United Biscuits

United Biscuits is a large company responsible for such yummy delights such as McVities, Jaffa Cakes, Jacob's & McCoy's. Unfortunately these snacks contain palm oil.

Here is what United Biscuits have to say on the matter:

"You raise concerns in your letter about Indonesia for the productioon of palm oil. We are aware of these in our sourcing of this ingnrediencct and can confrim that we are a user of palm oil. All sourcing policies for hte ingredients we use are discussed and agreed at senior levels within the company, and indeed we do operate an Ethical Sourcing policy in conjunction withour retail customers and their requirements of us as a business.

Organisations such as Friends of the Earth are key participants in the move towards Certified Sustainable Palm Oil (CSPO) and have urged that companies do not boycott palm oil and move to other oils. They recognise that other replacement crops such as Soybean oil have an equal issue associated with deforestation. Moving out of palm oil would potentially only switch the issue elsewhere.

One of the key achievements of the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) is that although they have not yet certified oil as sustainable, they have identifed valuable rainforest and ensured that any land converted from this rainforest to palm oil plantation after November 2005 will never achieve sustainability status. Moreover, such forest when they fall within land owned by palm oil plantations will, under the RSPO scheme, need to be actively protected, not just shut off and neglected. For instance, plantations will need to ensure that water supplies remain open and that animals are able to move along corridors between rainforests. This will cost the plantations time and money to achieve and they need support to do this.

Boycotting palm oil on an individual basis could very slightly reduce the world wide demand for palm oil, but would also remove the incentive to attain accredited status. It is also seen that once certification becomes a reality, it will help improve the sociological situation for many people and again, ongoing support to achieve the right outcome is important.

As a business, we have reduced the amount of palm oil we use in recent years. We continue to undertake development work which will help us to move this further. However, alternative oils are very different and present technical issues which we have not always been able to overcome. Supporting the aims of the RSPO will ensure that the best outcome is achived."

I'm glad they are able to see the big picture, and discuss the issues of protecting the rainforest and the people who rely on it, however yet again they fail to admit why they don't put palm oil in their list of ingredients. I am completely baffled why so few companies have the guts to do this.