More sustainable palm oil
The palm oil and palm kernel oil in our products is 100% certified. With the RSPO standard, we are fully committed to more sustainable and responsible production.
Palm (kernel) oil in our private label products
All palm oil and palm kernel oil - the lesser used variety, extracted from the same fruit - in our Boni, Culino, Econom, Everyday and Spar products is RSPO-certified. The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) guarantees sustainably managed plantations with minimal impact on ecosystems, prohibits new deforestation and promotes correct working conditions and good agricultural practices in consultation with the local population.
By choosing certified oil, we want to help the countries of origin - especially Indonesia and Malaysia - to grow sustainably and also support the local smaller producers, which is a lever for local economic development.
Different RSPO certifications
The RSPO certification system recognises different types of palm oil. Our preference goes out to the use of sustainable palm (kernel) oil from separate production streams, whereby the oil is processed separately throughout the process. Secondly, we choose mass balance: sustainable oil that gets mixed with normal oil during storage and transport. We want to further reduce the share of non-sustainable palm (kernel) oil for which we will purchase RSPO certificates ('credits') in the future.
Is palm oil sustainable?
The production of palm oil and palm kernel oil is often linked to (illegal) deforestation. This is detrimental to the environment, local biodiversity and the rights of the population. However, from the point of view of sustainability, replacing the fat with another vegetable variety is not a solution for the environment. This is because the oil palm is a very productive plant which, compared to other oil plants - such as sunflowers or cabbage seeds – has a big yield on little land. Replacing palm oil would require 4 to 10 times more land use and could therefore lead to more deforestation.
What are we doing to make the chain more sustainable?
As a retailer, we do not buy or sell palm oil directly. It is one of the many ingredients in over seven hundred of our private label products. Making the palm oil chain more sustainable is therefore quite a challenge. That is why we actively cooperate with our producers and suppliers.
We evaluate the palm oil they use through an annual survey and internal audit. On that basis, we encourage them to switch to more sustainable palm oil. We guide them through this:
- building up expertise and investing in human and financial resources to actively help them with the transition.
- giving them time to organise themselves according to the RSPO regulations.
- working with them to find feasible solutions to, for example, technical problems linked to the separation of production flows. We also help small suppliers to apply collectively for a group licence to reduce the cost of certification.
