Canola plants produce an oil low in saturated fat for diet-conscious Americans. But it may soon be used as a source for richer fats used in detergents, soaps and shampoos.
Calgene Inc. of Davis, Calif., said Tuesday it won clearance from the Agriculture Department to grow and ship a canola plant that has been altered to produce laurate.Laurate is a fatty acid found in palm kernel and coconut oils, some of the worst kind for people wanting to keep their arteries clear. But laurate is prized for making soaps, detergents and shampoos. Laurate oils also are used for non-dairy coffee "whiteners" and whipped toppings.
Roger Salquist, chairman and chief executive officer of the company, said the plant will offer the first supply of those important industrial oils north of the equator. He also said the plant offers an alternative to winter wheat as a crop that can be planted in the fall and harvested in spring.
Right now, canola is a minor U.S. crop, with this year's harvest estimated at 190,000 tons, the Agriculture Department says. Europe and Canada are the major world suppliers, with harvests in the millions of tons.
Salquist said the company is already planting thousands of acres of the crop near Albany, Ga. "What we are doing now is producing commercial but pilot-scale quantities," he said.
He said the company has already has a buyer for the oil, but he wouldn't identify the buyer.
Canola is a version of rapeseed developed in Canada during the 1960s.
Calgene scientists altered the canola plant by adding a gene from the California Bay tree. The result was canola varieties with nearly 40 percent laurate.
This is the third approval by the Agriculture Department of a Calgene product as the department begins allowing more genetically altered plants to be grown. The company pioneered the Flavr-Savr tomato, altered to stay ripe longer and has won approval of an herbicide-tolerant cotton.