Aug 3 2010 --- From this summer onwards, Unilever will source fully segregated sustainable palm oil from IOI Group. The oil is 100% traceable, all the way back to the plantation, and certified by the standards of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) as part of a multiyear agreement signed by both companies.

“This long term agreement is part of close cooperation between our companies and underlines the importance both Unilever and IOI attach to sustainability”, said Marc den Hartog, Sales & Marketing Director for IOI-Loders Croklaan and RSPO Executive Board member. “The availability of sustainable palm oil continues to grow, and it’s important that food manufacturers acknowledge these sustainability efforts from growers by changing to source sustainable oil.”

"We are committed to sourcing 100 per cent of our palm oil sustainably by 2015 and this agreement will play a crucial role in helping us to achieve our goal”: said Marc Engel, Chief Procurement Officer at Unilever. “With 35% of the palm oil we used this year coming from sustainable sources, we are already well on the way. However, we recognize we still have much to do, and IOI, being one of our large, strategic suppliers for tropical oils, should be applauded for making the investment to help us find the solutions we need to meet this target."

IOI-Loders Croklaan’s ability to provide segregated palm oil is possible thanks to the opening of the company’s new state-of-the-art refinery on the Rotterdam Maasvlakte in June 2010. This environmentally friendly refinery, built to allow IOI-Loders Croklaan to significantly extend its product portfolio, has the storage capacity and infrastructure and certification required to keep sustainable palm oil segregated from other oils.

Segregation is the most transparent and far-reaching method of RSPO certification, because it ensures that sustainable palm oil is kept apart from non-sustainable palm oil at every stage of the supply chain. This not only provides consumers with a guarantee that the palm oil they are using is completely sustainable, but also allows for greater traceability and preservation of high quality. European food manufacturers using segregated RSPO-certified palm oil can declare that “this product contains 100% RSPO certified sustainable palm oil”. As the volume of RSPO-certified palm oil increases, segregated palm oil will be able to make up a larger percentage of the total sustainable palm oil supply.

Being a founding member, IOI is fully committed to the principles and criteria of the RSPO (www.rspo.org) and believes that these offer the best roadmap to the development of a truly sustainable global palm oil industry and actively participates in RSPO initiatives to promote the growth and use of sustainable palm oil. IOI currently has three RSPO certified plantations in Malaysia and hopes to receive certification for all of its holdings by the end of 2011. In April this year, IOI was the first in offering RSPO certified segregated palm oil in continental Europe on a large scale.

News of the IOI-Unilever agreement comes days after it emerged that Cargill had entered into a supply agreement to provide Unilever’s European operations with 10,000 metric tonnes of segregated refined palm oil, certified by the RSPO. Cargill said its new offering will strengthen its ability to provide sustainable palm oil products to meet customers’ requirements and will complement its existing certified RSPO Mass Balance palm oil offering.