Hemp oil cannot replace palm oil on any significant scale.
For one, the fatty acid composition of hemp and palm oils are rather different. Palm oil consists predominantly of saturated fatty acids plus a significant portion of oleic acid. It is that fatty acid composition that makes palm oil so versatile and suitable for applications requiring an oil with a higher melting point – spreads, shortenings. Fractionation on the other hand allows to separate out a cooking oil, similar to olive oil, which is now used globally as a low-cost food oil.
Hemp oil consists largely of polyunsaturated fatty acids and melts at much lower temperatures.
And while hemp oil does not compete with palm technically, it could also never achieve the low cost of production of palm oil, which is grown using very productive varieties under tropical conditions – that’s difficult to beat.
So hemp oil will not replace palm oil for technical and economic reasons. It’s an excellent oil for nutrition and has a very favorable of fatty acid profile, notably it’s close to perfect balance of Omega-3 and Omega-6 acids and the presence of the uncommon higher omega acids SDA and GLA. But unfortunately, that’s not enough to compete with palm oil.
(Source: Gero Leson, Dr. Bronner, USA, June 2013)