by Sara Hills FoodBizDaily.com London
October 30 2009 - United Biscuits has become the latest company to affirm its commitment to sustainable palm oil after entering into a two year supply agreement with New Britain Palm Oil Limited.
Under the deal the palm oil producer is to provide the leading branded snacks business with “significant quantities of segregated, traceable and certified sustainable palm oil”.
It is the first supply agreement signed for NBPOL's UK refinery in Liverpool, due for completion in spring 2010.
The announcement comes as many British food manufacturers and retailers have been criticised this week, in a report by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), for failing to make substantial progress towards sourcing sustainable palm oil.
NBPOL is a large scale integrated industrial producer of palm oil. Its operations in West New Britain Province, Papua New Guinea are certified as conforming to the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil's (RSPO) Principles and Criteria on sustainability.
The UK refinery will have a dedicated supply source from NBPOL's certified sustainable plantations, which it said means the palm oil will be fully segregated and traceable from seed to finished product.
Alan Chaytor, executive director of NBPOL, said: "The agreement represents a significant part of our capacity from our UK palm oil refinery.
“Our investment in our UK palm oil refinery is all about giving consumers the assurance that the products that they want to buy can now actually be made from affordable, segregated, traceable and certified sustainable palm oil, which NBPOL believes is often a better alternative to certificate trading schemes, such as GreenPalm.”
NBPOL expects to sign further supply agreements in due course.
UB’s products include biscuits, crackers, savoury snacks, nuts and cakes, with brands such as McVitie's, Jacob's, Carr's, Penguin and KP.
Dr Simon Roulston, UB oils sourcing manager, said: "UB has a clear goal to only use segregated, sustainable palm oil so that we can be sure that the palm oil in our products is the oil from the sustainable plantations.
“By the end of 2011 we aim to have 100% of our palm oil sourced on a segregated and sustainable basis.”
The first delivery of this oil is due in December 2009.
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United Biscuits Topco Limited
Address: Hayes Park, Hayes End Road, Hayes London, UB4 8EE GBR
Telephone: +44-20-8234-5000
Fax: +44-20-8734-5555
About United Biscuits Topco Limited
Getting caught with your hand in the cookie jar is a good thing at United Biscuits (UB), the market-leading UK biscuit (cookies to all you Yanks) maker. UB's cake brands include such stalwarts as Jacob's Cream Crackers, Jaffa Cakes, and, probably the company's biggest bite, McVitie's Digestive Biscuits (it sells some 71 million packet of them a year). Catering to savory flavor lovers, the company's salty snack brands include McCoy's, and Hula Hoops. In addition to its name brands, United Biscuits produces private-label biscuits and snacks for food retailers. Beyond the UK, the company is also a leading biscuit and snack maker in Western Europe. It is jointly owned investment firms, The Blackstone Group and PAI.