Household Ingredients Compared › Margarine (Singapore)

Margarine: what's actually in it?

Margarine is a spread made from vegetable oils and water, with emulsifiers, salt, vitamins and flavouring — no milk fat is required, and no cream is involved. That is the whole point of it next to butter: the fat comes from plants, not from a cow. But "margarine" on the shelf covers very different recipes. A hard multipurpose margarine (Planta) is mostly palm oils and is built for baking as much as spreading. A soft tub margarine (Naturel) is a blend of liquid oils — rapeseed, sunflower, palm fraction — with water, and is built to spread straight from the fridge. A reduced-fat spread replaces much of the oil with water. And an olive-oil spread is a soft margarine in which olive oil is one oil among several, not the whole fat. The oil blend is the product — and it is in the ingredient list, not on the front of the tub.

This page covers block and tub margarine, butter blends are cross-referenced only, reduced-fat spreads and olive-oil spreads sold in Singapore. Butter itself is a separate category — butter panels are not duplicated here; where a product is a butter blend (part butter, part vegetable oil), it is noted in seen-but-not-verified with a cross-reference to the butter page instead of being panelled as a margarine. This page does not give a health score or a "best" pick.

The headline, in 30 seconds

Planta is a palm-oil margarine. Its oils are palm oil, palm kernel oil and fully hydrogenated palm stearin — and its 480g/1kg nutrition lists 49.7 g saturated fat per 100 g, against 25.9 g for the 240g tub, which has a different oil blend (palm, canola, fully hydrogenated palm stearin). Same brand, different sizes, different recipes — do not copy one size's list onto another.
Naturel Soft is a liquid-oil blend. Rapeseed oil, palm fraction, sunflower oil, water, salt, skimmed milk powder and vitamins — no palm oil listed first, and it contains milk powder, so it is not dairy-free despite being cholesterol-free.
Naturel Olive Spread is not mostly olive oil. Olive oil (virgin and extra virgin) is the second oil after rapeseed oil, alongside sunflower oil and palm fraction. The front says olive; the list says blend.
FairPrice's own Planta ingredient section is abbreviated. It lists only "Palm Oil, Palm Kernel Oil, Soy Lecithin, Vitamins. Contains Permitted Antioxidants, Colouring, Flavouring." — that is not a full pack list, so the brand's full list is quoted alongside it and the SG pack still needs a photo.
The two biggest FairPrice names without a list are Daisy and Snow Brand Neo Soft. Both are listed for sale at FairPrice, but no verbatim ingredient list was retrieved for either in this pass — they sit in seen-but-not-verified, not panelled on a guess.

At a glance

Product	Type	First ingredient / oil blend	Contains milk?	Pack size (as printed)	Country of manufacture (as printed)
Planta Multi-Purpose Margarine — 240g	Multipurpose tub	Vegetable oils (palm, canola, fully hydrogenated palm stearin)	May contain traces of milk	240g	Malaysia
Planta Multi-Purpose Margarine — 480g / 1kg	Multipurpose tub / block	Vegetable oils (palm, palm kernel, fully hydrogenated palm stearin)	May contain traces of milk	480g / 1kg	Malaysia
Naturel Cholesterol Free Margarine — Soft, 500g	Soft tub margarine	Rapeseed oil, palm fraction, sunflower oil	Yes — skimmed milk powder	500g	Malaysia
Naturel Cholesterol Free Spread — Extra Virgin Olive Oil, 500g	Olive-oil spread	Rapeseed oil, olive oil (virgin + extra virgin), sunflower oil	Yes — skimmed milk powder	500g	Malaysia
I Can't Believe It's Not Butter! — Original (UK listing)	Soft spread	Water, then vegetable oils (rapeseed, palm, sunflower)	Not stated in list retrieved	not stated	not stated

Panelled with verbatim lists: 5 products (Planta counted as two size-variants, because their oil blends and nutrition differ). Seen-but-not-verified: see the list below. No prices are shown: they change weekly and would go stale. This site compares ingredients only.

Multipurpose margarine — hard / baking

Planta Multi-Purpose Margarine — 240g

Pack size: 240g · Made in: Malaysia (as printed)

Ingredients (Planta brand site, Malaysia — SG pack not transcribed): Vegetable Oils (Palm Oil, Canola Oil, Fully Hydrogenated Palm Stearin), Water, Salt, Emulsifier, Vitamins (A, B1, B2, Niacin, B5, B6, Folic Acid, B12, D3, E), Stabilizers, Preservative, Acidity Regulator, Antioxidant, Nature Identical Flavour, Natural Colouring. Contain soy, may contain traces of milk and peanut.

Sold at FairPrice Singapore (240g, Halal). The 240g tub's oil blend includes canola oil — the larger sizes do not list canola — and its nutrition is correspondingly different (see nutrition section). Flag: brand site is the Malaysian Planta site; the SG FairPrice pack still needs a photo to confirm the SG tub matches this list. Multipurpose Palm + canola Contains: soy

Planta Multi-Purpose Margarine — 480g / 1kg

Pack size: 480g / 1kg · Made in: Malaysia (as printed)

Ingredients (FairPrice Singapore ingredient section — abbreviated): Palm Oil, Palm Kernel Oil, Soy Lecithin, Vitamins. Contains Permitted Antioxidants, Colouring, Flavouring.

Ingredients (Planta brand site, 1kg — fuller list, SG pack not transcribed): Vegetable Oils (Palm Oil, Palm Kernel Oil, Fully Hydrogenated Palm Stearin), Water, Salt, Emulsifier, Vitamins, Acidity Regulators, Stabilisers, Antioxidant, Natural Colouring, Synthetic Flavour. Contain soy, may contain traces of milk and peanut.

Sold at FairPrice Singapore (480g and 1kg, Halal). Two sources, two levels of detail: FairPrice's section is a short summary, not a full pack list, and it omits water, salt and the hydrogenated palm stearin that the brand list includes. The brand's 480g and 1kg nutrition tables agree with each other (738.4 kcal, 82 g fat, 49.7 g saturated fat per 100 g), which is why they are treated as one row here — but that agreement is between brand tables, not a verified SG pack, so the SG pack still needs a photo. A Shopee SG reseller listing gives a third, shorter variant of the same list (vegetable oils, salt, permitted emulsifiers including soy lecithin, vitamins, permitted antioxidants BHA/BHT, colouring, flavouring) — it is not quoted as a separate row, because reseller descriptions are not pack transcriptions. Multipurpose Palm + palm kernel Contains: soy

Soft tub margarine

Naturel Cholesterol Free Margarine — Soft, 500g

Pack size: 500g · Made in: Malaysia (as printed)

Ingredients (Lotus's Malaysia retailer listing — SG pack not transcribed): Rapeseed Oil, Palm Fraction, Sunflower Oil, Water, Salt, Skimmed Milk Powder (Cow's Milk), Vitamins*, Contains Permitted Food Conditioners (Emulsifier — Soya Bean Source), Flavouring and Colouring Substances*, *Contains Soya Bean Oil

FairPrice's best-selling soft margarine (500g). A liquid-oil blend first — rapeseed, palm fraction, sunflower — then water, salt and skimmed milk powder. "Cholesterol free" is a claim about cholesterol, not about dairy: the milk powder means it contains milk. Flag: the full list above comes from a Malaysian retailer listing for the same Naturel Soft Margarine; FairPrice lists it for sale but no FairPrice ingredient section was retrieved in this pass, so the SG tub still needs a pack photo. Soft tub Cholesterol-free claim Contains: milk, soy

Olive-oil spreads

Naturel Cholesterol Free Spread — Extra Virgin Olive Oil, 500g

Pack size: 500g · Made in: Malaysia (as printed)

Ingredients (DPO International distributor presentation, Malaysia — SG pack not transcribed): Rapeseed Oil, Olive Oil, (Virgin And Extra Virgin), Sunflower Oil, Palm Fraction, Water, Skimmed Milk Powder, (Cow's Milk), Salt and Vitamins (Contains Soya Bean Oil).

FairPrice lists this as "Naturel Cholesterol Free Spread — Extra Virgin Olive". Olive oil is the second oil, after rapeseed and before sunflower and palm fraction — it is an olive-oil blend spread, not an olive-oil-only spread, and the distributor notes it has about 33% less fat and 43% lower sodium than Naturel Soft Margarine. Flag: distributor presentation, not a retailer ingredient section and not an SG pack transcription; the SG tub still needs a photo. A second Malaysian retail summary gives the same oil order, which corroborates the blend but does not verify the SG pack. Olive-oil spread Contains: milk, soy Origin: Malaysia (distributor)

Soft spreads — flagged non-SG example

I Can't Believe It's Not Butter! — Original — UK listing, SG availability not verified

Pack size: not stated · Made in: not stated (as printed)

Ingredients (Open Food Facts, UK entry): Water, vegetable oils (rapeseed, palm, sunflower, in varying proportion), salt (1.3%), emulsifiers (mono-and diglycerides of fatty acids, lecithins), flavouring, acidity regulator (citric acid), vitamins (A and D).

Panelled as a "what a water-first soft spread looks like" example, not as an SG shelf claim: water is first, the oils come second, and salt is stated at 1.3%. No SG sale of this product in this form was verified in this pass. Soft spread Water-first UK listing only

Seen but not verified — do not panel until checked

Daisy Margarine, 480g — listed at FairPrice (Halal, frequently out of stock in this pass); no verbatim ingredient list was retrieved anywhere in this pass. Needs a pack photo. Daisy is a long-standing Singapore household brand, so this is the biggest gap on this page.
Snow Brand Neo Soft Spread, 320g — listed at FairPrice as a best-selling margarine/spread; no verbatim ingredient list was retrieved in this pass. Needs a pack photo.
Naturel Cholesterol Free Spread — Reduced Fat, 500g — listed at FairPrice; no verbatim SG list retrieved. The Malaysian range describes a reduced-fat Naturel with 25% less fat than standard margarine, but that description is not a list and is not panelled.
Naturel Olive Oil Spread — Extra Light — a lighter Naturel olive variant seen in FairPrice-derived listings; no verbatim list retrieved. Do not assume it shares the Extra Virgin Olive Oil list above.
Naturel Soft Margarine — Reduced Salt / Unsalted variants — seen in Malaysian range listings (reduced salt: 44% less salt; unsalted 250g); no SG verbatim list retrieved for either.
Buttercup Luxury Spread — a butter blend (vegetable oil + milk fat), not a margarine; seen in Malaysian listings with a truncated list starting "Palm Oil, Palm Kerne…". Cross-reference: butter blends belong with the butter category, not here, and the truncated list is not panelled.
Flora, Bertolli, Nuttelex, MeadowLea, Solo and other imported soft spreads — brands that appear at Cold Storage, Little Farms and import grocers; no SG verbatim list was retrieved for any of them in this pass. Cold Storage publishes no ingredient list on any product page, so its spread shelf could not be panelled from its site.
Planta Chef / Professional Baking Margarine (foodservice sizes) — professional Planta lines with their own nutrition tables (e.g. Chef 4.8kg: 738.4 kcal, 82 g fat, 49.7 g saturated fat, 779.9 mg sodium per 100 g); foodservice-only sizes are out of the retail scope of this page.
House-brand margarine, Don Don Donki / Mustafa / Meidi-Ya / Le Petit Depot imported margarine, Lazada / Shopee parallel-import spreads — not inventoried with verified lists in this pass; needs in-store pack checks.
I Can't Believe It's Not Butter! — Light (UK) — UK nutrition retrieved (252 kcal, 28 g fat, 5.6 g saturated fat per 100 g) but no ingredient list retrieved, and SG sale not verified; not panelled.

Nutrition — what the numbers say

All figures in the table are as sold, per 100 g. Margarine is almost entirely fat, so protein and carbohydrate are near zero where stated, and sugars are near zero. No official Singapore Nutri-Grade (A–D) was found printed on any of these listings in this pass, so none is quoted here; no grade has been assigned. (A "Healthier Choice" endorsement on Naturel is a different scheme and is not presented here as a Nutri-Grade.)

Salt and sodium: salt = sodium × 2.5. The table shows sodium as printed (in mg) with the salt equivalent in brackets. Sodium is not presented as salt, and salt is not presented as sodium.

Total vs added sugars: Singapore packs list total sugars, not added sugars. No added sugar is listed in any panelled margarine's ingredients, and no total-sugars figure was verified for the panelled rows, so no sugar comparison is made here.

Brand tables are the source where used, flagged as such: the pack and the retailer nutrition section take precedence if they disagree. Figures marked "not stated" were not in the source retrieved; they are not estimated, borrowed from another variant, or copied across sizes — the Planta 240g and 480g/1kg rows show why that matters.

Product	Basis	Energy	Protein	Total fat	Saturated fat	Carbohydrate	Sugars	Sodium (salt equiv.)
Planta Multi-Purpose Margarine — 240g	Per 100 g, as sold (Planta brand site, MY)	637.6 kcal	not stated	70.8 g	25.9 g	not stated	not stated	780.7 mg (salt 1.95 g)
Planta Multi-Purpose Margarine — 480g / 1kg	Per 100 g, as sold (Planta brand site, MY)	738.4 kcal	not stated	82 g	49.7 g	not stated	not stated	779.9 mg (salt 1.95 g)

Observed numbers, no verdict: the two Planta sizes differ sharply on the brand's own tables — 637.6 kcal and 25.9 g saturated fat per 100 g for the 240g tub, against 738.4 kcal and 49.7 g saturated fat for the 480g/1kg sizes — while sodium is near-identical (780.7 mg vs 779.9 mg). That is consistent with the two different oil blends in the ingredient panels, and it is why the sizes are separate rows. No per-100 g nutrition panel was verified in this pass for Naturel Soft, Naturel Olive or the UK example, so this section does not compare them on numbers.

Seen but not verified (nutrition): no per-100 g nutrition panel was verified in this pass for Naturel Cholesterol Free Margarine — Soft, Naturel Cholesterol Free Spread — Extra Virgin Olive Oil, I Can't Believe It's Not Butter! — Original (UK listing), Daisy Margarine, Snow Brand Neo Soft Spread, and Naturel Reduced Fat Spread. Their ingredient panels are unchanged; their nutrition figures are not estimated here.

How to read a margarine label — the jargon, in plain English

Multipurpose / hard margarine vs soft tub margarine: Hard margarine is mostly solid fats (palm oils) and holds its shape for baking; soft tub margarine is mostly liquid oils (rapeseed, sunflower) with water, and spreads straight from the fridge. The oil blend tells you which one you are holding.
Fully hydrogenated palm stearin: A palm-oil fraction that has been fully hydrogenated (saturated with hydrogen) so it is solid at room temperature. "Fully" hydrogenated is different from "partially" hydrogenated — the latter is the process that used to create trans fats.
Palm fraction: A separated part of palm oil — the solid part (stearin) or the liquid part (olein). The label rarely says which, so the exact fat profile cannot be read off the name alone.
Cholesterol-free: Means the product contains no cholesterol — true of any spread made only from vegetable oils. It does not mean dairy-free (Naturel Soft contains skimmed milk powder), fat-free, or low in saturated fat.
Reduced-fat spread: A spread with much of the oil replaced by water — typically 25–40% less fat than the standard product. Water will be high in its ingredient list, and it behaves differently in baking.
Emulsifier (soy lecithin, mono- and diglycerides E471): What keeps the oil and water in a margarine mixed instead of separating. Soy lecithin is the commonest one in the Singapore brands panelled here, and it is an allergen to flag.
Butter blend: A spread made from both butter (milk fat) and vegetable oil. It is not margarine and not butter — it sits between them, and it is covered with the butter category, not this page.

What this page is not

Not a health score, and not a "best" pick. Hard, soft, reduced-fat and olive-oil spreads are different products, and this page does not rank them.
Not a taste test, and not a price comparison. Prices change weekly; ingredients change less often, but still change.
Not complete. Daisy and Snow Brand Neo Soft — two of FairPrice's best-selling names — are not yet panelled, for the verification reasons given, not hidden. Neither are the Naturel reduced-fat and extra-light variants.

Sources and method

Checked 5–6 November 2026 from: FairPrice Singapore category and product listings (margarine category: Naturel Soft, Planta 240g/480g/1kg, Daisy 480g, Snow Brand Neo Soft 320g, Naturel Reduced Fat, Naturel Extra Virgin Olive; FairPrice ingredient section for Planta, abbreviated); Planta brand site enjoyplanta.com (240g, 480g and 1kg ingredient and nutrition tables); Lotus's Malaysia (Naturel Soft Margarine ingredient list); DPO International distributor presentation (Naturel Olive Spread ingredient list); Open Food Facts UK (I Can't Believe It's Not Butter! Original); Shopee SG reseller listings for Planta (descriptions only, not used as pack lists). Cold Storage publishes no ingredient list on any product page, so its shelf could not be panelled from its site. Full per-fact source list is in the accompanying research notes. Nutrition section added 5–6 November 2026: figures are standardised to per 100 g where the source gives per-100 figures; per-serving-only figures are labelled as such and are not converted; sugars are total sugars as printed, not added sugars, unless the source states added sugars; salt = sodium × 2.5. Where a full pack list could not be verified, the product is in seen-but-not-verified instead of being panelled.