New Britain Oils and Wilmar to Supply Certified Sustainable Palm Oil to Continental Europe

NBPOL and Wilmar International Limited are working closely together to ensure that large and small food manufacturers in Continental Europe are able to source the widest range of fully segregated certified sustainable palm oil in an affordable manner.

5/12/2011 --- New Britain Palm Oil Limited (LSE: NBPO), one of the largest fully integrated industrial producers of sustainable palm oil and Wilmar International Limited (SP: WIL) (Wilmar), Asia's leading agribusiness group, announce that they have agreed to set up an integrated supply chain and joint marketing arrangement for supplying Continental Europe with fully traceable and segregated sustainable palm oil from NBPOL's Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) certified plantations in Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands.

The palm oil will be available from Wilmar's refinery in Brake, Germany in a whole range of products in 100% segregated sustainable format from mid-2012. Until that time it will be available in mass balance form and fully segregated for some of the quantity, this is mainly due to existing customer contracts. The refinery in Brake has a full capacity of approximately 700,000 tonnes per annum of which 300,000 will be dedicated to palm oil supplied from NBPOL's estates.

NBPOL and Wilmar International Limited are working closely together to ensure that large and small food manufacturers in Continental Europe are able to source the widest range of fully segregated certified sustainable palm oil in an affordable manner.

The Continental European palm oil market is approximately 5 million tonnes per annum. Palm oil is used in 1 in 10 products in the supermarket including bread, crackers, chips, margarine and cereals, as well as personal care and beauty products such as soap and lipstick.

Alan Chaytor, Executive Director of New Britain Palm Oil Limited, commented:

"This agreement ensures that fully segregated, traceable and certified sustainable and affordable palm oil will be made available in enough product specifications and formats that food manufacturers throughout Europe will no longer need to buy palm oil offset certificates. NBPOL's refinery in Liverpool, UK and Wilmar's Brake refinery in Germany will assist each other in the specific palm oil product formats that they individually do not have.

This is a fantastic opportunity for NBPOL and Wilmar International to make the supply of segregated traceable certified sustainable palm oil a reality in Europe."

Martua Sitorius, Director of Wilmar International Limited, commented:

"Wilmar is very pleased to be working with New Britain Palm Oil Limited to ensure that our Brake refinery is now able to produce a whole host of products and blends of certified sustainable palm oil that caters for the needs of the European food industry. Together we are now able to offer these products sustainably and affordably. The supply of segregated certified sustainable palm oil is so important that we felt we had to make it available sooner rather than later.

We have heard for a long time from food manufacturers that it has been difficult to source many of the palm oil products needed in a sustainable format and therefore they have set their targets for using only sustainable palm oil quite far off in the future. Wilmar and New Britain hope that our working together in Brake assists these companies to meet their targets and potentially bring them forward."

Alessandro Cagli, Corporate Social Responsibility Director for the Ferrero Group, said:

"We are delighted to see this kind of agreement between Wilmar and New Britain Palm Oil because Ferrero Group supports the increased supply of quality, fully segregated and traceable, certified sustainable palm oil and these companies are serious about doing it in an affordable way."