About Hudson & Knight

Hudson & Knight is a wholly owned subsidiary of Sime Darby Berhad, Malaysia’s largest listed plantation company and largest property developer, but the world’s number one listed palm oil originator. Sime Darby’s Plantation and Agri-business Division oversees a total plantation area of over half a million hectares in 208 oil palm estates, with 65 oil mills in Malaysia and Indonesia. This translates into a potential for producing 8% of the world’s total palm oil output.

Hudson & Knight (PTY) LTD, located in Boksburg, South Africa, is currently Sime Darby’s only African based operation, and has a long history in the Fats and Oils industry, starting out in the early 1900’s at Maydon Wharf on Durban’s docks, where they began refining fats and oils for Lever Ponds, (now Unilever). When Unilever divested the company in 2004, Hudson & Knight was bought by Malaysia’s Golden Hope Berhad, now part of Sime Darby. Today, Hudson & Knight operate out of a state of the art refinery, with flexible blending capabilities, enabling them to supply tailor-made quality fats and oils products to the Food Manufacturing Industry; as well as to the Bakery and Foodservice sectors.

Hudson & Knight’s commitment to excellence has recently lead them to become fully ISO 22000 accredited and are currently the only fats and oils refiner in South Africa to hold this Food Safety accreditation, ensuring their customers of the highest quality fats and oils.

All oils refined at The Hudson & Knight refinery go through a process of refining, and deodorizing, to remove any odours that could taint the customer’s finished product. Seed oils are then subjected to a winterizing process to remove any waxes which could cloud the oil if chilled. Oils that are then destined for deep frying, then have antioxidants and antifoaming agents added to them to enable them to handle the treatment that they will receive when heated to temperatures in excess of 180°C for hours on end in the customer’s fryers.

By investing heavily in research and development in response to international legislation and health trends, and with an increasing number of our key customers specifically requesting non-hydrogenated products, Hudson & Knight have eliminated trans fatty acids from its range of bakery products, staying ahead of the trends, as in the very near future, food manufacturers in South Africa will be required by law to list trans-fatty acid levels on the nutrition labels of their food products.

Hudson & Knight base their shortening, pastry fat and margarine formulations on Malaysian palm oil. This tropical oil has high levels of naturally occurring saturated fats which are used to harden blends of vegetable oils to produce varying levels of solidity in their manufactured fat formulations. After successful trials with a number of customers in a variety of applications, Hudson & Knight are confident that the products manufactured from the non-hydrogenated blends are able to be handled, processed, stored, baked and taste as good as those products made from the previous range of hydrogenated bakery fats and oils.

Some of Hudson & Knight’s well known branded products include Crispa Gold, Crispa Palm, Pastrex,  Pastrex Croissant,  Mastercraft Yellow, Mastercraft White, Flex, Holsum, Goldbake and Planto.