Spar Austria has announced that it has removed palm oil from around 99% of its own brand food SKUs. It has been replaced with domestic sunflower oil, rapeseed oil, or butter.
The palm oil-free product ranges include Spar Premium, Spar Natur * pur, Spar Vital, Spar free from, Spar Veggie, Spar enjoy, and Spar Feine Küche.
The CEO of Spar Austria, Gerhard Drexel, said, "We have the responsibility to offer our customers food products that contain no harmful ingredients.
"Palm oil, which is responsible for the clearing of our rainforests, is also said to be harmful to health."
Challenges
In March of last year, Spar Austria has announced that it would remove palm oil from all its private-label products by the end of the year.
Drexel added, "We will continue to work hard to convert the remaining 1% of Spar’s own brand products.
"We were faced with some challenges, but we are very much looking for ways and options to go without palm oil for these few remaining products."
Around 93% of all 5,000 own-brand, food products never contained palm oil at all, the company added.
© 2019 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Dayeeta Das. To subscribe to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine, click here.
