b) Interesterification

It is of common knowledge that natural fats do not have a perfect distribution of fatty acids among the glyceride molecules. The tendency for certain acids to be more concentrated at particular sn positions varies according to species and their environment and location in the plant or animal. The physical characteristics of a fat are greatly affected not only by the nature of constituent fatty acids (i.e. chain length and unsaturation) but also by their distribution in the triacylglycerol molecules. In effect, the unique fatty acid distribution patterns of some natural fats limits their industrial applications. Interesterification is one of the processes that can be applied to improve the consistency of such fats and to improve their usefulness. This process involves rearranging the fatty acids in such a way that their distribution among the triacylglycerol molecules of the fat becomes random (random interesterification) or conforms to some special pattern (directed interesterification).