Monday, January 10, 2011

Palm oil in Brtain's top brands

For the sake of the rainforests and the orangutans these products should not end up in your shopping trolley. The whole list is here.

2. Warburtons, Warburtons, £709m, YES

4. Hovis, Premier Foods, £405m, YES

5. Cadbury Dairy Milk, Cadbury, £374m, YES

6. Kingsmill, ABF, £363m, YES

17. Persil, Unilever, £210m, YES

18. Flora Spreads, Unilever, £200m, YES

23. Galaxy, Mars, £185m, YES

24. Youngs Frozen Fish, Young’s, £184m, YES

25. Kit Kat, Nestle, £183m, YES

30. Bold, Procter & Gamble, £174m, SUSPECTED*

31. Mr Kipling Cakes, Premier Foods, £174m, YES

32. Wrigley’s Extra, Wrigley, £170m, YES

33. Ariel, Procter & Gamble, £157m, SUSPECTED*

34. Pringles, Procter & Gamble, £143m SUSPECTED*

40. Birds Eye Poultry, Birds Eye, £130m, YES

41. Maltesers, Mars, £130m, YES

47. Mars, Mars, £123m, YES

49. Kellogg's Special K, Kellogg’s, £122m, YES

53. Ginsters, Ginsters, £114m, YES

58. Fairy Laundry, Procter & Gamble, £107m, SUSPECTED*

59. Fairy Liquid, Procter & Gamble, £107m, SUSPECTED*

60. McVitie’s Digestives, United Biscuits, £106m, YES

61. Comfort, Unilever, £106m, YES

64. Goodfella’s Pizza, Northern Foods, £101m, YES

69. Lenor, Procter & Gamble, £98m, SUSPECTED*

72. Daz, Procter & Gamble, £95m, SUSPECTED*

75. McCoys, United Biscuits, £90m, YES

77. Haribo, Haribo, £89m, YES

78. Bisto Gravy, Premier Foods, £89m, YES

79. BM Cooked Meat, Bernard Matthews, £88m, YES

82. Quality Street, Nestle, £85m, YES

83. Richmond Sausages, Kerry Foods, £84m, YES

84. CrunchyNut Cornflakes, Kellogg’s, £83m, YES

85. Magnum, Unilever, £79m, YES

87. Bessies Potatoes, Heinz, £78m, YES

88. Chicago Town Pizza, Dr Oetker, £77m, YES

91. Cadbury Cakes, Premier Foods, £76m, YES

92. Young’s Chilled Fish, Young’s, £75m, YES

93. Cadbury Roses, Cadbury, £75m, YES

96. Pot Noodles, Unilever, £73m, YES

97. Aero, Nestle, £73m, YES

98. Surf, Unilever, £73m, YES

100. Clover Spreads, Dairy Crest, £72m, YES

13 comments:

  1. Hi Ranny,
    This list is from over a year and a half ago. Nestle for example is actually one of the good guys for now, with KitKat being the "poster bar"

    Greenpeace ran an incredibly successful campaign to get them to stop using unsustainable palm oil - http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/forests/success-you-made-nestl%C3%A9-drop-dodgy-palm-oil-now-lets-bank-it-hsbc-20100517

    And these words from Nestle - "With regards to our pledge to achieve sustainable palm oil by 2015, we are making progress on certified palm oil and palm oil certificates even more rapidly, with 18% of our purchases covered in 2010, and we expect to reach 50% by the end of 2011."

    Unilever has also declared huge changes in their supply chain (though one must always keep an eye on these things - http://news.mongabay.com/2010/0407-hance_unilever.html Not sure what the situation is now, but I not aware of any new calls for boycotting them, so I'm assuming they're being good at the moment).

    Not sure what the current situation is with Cadbury in the UK, but at least down under they've bowed to the pressure - http://www.orangutans.com.au/Orangutans-Survival-Information/Cadbury-takes-palm-oil-out.aspx

    Unfortunately - well, actually, fortunately :) - these things have been changing rapidly in the last few years

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  2. Thanx Ruthi, you are absolutely right that some companies like Nestlé have promised to change. Th KitKat campaign was amazing and inspiring and I fully participated in spreading the video and it really proved that public awareness can make a difference. Its all good but until they have kept their promise (hopefully in 2015) and have become 100% palm oil free (and have not switched to another unsustainable oil) I will boycott their products.

    It is really tricky because I would like to be able to trust companies like that
    but I wont be happy until they have gone all the way and kept their promise. After all they are a massive greedy company that didn't give a damn before they were about to lose their reputation.


    I don't know exactly what is happening with Nestlé at the moment but things are probably still fishy...
    "Indonesian company Sinar Mas has been at the center of the protests against palm oil companies and deforestation. The supplier was recently dropped by both Nestle and Unilever due to continuing allegations of rainforest destruction, but the company still supplies agricultural-giant Cargill who also supplies Nestle. This became a sticking point with activists who demanded Nestle rid its entire supply-chain, direct or indirect, of links to deforestation."
    http://news.mongabay.com/2010/0517-hance_nestle.html

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  3. Oh yes, Nestle in general is not a particular favourite of mine... (starting with them practically forcing formula on third-world mothers). However, as I find it difficult to avoid big corporations completely - and almost by definition they are all rather nasty - I at least give the ones who've made promises and haven't broken them yet the benefit of the doubt. Especially since these international supply chains can be so complicated (as can be seen in the paragraph you quoted). Which is of course part of the problem to begin with as it is so difficult to monitor them and hold companies responsible.

    With Nestle btw it just means that I went back to buying kitkats (which just before the palm oil campaign I was happy to see started to be made with fairtrade chocolate, so I was a little "miffed" that I had to ban them ;) ), as kitkats are very nearly the only Nestle product that I buy.

    Unilever is even harder for me to avoid, especially since I don't buy Jonhson & Johnson and Proctor&Gamble both of which refuse to stop animal testing (it's of course illegal in the UK and Europe, but they still do in the US). Though, come to think about it - do you know anything about their use of palm oil?

    Anyway, no real point here other than sharing my sometime frustrating and tedious attempts to balance all these issues (and stay within a reasonable budget).I should probably go to bed...

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  4. Its a total nightmare and it has made me go off sweets and biscuits altogether (which is actually very good for my health). It is very difficult to find up to date lists of products to avoid and there are not enough public boycotts in my opinion. What really annoys me is the poor labelling. I kinda respect companies a little more (on a very tiny scale though) that are honest and label palm oil in their products than companies that hide it from us and just say vegetable oil!

    Here is a list from RAN about palm oil in Proctor&Gamble products (but Im not sure how up to date it is):
    http://ran.org/fileadmin/materials/rainforest_ag/tpwpo/list_of_palm_products_20090917.pdf

    Proctor & Gamble
    • Gillette Fusion Hydra Shaving Gel
    • Ivory Bar Soap
    • Pringles Stix -Pizza Flavor
    • Gillette Satin Care Shaving Cream
    • Olay Extra Dry Complete Body Wash
    • Gillette Complete Skincare Multi Shave Gel
    • Zest Soap

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  5. So Ranny, any recommendations for an alternative sliced bread to Warburtons (preferably wholemeal and/or covered in seeds, and available in Sainsburys)

    I've tried Sainsburys own version, but it tends to go mouldy really quickly.

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  6. Im sad to say that I do not know of any good breads in Sainsburys. I do recommend home made breads, they are wonderful and you know exactly what you are eating. It also lifts the spirit to make and eat your own lovely breads :) If you freeze the newly baked bread straight away it is absolutely fine when defrosted. But not everyone has time to do this and its frustrating not to be able to buy quality bread without threatening our rainforests.

    A fellow palm oil blogger has this to say about bread and palm oil in the UK. She has also corresponded with the UK bread makers:
    http://freeofpalmoil.blogspot.com/search/label/bread

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  7. Hi Ranny,

    My Body Shop hand cream has palmitate in it! I'm really surprised at them of all people! Have you had any dealings with the Body Shop about palm oil?

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  8. Can't say I'm surprised Alison. Since they were bought by some corporate giant (forgot which), there have been complaints about how they have greatly relaxed their ethical standards...

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  9. Body Shop was bought by L'oreal in 2006 and has a few products containing palm oil. I spoke to a girl working in the shop in Iceland and she had no idea what palm oil was, its on my massive to do list to contact the store manager properly. I found a few things in the shop containing palm oil but I am not sure if they are sustainable or not. Body shop products get a very low score in the ethical consumer page:
    http://www.ethicalconsumer.org/FreeBuyersGuides/healthbeauty/skincare.aspx

    Im not sure exactly why it gets such a low score, I think i need to subscribe to the magazine to get the individual scores. But if Im going to buy a product, its not really ethical to say its not ok if it has palm oil but its fine if its made with child labour... it gets tricky if you have to choose between causes...

    Also this page is great to see if the ingredients in your products are possibly harming you: http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/

    xxx

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  10. Keep up the good work Rannveig! it is heartening to see more people from all nationalities fighting a common cause. I will follow your site with great interest! Best wishes, Alice (UK)

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  11. Just found this list and I'm horrified to find my weekly 'shop' contains so many of these products!
    It's hard enough being a vegan and now this on top! They don't like to make life easy do they???

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  12. Also please note many products from Iceland (stores) contain palm oil!
    I'd like to see where Sainsbury's, Tesco et all come in a list when it comes to using palm oil!

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  13. It would be really interesting if they would make a new updated list so we could see which companies are making an effort to stop using palm oil and which are not...

    In general I do not buy prepared meals, they are usually unhealthy and bad for the environment (palm oil, paper/plastic wrappings, preservatives etc. etc.)

    ReplyDelete