Luxury retailer's own-brand products are now completely free of palm oil
Selfridges has become the first major UK retailer to completely eliminate palm oil from its own-brand foods, meeting its self-imposed deadline nine months ahead of schedule.
The milestone, announced by Selfridges yesterday, follows a similar commitment made last year by Iceland, which pledged to make its own-brand goods 100 per cent palm-oil-free by the start of 2019. However, it was forced to temporarily drop its own name from 17 products that still contain the controversial fat to meet the deadline.
Global demand for palm oil has soared as production of processed food has risen across the world. Demand for new plantations has been blamed for much of the deforestation that has devastated tropical forests, particularly in south-east Asia, since 1990.
Some studies suggest alternatives to palm oil would require more land to produce the same volume of oil, and as such some commentators have argued that switching away from palm oil will only serve to drive up deforestation rates.
The Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), for example, instead champions a move to palm oil certified as zero deforestation, and is a staunch critic of palm oil boycotts.
But Selfridges, Iceland and others maintain that until RSPO standards are tough enough to guarantee certified palm oil is no longer a driver of deforestation, they should not use it as an ingredient. "We believe that until certified palm oil guarantees zero deforestation, our customers should be given the option to buy palm-oil-free products," said Selfridges managing director Simon Forster.