Palm oil

Palm oil comes from palm oil plantations in countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia and is used by the food industry as a key edible oil in baking and other food production processes.

Vegetable oil production worldwide totals 120 million tonnes per year, of which over 38 million tonnes are produced by the palm oil industry, the world’s second largest oil crop after soyoil.

Palm oil is used in preference to soyoil by Northern Foods because of GM concerns relating to soyoil products.

However, the impact of palm oil production on tropical rainforest footprints has caused concern. Therefore, since January 2006 we have been members of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO). We have a strategic alliance with our supplier who is a founder member of the RSPO and we seek to source palm oil only from sustainable plantations.