AMSTERDAM, March 5 (Reuters) - Palm
oil consumption in Europe would be curbed when new rules start next year
compelling food makers to label their products with the ingredient if used, the
Dutch product board warned.
Because it is solid at room
temperature, palm oil has become an irreplaceable ingredient in a variety of
products from chocolate bars and spreads to biscuits, ice cream and even soap.
But a wave of negative campaigning
has targeted its cultivation, especially in Indonesia and Malaysia - a natural
habitat for the orangutan - where activists say rain forests have been
destroyed to make room for palm oil plantations.
Frans Claassen, head of the Dutch
Board for Margarine, Fats and Oils, which represents the industry, said the
negative campaigns could force food producers to seek to replace palm oil,
which would cut its imports and make products more expensive.
"If palm oil keeps its bad
reputation some food producers could stop using palm oil," Claassen told
Reuters.
Since 1995 global palm oil
production has tripled as food producers have used it to replace less healthy
trans fats created by hydrogenation of liquid oils such as rape oil, soy oil
and sunflower oil.
Palm oil imports to the European
Union account for 10 percent of global production, and nearly half is imported
through the Netherlands.
As of December 2014, food producers
will be obliged to put on labels if they use rape oil, palm oil, soyoil or any
other oil that are currently all labelled as vegetable oil, and experts say it
will be difficult to find a replacement for it.
Mike Gordon, professor of food
chemistry at the Department of Food and Nutritional Science at the University
of Reading in Britain said milk butter fat could be the only alternative.
"It (milk butter fat) would
probably be a bit more expensive," he said.
SUSTAINABILITY
Campaigners and food producers agree
sustainability certificates could be a way to reassure consumers a rainforest
has not been destroyed to make room for the palm oil used in a specific
product.
Unilever,
one of the world's biggest palm oil buyers, said 100 percent of its palm oil
was sustainable as of 2012.
"By 2020, we are aiming for all
of our sustainability sourced palm oil to be traceable back to the plantation
on which it was grown," it said in a written statement to Reuters.
It said the industry needs to step
up demand for sustainable palm oil which now accounts for 15 percent of the
global output, to reassure both consumers and campaigners.
In Malaysia, a government official
who declined to be named said his country will draft a new labelling strategy
to reassure consumers in the EU, a major importing region.
“The strategy is to differentiate
ourselves from Indonesian palm oil where most of the forest clearing is
happening. In Malaysia, on the other hand, we are running out of land,"
the official said.
Hans van Trijp, professor of
marketing and consumer behaviour at Wageningen University in the Netherlands,
said labelling would not on its own bring any changes in consumer behaviour,
but aggressive campaigns could make them more observant of labels and prone to
boycotting certain ingredients.
"The information itself will
not motivate consumers to change. The issue needs to be put on the
agenda," he said.
