| dc.description.abstract | Determining the production costs of edible oils and the
choice between alternative production methods
With the continuous population growth, locally as well as
In the rest of the world, food suppliers will have to play
an ever increasing role in supplying adequate protein for
human consumption.
With the shrinking availability of agricultural land it
has already been determined that a higher yield can be obtained by utilising the land for vegetable protein instead
of animal protein. The most common protein bearing seeds
are soya, sunflower, groundnut and cotton. When these seeds
are processed two products become available, namely oil and
oilcake.
ln this paper oil will be treated as the main product and
oilcake as a by-product.
In order to be competitive It is of imperative importance
that a manufacturer should be able to determine the production costs as accurately as possible before any Investment decision can be taken.
The manufacturing of edible oils envolves four basic processes, namely decorticating, pressing, extraction and refining.
By determining the costs and process losses of each of these
processes It is possible to calculate the production cost.
Different factors like method of financing, depreciation
policy, interest payment and stock valuation will influence
the production cost. It appears, however, that for a given
process, product throughput i.e. utilisation of plant. will
exert the greatest influence on production cost.
Especially during times of Inflation it is important that
replacement cost and the time-value of money should get the
necessary attention in order to reflect a realistic cost-price of the product.
Production cost, however, is just a part of total cost and
in order to determine competitiveness in the market place the
non manufacturing costs will also have to be available .
Crude edible oil, predominantly consisting of glycerol and
fatty acids, can either be refined by means of a chemical
process or a physical process. The chemical process can
further be done on a batch or continuous basis where as in ... | en_US |
