The Palm Oil Responses - Unilever

Ok, well, when I contacted Vasaline to see if their products contained palm oil/palm oil derivatives, I was suprised to find that like Nestle, they are part of a massive network of brands. Here is a list of those brands which come under the Unilever umbrella:
(The countries in brackets show brands predominantly in those countries)
Personal Care Products
Vasaline
Dove
Sure
Timotei
Impulse
Lux
Lynx
Sunsilk
Andrelon
Aviance cosmetics
Badedas
Brisk
Brut
Brylcreem
Citra
Clear
Close-up
Cream silk
Degree
Dusch Das
Fair and lovely
FDS
Gessy (Brazil)
Good Morning (Egypt)
Just for me
Lever 2000
Lifebuoy
Clinic
Matey
Mist (Egypt)
Motions
Noxzema
Origins
Organics
Pears
Pepsodent
Ponds
Prodent
Radox
Rexona
Sedal
Signal
Simple
Sunsilk
Soft & Beautiful
SR
St Ives
TBC
Tigi
Thermosilk
Toni & Guy
Tresemme
Ultrex
Vibrance
VO5


Food and Drink
Flora
PG Tips
Carte D'or
Heartbrand
Knorr
Lipton
Ben & Jerrys
Wall's
Amora
Alsa
Ades or Adez
Amino (Poland)
Annapurna (India)
Best Foods
BiFi (Netherlands, Germany)
Blueband
Bovril
Breyers
Brooke Bond
Bru (India)
Brummel & Brown
Bushells (Australia, New Zealand)
Calve
Chicken Tonight
Choysa (Australia, New Zealand)
Conimex (Netherlands)
Coleman's
Continental
Country Crock
Darko (Bulgaria)
Delma (Poland)
Du Darfst (Germany)
Elmlea
Fanacoa (Argentina)
Fruco
Fudgsical
I can't believe it's not butter
Imperial Margarine
Jif/Cif
Kasia (Poland)
Kecap Bango (Indonesia)
Kissan (India, Pakistan)
Klondike
Lady's Choice (Phillipines, Malaysia)
Lan-Choo (Australia, New Zealand)
Lao Cai
Lyons
Lizano sauce (Costa Rica)
Maille (France)
Maizena
Marmite
Mccollins (Peru)
Mrs Filbert's (USA)
Paddle Pop
Pfanni
Peperami
Phase
Planta
Popsicle
Pot Noodle
Promise
Ragu
Rama
Royal (Phillipines)
Royco (Indonesia)
Red Rose Tea (Canada)
Sana (Turkey)
Saga (Poland)
Sariwangi (Indonesia)
Scottish Blend
Slim Fast
Slotts (Sweden)
Stork
Streets (New Zealand, Australia)
Tortex (Poland)
Turun Sinappi (Finland, Sweden)
Unox
Vaqueiro
Wheel
Wish-bone salad dressing

Just a quick note on the ice-cream products. Unilever is the Worlds largest ice-cream manufacturer. Maybe it's time to buy a ice-cream maker! 



Household Cleaning products
Domestos
Surf
Ala (Argentina)
Biotex
Brilhante (Brazil)
Cif
Comfort
Minerva (Brazil)
Neutral
Omo (South America, Norway)
Quix
Q-Tips
Persil
Skip
Sun
Viso (Indonesia, Vietnam)
Vim

As you see, there are LOADS!
This is the disappointing response I received today:

Hello from Unilever

Dear Steph,

Thank you for your recent enquiry about the use of palm oil in our products.

Palm oil is widely used in food and personal care products, and contributes to the economic development of the producing countries, as well as to the diets of millions of people around the world. Demand for palm oil is only expected to increase, however it is recognised that there are environmental issues around the expansion to eco-sensitive areas.

Since 2002, Unilever has been working with the conservation group WWF, plantation owners and other commercial users to devise standards for sustainable production. This is being done through the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO). The principal objective of the RSPO is to promote the growth and use of sustainable palm oil through co-operation within the supply chain and open dialogue with stakeholders.

I hope this has reassured you about the use of palm oil in our products, and I will pass your comments on to our Product Development team. We welcome all consumer feedback - both positive and negative - as it helps us to improve our products and policies, so thank you for taking the time to contact us.

Kind Regards

The Palm Oil Responses - Original Source

I have contacted Original Source to ask whether any of their products contain palm oil or palm oil fractions and guess what? THEY DO NOT! :D Finally!
Here is their short but sweet response.

http://www.originalsource.co.uk/

Hi, thanks for your email

No, we don't use palm oil or palm oil fractions in our products.

Regards

Nina


I'm sure you will agree this is amazing news so treat yourself to some lovely guilt free shower stuff! 

The Palm Oil Responses - Cadburys

Ok, loads of people love Cadburys chocolate, but how much palm oil do they use? Well here is the reponse I got from them.

Thank you for your recent email.

The production of palm oil can have significant and lasting environmental and social impacts. Addressing these impacts in a constructive way requires cooperation from producers (including farmers, cooperatives and post-harvest processors), the food industry, governments and civil society. Mondelēz International is committed to working with all of these stakeholders to develop a viable supply of sustainable palm oil.
We do not buy crude palm oil - we buy fats derived from palm oil. Mondelēz International purchases less than 0.6% of worldwide production. We are concerned about the potential long-term environmental and social impacts of tropical deforestation. This is why we participate in the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) to develop and enforce standards for sustainable palm oil production.

The company is also purchasing GreenPalm certificates and RSPO-segregated certified sustainable palm oil to cover part of our use of palm oil. In 2011, this constitutes approximately 50% of Mondelēz International's  global palm oil use (up from more 25% in 2010) and the company is looking to increase these volumes going forward as sustainable palm oil becomes more available.  We expect to be able to cover 100 percent of our purchases once the supply of certified palm oil accounts for about one-third of the world’s total supply. We expect our suppliers to reach this goal by 2015. We are working with the World Wildlife Fund to evaluate options.
For Cadbury Dairy Milk products, we’re covering all of its palm oil use with GreenPalm certificates and also purchasing some segregated palm oil in the UK and elsewhere. In November 2011, we were pleased that WWF scored Cadbury highly (9/9) as part of their Palm Oil Buyers Scorecard based on our current policies and plans for the future.

I do hope this answers your email and I thank you for taking time to contact us.
Kind regards
Christine Baldwin
Consumer Relations Administrator

The Palm Oil Responses - Nestle

Nestle have a massive amount of products so I have included a list so you can see what products I am talking about.

Bottled Water
Nestle pure life

Breakfast Cereals
Cheerios
Honey Cheerios
Chocolatey Cheerios
Shredded wheat
Shredded wheat bitesize
Honey Nut Shredded wheat
Shredded wheat summer fruits
Shredded wheat orchard fruits
Clusters
Shreddies
Frosted Shreddies
Coco shreddies
Honey Shreddies
Curiously cinnamon
Almond Oats & more
Nesquik cereal
Cookie crisp
Golden nuggets

Chocolate and Confectionary
Aero
Yorkie
Smarties
Milkybar
Munchies
Crunch
Walnut Whip
Caramac
Lion Bar
Animal Bar
Kit Kat
Blue Riband
Breakaway
Drifter
Toffee Crisp
Rowntree's Randoms
Rowntree's Fruit Pastilles
Rowntree's Randoms Pick and Mix
Rowntree's Sour Pastilles
Rowntree's Fruit Gums
Rowntree's tutty frutties
Rowntree's Jelly Tots
Rowntree's Jelly Aliens
Rowntree's Very Berry Jellies
Polo mints

Coffee
Nescafe Everyday
Nescafe Decaff
Nescafe Cafe Menu
Nescafe Dolce Gusto
Nescafe Super Premium

Dairy Products
Carnation evaporated milk
Carnation sweetened condensed milk
Carnation Caramel
Carnation extra thick cream
Carnation rice pudding

Drinks
Nesquik

Food
Herta frankfurters range
Maggi So juicy range

Petfood
Purina cat and dog foods

As you can see, Nestle are a massive company, with loads of products. Even I was suprised at some of the things on this list. I contacted them about the palm oil use and this is their response.

 Dear Miss Bell

Thank you very much for your email.

Nestlé views the destruction of tropical rainforests and peatlands in the production of ingredients such as palm oil, as one of the most serious environmental issues facing us today.

In 2010, we made a global commitment to ensure our products do not have a deforestation impact and partnered with The Forest Trust (TFT) to establish Responsible Sourcing Guidelines. These guidelines promote traceability and socially and environmentally sound sourcing practices.

Palm oil is an essential ingredient in many of our products. In the UK, we have already achieved our 2015 target to source 100% RSPO (Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil) certified palm oil. Since January 2012, 70% of the palm oil we use in the UK is traceable back to RSPO certified plantations. The remaining 30%, which consists of more complex derivatives of palm oil that are more difficult to trace through the supply chain, is purchased through the GreenPalm programme.

The GreenPalm programme supports the production of sustainable palm oil through a certificate trading scheme, which is designed to tackle the environmental and social problems created by the production of palm oil by rewarding the growers of RSPO certified palm oil.

Palm oil is not a major raw material in our products; we buy only 0.7 per cent of worldwide production. Nevertheless we are fully conscious of our responsibilities in contributing to effective and sustainable solutions.

Thank you again for taking the trouble to contact us. We are grateful for the interest you have shown in our company.

To reply to this email or if you would like further information, please click here: https://www.econsumeraffairs.com/nestleuk/contactusfollowup.htm?F1=004002573A

Yours sincerely





Sue Tomlinson
Contact Centre Executive
Consumer Services


 
 


 

 

The Palm oil responses - Quorn foods

I contacted Quorn about a week ago and had no response until today when, strangely, they sent a letter. Don't understand why but never the less at less they did respond. I have copied the letter word for word below.

Dear Steph

Thank you for your e-mail. As stated on our website, at Quorn we try to keep our use of palm oil to a minimum, however where we do use it we have agreements with all our suppliers to use sustainable palm oil.

We use palm oil only where there is no current, suitable alternative however the majority of our products use oils such as rapeseed or sunflower, or no oils at all. All of our mince, pieces, strips, fillets and Deli range do not contain any vegetable oils and products such as our nuggets, escalope and goujons use sunflower or rapeseed oil.

Sustainable palm oil is produced from plantations and small holdings where the palm oil trees have not been planted on any area of deforestation or marshland, and therefore does not impact on the environment.

Sustainable palm oil can be certified by organisations such as the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), which gives assurance that the palm oil has not come from any plantations or small holding where deforestation has occured.

The Mass Balance scheme ensures that the majority of the palm oil is from a sustainable source.
The Segregated scheme ensures that the sustainable palm has been fully segregated from plantation to processor, but will be a combination from many plantations.

Where we do use palm oil, we use certified sustainable palm from both mass balance and segregated schemes, with our aim to be using 100% segregated by the end of 2014.

We would like to reassure you that we are committed to responsible sourcing.

With regard to the use of pure palm oil, the majority is palm oil with a very small percentage of palm oil fractions such as medium chain triglycerides.

Kind Regards

Consumer Care Team

The Palm oil responses - Linda McCartney Foods

I asked Linda McCartney Foods for their information about the palm oil they used in their products.
Here's the reponse:

Dear Ms Bell

Thank you very much for your recent email regarding the palm oil in our products and your patience in awaiting our response.

The straight palm component used in Linda McCartney ingredients is RSPO certified sustainable. However, the straight palm is mixed with something called palm fractions to form the ingredient that we use in some of our products. Due to a much smaller world demand for palm fractions, it's far more difficult to segregate out sustainable palm fractions from non sustainable which means the final ingredient isn't currently guaranteed completely sustainable.

The UK food industry is moving to achieve RSPO certified fractions by 2015 which in turn would mean a fully sustainable palm ingredient. The Linda McCartney Foods brand is actively driving this target through our suppliers to ensure that we are able to use sustainably sourced ingredients in all of our food products. This issue is enormously important to us, likewise to our customers as well and we are constantly working with suppliers on this matter.

Thank you once again for contacting us and please do not hesitate to contact us again with any further feedback or comments.

Kind regards

Sonny Patten

Customer Care Coordinator

The Palm oil responses - Proctor & Gamble

I contacted Proctor & Gamble, you may not recognise the name but I'm confident you will recognise some of their products. Here are a few you may recognise:
Lacoste fragrances
Braun
Dolce & Gabbana make-up
Hugo Boss fragrances
Nice N Easy
Oral-B
Puma
Olay
Pantene
Wella
Vidal Sassoon
See? Loads!

For a comprehensive list follow this link: http://www.pg.com/en_US/brands/all_brands.shtml
Anyway I asked them for the Palm Oil policy and also whether they product test on animals, here is there response.

Thank you for your enquiry.  

We are fully committed to getting ingredients from sustainable sources.

We buy palm oil and palm products from a variety of reputable sources, mainly from Malaysia and Indonesia, the world's two largest palm-oil producers. Most of these suppliers are members of the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), which has set principles and criteria that are widely accepted in the industry as responsible practice.

Our guidelines on sustainability are on our website at www.pg.com/company/our_commitment/sustainability.jhtml.

At P&G, we do not test on animals, except in very rare cases when it is required by law to meet regulatory or safety obligations. Today, more than 99% of our safety evaluations are conducted using available non-animal alternatives including testing materials on cell cultures or using computer models, extensive analytical methods, and clinical studies. Testing with animals is a last resort after we have exhausted all other reasonable options.

P&G prefers to use alternative test methods. Not only is the use of animals avoided, but alternative tests are most often better predictors of health effects, cost less and take less time than animal-based research. To date, we have invested more than $275 million in alternatives, making us one of the leaders in the industry. We’ve helped develop more than 50 alternative methods and have shared our work in over 1,000 scientific publications. Whenever possible, we use existing information on related ingredients, computer models, published scientific studies and consumer experiences to evaluate the safety of our products.

We are also working with regulatory agencies around the world to inform them of advances in alternative methods and to foster acceptance of tests that do not use animals in countries where testing is still mandated by law. Our aim is to be able to eliminate animal research related to consumer products altogether.

I hope this clarifies our position for you.

Kind regards

Stephanie

Consumer Relations

The big palm oil problem

I'm an armchair activist. I don't think there is any shame in that. Using the power of social media I have learned, and am still learning about the environmental issues that are annoying the shit out of people all over the planet. So many people are now actively trying to make changes in their lives including me, and are fed up of finding out that products we have used for years are actually incredibly damaging to the planets flora and fauna. Hence this blog was born. I am hoping to tackle some issues that are close to my heart and that, in my opinion, should be close to the hearts of everybody. One of these issues is the use of palm oil in pretty much everything, and I mean everything. Think of things you use every day, consume every day. There is a good chance it contains this stuff. You may think that it can't be in these items, but in all but a few cases I assure you it is. It may not be on the ingredients list, or it may just be hidden under the title of "vegetable oil", either way IT IS EVERYWHERE.
So, what is palm oil?
Well in a nut shell, or should I say kernel? Palm oil is obtained from the fruit of the oil palm tree. Oil palms can grow up to 20 metres tall and have leaves that are a massive 5 metres long. All year round the oil palm bears fruit, which means that it is pretty much constantly available. Each of these fruits contains approximately 50% oil too which makes them a hugely valuable resource for the food and non-food industries.
This is an oil palm:

Pretty isn't it?
So, what's the problem? I hear you cry. Well I shall tell you. As you are probably aware the human race doesn't have the best track record when it comes to its resources. A valuable commodity such as palm oil is saught by all and sundry for the lowest possible price, regardless of how they get it. Also the countries that produce the palm oil are very happy to accept the cash offered.
A few numbers for you, just to show you what I am talking about, I know it's dull but please bear with me if you can.
"Vegetable oil production around the world totals over 144 million tonnes per year, of which over 47 million tonnes is palm oil. Along with soy oil, palm oil makes up 60% of world production" (http://www.greenpalm.org/en/about-palm-oil/what-is-palm-oil)
I'm sure you will agree, humans use a whopping amount of this stuff!
Unfortunately these huge numbers mean a few things. Rainforests in Borneo and Sumatra are home to a wonderful array of some of the most spectacular wildlife on the planet. Here is a little list of some of these wonderful species to give you an idea.
Sumatran and Bornean orangutan, Proboscis monkey, pygmy elephant, asian rhinoceros, sumatran tiger, sunbear, gibbon, bay cat, clouded leopard, spectral tarsier, Bornean flat-headed frog, rhinoceros hornbill (it's a bird by the way), anoa, fishing cat, lar gibbon, dhole, Malayan tapir, Bornean tree shrew, Bornean bristlehead, flat-headed cat, refflesia flower, Phalaenopsis Gigantea orchid, Titan Arum flower, Bornean Pitcher plant. I'm purely naming a few. (By the way, please feel free to look these guys up on Google to see how amazing they are.)
The trouble with all this palm oil production is the dramatic effect it is having on these splendid creatures. Firstly, their habitat, plush rainforests, are being destroyed at a monumental rate to make way for the ever increasing palm oil plantations. You would think that was bad enough but NO. Secondly these plantations need roads, roads are built to keep the supply moving from plantation to consumer, but poachers and animal smugglers see these as easy access to the animals that are suffering enough already.
Horrified yet?
Try this:
Another huge issue with the increase in palm oil plantations, is smog. Great plumes of black smoke rise from the land clearing process used to make room for plantations. This is horrible stuff too. It has so far caused smog thick enough to beat a record in Singapore making it potentially life threatening to the ill and the elderly. The fumes from fires of oil palms include unusually high levels of compounds called VOCs (volatile organic compounds) These compounds combine with Nitrogen oxides in the atmosphere in sunlight to produce...ozone. Ozone is great up high in the atmosphere protecting us from damaging UV rays, but down here with us the effect is far less positive. Ozone at our level cause breathing problems and terrible damage to plant life.
Ok, now you know a little about palm oil, and the problems it comes with. So what do we do now? Well I thought the same thing and I have become determined to ask questions of our retailers and companies, to see what they are going to do about this issue and I will be posting their responses on here for you to see.
Finally for now, I just want to stress that although palm oil is a massive, massive issue environmentally, there are initiatives who are trying to create some sustainability in the palm oil industry. Of course, this most likely will never create a palm oil free World. I accept that. Rather, I am optimistic that for once, humans can use a resource responsibly, humans can think about what they are doing and work together to make palm oil as sustainable as possible.
One of the most popular initiatives is the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil or RSPO for short. I include the link here: http://www.rspo.org/
Please check it out. There won't be a test on the content, but it may help you to get a better idea of what they are trying to achieve.