In this exclusive video, Jonathan Horrell, sustainability director for Mondelēz International, which uses palm oil in a range of biscuit and confectionery products, explained what this would mean for suppliers. He was speaking at the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil’s (RSPO’s) European roundtable in London last week.
“Really the objective we have is to move from this position where we have RSPO coverage, but some of it with certificates, to a point where we’re able to say our physical supply of oil is produced under sustainable conditions,” he told FoodManufacture.co.uk.
‘Need to improve traceability’
“In the conversations we’ve had with our suppliers in recent months, two real things have come through. First is, we need to improve traceability at least to the point of the first processing mill. Therefore we’re laying down a milestone to say that by the end of 2015 we need all of our suppliers’ oil to be traceable to the origin mill.”
Second, Mondelēz was seeking to establish stronger, more robust publicly published policies ensuring palm oil traded had been produced under sustainable conditions, said Horrell.
He said the message to suppliers would therefore be: “We’ll also require you by the end of 2015 to have published policies and implementation timelines out there so that we can be sure that these sustainable conditions are really being adopted.”
At the end of 2013, Mondelēz reached a point where all the palm oil it used was either itself guaranteed sustainable by the RSPO, or covered by the purchase of RSPO-recognised certificates. Cash used to buy such certificates goes directly to support sustainable palm oil production.
Mondelēz brands include Philadelphia cheese spread, Lu biscuits, Kenco coffee and Cadbury chocolate.