Groupe Casino to Remove Palm Oil from Own Brand Products

In the long run, no Casino food product will contain palm oil. As for Casino’s own brand non-food products not representing any nutritional interest, only certified sustainable palm oil will be used.

29 Mar 2010 --- After being the first retailer to sign the "Charter of commitments to nutritional improvement" with the ministries of Health and Sports, Agriculture and Fishing, the Economy, Industry and Labour back in 2008, Groupe Casino is now undertaking to discontinue the use of palm oil in its products.

Palm oil is a vegetable fat. Although it is highly stable at very high temperature and gives foods a crunchy texture, mass consumption can present health and environmental risks, the retailer writes as its rationale:

• In nutritional terms this oil is rich in saturated fatty acids which, when consumed in excess quantities, raise the level of cholesterol in the blood and increase cardiovascular risk

• In environmental terms its use gives rise to intensive farming of palm trees for oil to the detriment of the Asian forests. This deforestation leads to a loss of the plant and animal biodiversity namely reducing the habitat of certain local species.

Rightly so, this new undertaking will result in over 200 references guaranteed free of palm oil by the end of 2010. Currently the products containing palm oil are listed and the changes in recipes required (for instance replacing with rapeseed oil or sunflower oil) are in the pipeline. In the long run, no Casino food product will contain palm oil. As for Casino’s own brand non-food products not representing any nutritional interest, only certified sustainable palm oil will be used.

13 products easily identified by a dot on the packaging are already available in Casino stores (Géant Casino, Casino supermarché, Petit Casino, Spar and Vival), including:

This initiative, headed by the quality department, is shared across the company and the different banners of the group. Hence, Franprix, Leader Price (Leader Price products) and Monoprix (Monoprix products) are taking the same approach on board.

Since 2008 Groupe Casino is proactive in 3 nutritional improvement fields: improvement of the nutritional quality of products (reduction in salt, special ranges for the nutritional needs of children, etc), drives to eat more fruit and vegetables and consumer information. On the sustainable development front, Casino is the first retailer to measure the environmental impact of its products with the "carbon footprint index". Discontinuing palm oil from the Casino products is fully in keeping with this two-fold undertaking: nutritional improvement and environmental improvement.