Sime Darby begins legal action against NGO head

IN BRIEF

WORLD: German chemicals firm BASF announced on 4 March that it had reached its target of procuring palm kernel oil (PKO) exclusively from Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO)-certified sources by 2020.

BASF said it had bought 227,213 tonnes of certified sustainable PKO last year and was now focused on ensuring that its purchases of significant palm oil and PKO intermediates – such as fatty alcohols and fatty acids – were from certified sources by 2025. PKO and its derivatives are used in personal care and cleaning applications. BASF added that 95% of its global palm footprint, totalling 441,107 tonnes, was now traceable back to the oil mill level.

Sime Darby begins legal action against NGO head

Malaysia-based Sime Darby Plantation Berhad (SDP) announced on 11 March that it had started legal action against the managing director of an NGO in order to obtain information about a complaint he filed with the Securities Commission of Malaysia about SDP.

The company said it was the first time in its 200-year history that it had resorted to taking legal action against an NGO.

SDP filed its legal application against Liberty Shared managing director Duncan Jepson on 9 March in the Eastern District of Virginia, USA. It said the aim of the proceedings was to obtain important information regarding a complaint filed by Jepson with Malaysia’s Securities Commission, in which he alleged wrongful disclosures in SDP’s Sustainability Report 2019.

Liberty Shared had filed a complaint with the United States Customs and Border Protection agency on 20 April 2020, alleging the use of forced labour in the production of palm oil in SDP’s Malaysian estates.

SDP said it was made aware of the complaint on 7 July 2020, when Liberty Shared posted a summary of it on its website. However, it said the summary did not contain enough information to allow it to close any alleged gaps in its operations.

“The Securities Commission started investigations into Jepson’s complaint and then sought further information from [us],” the company said.

SDP said it would cooperate fully with the commission and it was therefore vitally important that it obtain limited but critical information from the complaint filed by Jepson.

SDP is the world’s largest palm oil plantation company by planted area, according to its website, with oil palm planted across more than 600,000ha in Malaysia, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands. It produces around 2.5M tonnes/year or 4% of global crude palm oil.

Beyond Meat expands deals with fast food giants

US plant-based food company Beyond Meat has signed distribution agreements with several high-profile fast food chains, The Independent reports.

The company announced the deals on 25 February with McDonald’s and with Yum! Brands, the parent company of KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut.

McDonald's will use the Beyond Meat partnership to launch its McPlant burger, as well as explore the development of plant-based pork, egg and chicken products, The Independent wrote. Yum! would use the deal to expand its Beyond Fried Chicken products, as well

Photo: Adobe Stock

Beyond Meat will supply plant-based burgers, pizza toppings and other plant-based products to McDonald's, KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell

as pizza toppings at Pizza Hut. The global rise in consumer demand for plant-based foods is opening up new markets for oils and fats, which are used to add flavour, moisture and texture to new meat alternatives.

Beyond Meat CEO Ethan Brown said the new deals were a “tipping point” in terms of plant-based meat’s prominence, FoodIngredientsFirst reported.

The agreements were an expansion of Beyond Meat’s earlier partnerships with McDonald’s and Yum! Brands, when a number of its products were tested in limited locations, The Independent said.

Several fast food chains were also experimenting with new plant-based products, including Burger King which had partnered with plant-based food company Impossible Foods.

France's BNP targets soyabeans from Amazon land

French international banking group BNP Paribas announced on 15 February that it will no longer provide financial services to customers who grow or buy Brazilian soyabeans from Amazonian land that has been cleared or converted since 2008.

The company said Brazilian beef and soyabean production had accelerated deforestation in the country’s Amazon and Cerrado regions which “legal or illegal, jeopardises the ecological integrity and future of these two biomes”.

There was an “urgent need” for all relevant stakeholders to prioritise land use strategies that integrated zero deforestation, sustainable production and a positive social impact, BNP said. “Financial institutions exposed to the agricultural sector in Brazil must contribute to this fight against deforestation,” it said.

BNP said the move was part of its commitment to encourage its customers producing or buying beef or soya from the country’s Amazon and Cerrado regions to become ‘zero deforestation’.

As a result, BNP said it would only provide its products or services to companies with a strategy to achieve zero deforestation in their production and supply chains by 2025. It would also encourage its clients not to produce or buy beef or soyabeans from cleared or converted land in the country’s Cerrado region after 1 January 2021.

NEWS

DFC calls halt to palm oil in cattle feed

The Dairy Farmers of Canada (DFC) association is advising butter producers to temporarily stop adding palm oil additives to cattle feed following reports of butter becoming harder to melt, CBC News reported on 25 February.

Gordon MacBeath, a member of the group’s board, said the DFC was responding to recent concerns about the hardening of some types of Canadian butter.

The association also announced on 19 February that is was putting together a working group to study the issue of “fat supplementation in the dairy sector.” The group would include producers, processors, the Consumers Association of Canada, veterinary nutritionists and animal scientists.

“We want to err on the side of caution and we’re advising producers to just simply drop it as an ingredient in the ration until the working group has an opportunity to do its work,” said MacBeath.

MacBeath explained that palm fat had been used as an energy supplement for cows for about a decade and no health issues for cows or changes to milk had been detected since its use. Palm fat was also used in cattle feed in Australia, New Zealand, the UK and the USA.

Alejandro Marangoni, a food science professor at the University of Guelph, said while components of palm oil found in milk fat could affect the melting point of butter, there was no data to support the hardening claims.

There were many factors that could change from season to season and year to year that could affect milk products, MacBeath said, such as how weather conditions affected the grass eaten by cows.

DFC noted that dairy cattle feed also varied from place to place due to differences in the type of feed available depending on what local farmers were growing.

“While farmers grow the majority of the crops they feed their cows, a number of common feeds like flax, canola, corn and other plants have been used for decades in a targeted way to ensure cows are meeting their energy requirements,” a statement on the group’s website said.

Cargill joins organic soyabean and corn alliance

Global agribusiness giant Cargill announced on 9 February that it had joined an alliance with organic research organisation Rodale Institute and chicken producer Bell & Evans to increase US production of certified-organic corn and soyabeans.

The growth of Bell & Evans’ organic chicken business had led to an increased need for US-grown certified organic corn and soyabeans for use in its organic chicken feed, the company said.

As a result, Bell & Evans had entered into a sourcing agreement with Cargill to exclusively secure its organic grain and increase domestic organic grain supply. Under the agreement, Cargill would encourage US farmers to convert land from conventional to organic management through subsidised organic crop consulting services provided by the Rodale Institute.

The aim of the Bell & Evans Organic Grain Initiative was to convert 20,234ha of US corn and soyabean farmland to certified organic production over the next five years.

Under the initiative, contracted growers would receive customised support to help them through the conversion, including on-farm consultation, organic system planning, certification assistance, crop rotation planning and inspection preparation.

Cargill would offer market access for transition crops while farmers would be guaranteed a market for their certified organic grains through Bell & Evans.

Cargill will encourage US farmers to convert land from conventional to organic soyabean and corn production Photo: Adobe Stock

IN BRIEF

MALAYSIA: Futures and options exchange Bursa Malaysia Derivatives (BMD) has launched a revamped crude palm kernel oil futures (FPKO) contract, available to traders from 8 March.

BMD CEO Samuel Ho said enhancements to the contract covered five areas including contract grade, delivery points, daily price limits, speculative position limits and the imposition of traceability document requirements.

Argentina probes consumer and food giants

The Argentine government is investigating leading consumer and food companies over accusations they deliberately held back production amid a clampdown on rising prices, Reuters reported on 17 February.

In a statement, the country’s production ministry alleged that the consumer firms – including Danone, Procter & Gamble and Unilever along with global agribusiness giants Bunge and others – had been “holding back production volumes” and had not abided by a resolution to increase output to the “highest degree of their installed capacity”, Reuters wrote.

An investigation had found shortages in supermarkets of products ranging from cooking oil to nappies and cheese and the production ministry called on the companies being investigated to rectify the situation and restore stock levels.

The companies had not immediately responded to emailed requests for comment, Reuters said.

However, Daniel Funes de Rioja, the head of food industry chamber COPAL, rejected the allegations, saying that the industry had supplied the market despite high costs, price freezes, COVID, sick workers, logistical problems, striking oil workers, a truckers' blockade and plant shutdowns.

The Argentine government was trying to protect consumers from rising prices and reduce rampant inflation, Reuters said, leading to clashes with some businesses and investors over price caps on some goods.

IN BRIEF

LATIN AMERICA: The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) announced on 26 February that its Latin American members had produced 1.5M tonnes of Certified Sustainable Palm Oil (CSPO). The landmark figure was reached in February after four new grower companies received certification and added 160,000 tonnes of CSPO to help the region reach the 1.5M tonnes total.

A total of 31 certified growers from Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico produced the region’s CSPO output from over 420,500ha of certified land.

BRAZIL: Global agribusiness giant Bunge has launched an initiative to share best practices with grain dealers on the traceability and monitoring of soyabean crops linked to its indirect supply chain in Brazil’s Cerrado region.

Bunge said on 3 March that it would share its experience, methodologies and tools with partner dealers, who could adopt independent imaging services for verifying soyabean crops or use its geospatial monitoring structure at no cost.

The group added that it had achieved 100% traceability for its direct soya purchases and it was expecting to reach 100% monitoring of its indirect soyabean purchases by 2025.

Leading chocolate giants face child slavery lawsuit

Leading global chocolate companies Mars, Nestlé and Hershey are among the defendants facing a child slavery lawsuit in the USA, The Guardian reported on 12 February.

Human rights firm International Rights Advocates (IRA) had filed the lawsuit in Washington DC on behalf of eight former alleged child slaves who claimed they had been forced to work without pay on cocoa plantations in Ivory Coast, the newspaper wrote.

In the lawsuit, which also named Cargill, Barry Callebaut, Olam and Mondelēz, the eight children – all originally from Mali and now young adults – accused the corporations of aiding and abetting the illegal enslavement of “thousands” of children on cocoa farms in their supply chains.

A central allegation of the lawsuit was that the defendants, despite not owning the cocoa farms in question, “knowingly profited” from the illegal work of children, with contracted suppliers able to provide lower prices than if they had employed adult workers.

Cargill said that while it could not comment on specifics of the case, "we have no tolerance for child labour in cocoa production”. Nestlé, Olam and Hershey also condemned child labour, while Barry Callebaut said it had committed to eradicating child labour from its supply chain by 2025.

Ivory Coast produced about 45% of the global supply of cocoa which, along with cocoa butter, was a core ingredient in chocolate, The Guardian report said.

USA removes tariffs on Spanish olive oil

US tariffs on packaged Spanish olive oils have been temporarily lifted Photo: Adobe Stock

A US 25% tariff on Spanish packaged olive oils has been lifted as part of a wider agreement between the USA and the EU to temporarily freeze retaliatory tariffs imposed during their ongoing Boeing/ Airbus subsidy dispute, Olive Oil Times reported on 5 March.

"US President Joe Biden and I agreed to suspend all our tariffs imposed in the context of the Airbus-Boeing disputes, both on aircraft and non-aircraft products, for an initial period of four months,” European Commissioner Ursula von der Leyen said.

The move was welcomed by the Spanish olive oil sector, which had recently reported an 80% drop in 2020 sales of bottled olive oil to the USA compared with the previous year, Olive Oil Times wrote.

Spanish Union of Small Farmers and Ranchers secretary general Cristóbal Cano said a lot of work would be required to recapture some of the market share that had been lost.

In their long-running dispute, the USA and EU had accused each other of providing illegal subsidies to their respective aircraft manufacturers, Boeing and Airbus. This had led to retaliatory tariffs, including those on Spanish packaged virgin and non-virgin olive oils.

Lowest deforestation rate in three years but same culprits

Rates of oil palm deforestation in Indonesia, Malaysia and Papua New Guinea in 2020 were at their lowest level for three years, according to a new report by Chain Reaction Research (CRR) published on 9 February.

CRR detected approximately 38,000ha of deforestation on oil palm concessions in the region in 2020. This compared to 90,000 ha in 2019.

The reduction in palm oil deforestation had been visible from the first half of 2020, and could be attributed to Indonesia’s economic contraction and travel restrictions due to COVID-19, CRR said.

Continued restrictions due to the pandemic in Indonesia and key export markets could explain the continued slow pace of deforestation in the third and fourth quarters of 2020, CRR said, although domestic demand and rallying palm oil prices could result in a rise in land development this year.

CRR found that approximately 22,000ha (58%) of deforestation could be attributed to 10 palm oil companies in Indonesia, with the remainder distributed between 112 other companies. Most of the 10 companies (Sulaidy, Ciliandry Anky Abadi, Bengalon Jaya Lestari, Mulia Sawit Agro Lestari (MSAL) Group, PT Permata Sawit Mandiri, IndoGunta, Jhonlin Group, Shanghai Xinjiu Chemical Co, Citra Borneo Indah (CBI) Group and Indonusa) were also listed in CRR’s 2019 and 2018 lists, CRR said.