager at the biotechnology company Fibenol, explains how wood waste is refined into products that are rich in cellulosic sugars.

Next, AIO, a clean technology innovator, uses those refined sugars to make food-grade oils.

AIO's co-founder Nemailla Bonturi explains how a special yeast feeds on the cellulosic sugars to produce oil. Quality manager Evelyn Lumi demonstrates how the oil can be used instead of butter to make muffins. And AIO's head of strain engineering, Luisa Czamanski Nora, explains how the yeast can be potentially modified to make different kinds of oils in the future.