NEWS INDONESIA: US agribusiness giant Cargill announced on 3 June that it is planning to build a new US$200M palm oil refinery in Lampung, due for completion late next year. “This project is a key step to increase the availability of sustainably sourced and produced edible oil ingredients for our customers,” said Cargill’s Asia Pacific president Robert Aspell. Cargill entered the Indonesian market in 1974 with the establishment of a feed mill in Bogor, West Java, the company said. EUROPE: Leading oilseed processing company Bunge announced a lecithin distribution agreement with IMCD's food and nutrition division on 3 June. The deal between Bunge Loders Croklaan (BLC) and the speciality chemicals and ingredients distributor allows IMCD to distribute BLC's complete BungeMaxx lecithin portfolio in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK. The BungeMaxx lecithin portfolio comprised plant-based lecithin made from soya, rapeseed and sunflower seeds in fluid, deoiled, and fraction forms, including organic sunflower and soya options. It was suitable for a range of applications including chocolate confectionery, bakery, nutritional supplements and infant nutrition, Bunge said.
EU rejects new rules for plant-based dairy sector The EU has rejected draft legislation which would have imposed new restrictions on descriptions and packaging used by the plant-based dairy sector, FoodBev reported on 26 May. Current European laws already ban the use of dairy terms for non-dairy products, such as ‘soya milk’ or ‘vegan cheese’. However, Amendment 171 (AM171) would have had further implications for the alternative dairy sector, banning descriptions such as 'creamy' or 'buttery', FoodBev wrote. Images of plant-based foods that could be judged to be ‘evoking’ or ‘imitating’ dairy, would also have been banned, along with packaging formats such as milk cartons or butter blocks and comparisons such as “half the carbon emissions of dairy butter”, the report said.
Last year, the European Parliament had voted to reject a ban on plant-based products using names typically associated with meat products, but had voted in favour of a plant-based dairy ban, FoodBev wrote. AM171 had now been dropped by the European Parliament, the European Council and the European Commission, FoodBev said. The amendment had followed objections from NGOs, food companies such as Nestlé, climate change activist Greta Thunberg and other organisations, the report added. Meanwhile, the European Dairy Association said that the decision to uphold existing restrictions on the use of terms such as “vegan cheese” in the Common Agricultural Policy would continue to protect dairy industry products.
UK imports of Spanish olive oil fall post Brexit
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IN BRIEF
The UK is Spain's fifth largest olive oil export market
Spain’s olive oil exports to the UK dropped 35% in the first two months of this year compared to the same period last year, Olive Oil Times reported the country’s Union of Farmers and Livestock Unions as saying on 10 May. The UK imported about
US$167M of Spanish olive oil in 2020, making it Spain’s fifth largest export market. The EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement, which had been provisionally operational since 1 January when Brexit came into effect, was fully ratified in April, Olive
Oil Times wrote. According to figures released by the UK’s Office of National Statistics in March, imports from the EU had fallen by 28% in the first two months of the year as additional checks and bureaucratic hurdles had impeded the free flow of products. Total Spanish agri-food exports had fallen by 4.9% during the period, with sales of oils and fats being hit particularly hard, including the 35% drop in olive oil shipments, Olive Oil Times said. The Union of Farmers and Livestock Unions said a new requirement for phytosanitary certificates and border checks would also lead to a further slowdown of shipments and add to the cost and bureaucracy of post-Brexit trading.
CME permanently closes most physical trading pits The physical trading pits of global derivatives and commodities exchange CME Group that have been closed since last year due to COVID-19 will not reopen, the company announced on 4 May. However, CME said its Eurodollar options pit, which reopened in August, would remain open, allowing trade in both open 8 OFI – JUNE 2021
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outcry and electronic systems. Open outcry was popular in trading pits in the past, according to Investopedia. The verbal and hand signal communication used by traders at stock, option and futures exchanges are now rarely used, replaced by faster, more accurate electronic systems. Open outcry on benchmark Chicago
Board of Trade (CBOT) soyabean futures ended in 2015, according to Successful Farming, after it first began in 1936. The CBOT was set up in 1848 and was one of the world’s oldest futures and options exchanges. It merged with the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) in 2007 to form the CME Group. www.ofimagazine.com
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