Response from Tesco regarding fuel

I have received a response from Tesco about what percentage of their fuel is made up of palm oil. In the same e-mail I also told them I was switching all my on-line shopping to Sainsbury's but they haven't replied about that.

Using this as a base, I can now write to other fuel suppliers to see if they can be any more precise about how much palm oil is in their petrol/diesel. This might be one area that I can't avoid palm oil. I don't drive anywhere myself but I do get a lift to my market stall every Saturday in a diesel car and of course, all the delivery vehicles bringing items to me for my business, my groceries, on-line shopping etc. all use fuel so I can't absolve myself of responsibility in this area. There may be one supplier that's better than the others so I'll see if I can find out which ... Anyway, here's what Tesco say about their fuel

Thank you for your patience

I received the following response this morning regarding the usage of Palm Oil in our bio fuels regrettably, they've not given me a percentage figure.

In 2005 we decided to sell biofuels as we believed that they could help customers reduce their carbon footprint and decrease our use of fossil fuels. Since then, EU legislation has made 5% biofuel obligatory in regular fuels.

We do use some palm oil in the production of our biofuels. However, we are continually seeking to reduce the amount of palm oil we use by supplementing it with other vegetable oils, such as waste tallow.

All major fuel companies are also members of the Round Table on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) and are committed to sustainably sourcing palm oil used in biofuels.
Greenergy (www.greenergy.com), which supplies almost 50% of our fuel requirements, has been praised for its work in developing biofuel sustainability criteria and audit programmes.

I appreciate that this will not have been the answer you hoped for and I'm sorry that I can't get you a more detailed response. I do hope this information will be of some help to you.

Holding response from Tesco

I wrote another e-mail to Tesco last week letting them know that I am switching all my on-line purchases to Sainsbury's and also enquiring why they hadn't yet responded about what the 5% bio fuel component of their diesel and petrol is made from. Here is their reply:

I'm very sorry that I've not yet received a reply to your query. Please let me assure you that I've not forgotten about this and I have escalated the matter again on your behalf. As soon as I receive I will be in contact again and I do appreciate your patience on this matter.

Sainsbury's - yay!

When you're ordering groceries on-line, there's this lovely feature called your Favourites List. Every time you order something, it gets automatically added to your FL. After you've done a few shops, pretty much everything you buy regularly from the supermarket is on it and then shopping is really easy, you just go through the list ordering anything you've run out of. It used to take me 20 minutes with Tesco once I'd given the cupboards and fridge a once over.

As I said in a previous blog entry, I'm ditching Tesco and am currently going through the pain of shopping on-line at Sainsbury's without the benefit of an FL. The order took nearly two hours to do because my favourites list is in its infancy.

So far, the things I've discovered I've forgotten are limes, loo roll, onions, cashew nuts and rice. But hopefully, we'll get there in the end.

I was just waiting to see whether the Sainsbury's order arrived safely before telling Tesco why I'm now shopping elsewhere and chasing them for a reply about their fuel. I'll let you know when/if I receive a reply.

World Wildlife Fund publish palm oil buyers scorecard

The World Wildlife Fund has recently published its Palm Oil Scorecard for European companies, you can download it from this page of WWF website. As Sainsbury's is scoring so much better than Tesco, I am switching all my on-line shopping to Sainsbury's

I have also recently read, on a very recently discovered fellow palm oil avoider's blog, that Sainsbury's appear to have a similar honest labelling policy as the Co-Op when it comes to palm oil in their own-brand ranges.

Since starting this non-palm oil buying malarky, I find that my list of things that I buy from the supermarket is dwindling on pretty much a weekly basis but it's so much easier to get them to deliver things like wine (heavy) and loo roll and all the other things I don't want to cart back from the shops. As I live such a distance away (without a car) it makes more sense environmentally that they deliver it whilst they're on their round and uses far less fuel per customer.

Tesco labelling response and toothpaste

I've received a response from Tesco concerning labelling and this is their reply:

Thank you for taking the time to respond to my previous email.

I appreciate that labelling the products which contain Palm Oil would be very beneficial to you and certainly help you in making your choices as to which products you can buy. Regrettably, this is not something we have any plans for at present.

However I can see from your email that you are finding it easier to purchase products from other retailers as they have the information that you need. I will be sure to pass on your further comments to our Head Office to let them know that the lack of information is causing you to shop elsewhere and this is something which will be looked at when planning future labelling reviews.

I would like to thank you again for taking the time to respond and if you have any further queries please do not hesitate to contact me again.

I have written to them again asking if my Tesco own brand hair mousse contains palm oil as I've run out and the ingredients are confusing - if I were buying this from the Co-Op's own brand, I could be sure it was palm oil free because of their honest labelling policy.

Additionally, I have read this article on Nature Watch (warning: website contains some upsetting photographs of orangutans in distress) and so, whilst I was writing to Tesco, have asked if they are adding palm oil to their diesel. Our car is diesel so I'll have to find out where my husband fills up and see if they are adding palm oil to their diesel.

There have been replies about toothpaste but I am having to write back for clarification on some points so will report on toothpaste when I've got conclusive points to make. At present though it's not looking good and as toothpaste is something I would be very loath to be without, I think I may fail to find an alternative but I'll keep you posted!

Today - toothpaste

I am on the trail of palm oil free toothpaste today. I have found a shop called Animal Aid Shop and the page I have linked to has some toothpaste on it. I wrote to them last week and they tell me that they are very careful to buy products which do not contain palm oil wherever possible; they stock the Little Satsuma soaps, candles and palm-oil free fudge. They say their chocolates are fine, but some toiletries may contain palm oil.

They haven't specifically stated that the toothpaste is palm oil free but the ingredients are: Aqua, Glycerine (Veg), Creta praeparata, Xanthan gum, Commiphora myrrha, Asorbic acid, D-limolene, (from essential oils), Natural flavour oils. They further state that their toothpaste does not contain Sodium lauryl sulphate, fluorides or Parabens. So I can't find any of the usual suspects in there but I have today discovered on Wikipedia that Glycerine is derived from vegetable oil so I may have to add that one to the list. Before I clarify with Animal Aid, I've written to Colgate, Aquafresh and GlaxoSmithKline (re: Macleans) to see if any of their toothpastes contain palm oil or palm oil derivatives. If any of these are OK, then I won't need to switch anyway.

I've had a very late response from Tesco, I wrote a follow up e-mail to them on 17 June complaining about how labelling was making it very difficult for me to avoid palm oil and suggesting that they could work with the WWF as they're doing a lot of research on their palm oil scorecard. As Tesco already have a database of all the products they sell in their store, it wouldn't be that much more work to add a field for palm oil so people could consult it on-line.

They thank me for writing and apologise for the delay in replying. They acknowledge my difficulty but say they have no plans to introduce a list of free from Palm Oil products.

Tesco have confirmed that two of their own brand products I specifically asked about (Tesco Baby Lotion and the Tesco Finest Greek Olive spread) do not contain palm oil. They offer to query further products if I write again. I was really hoping they might consider some kind of honest labelling policy like the Co-Op which I find really helpful and gives me confidence when buying Co-Op own brand products. (I've therefore written to them to suggest it).

They say that they've fully logged my concerns and they feel that the work they are putting in to bring sustainable ingredients to the market place will stand them in good stead for the scorecard process. I hope the WWF penalise misleading "vegetable oil" labelling of their products when preparing their scorecard.

What do men smell of?

The Little Satsuma soaps arrived, two from the Orangutan Foundation and also I ordered a sample pack of various different scented ones directly. I got some deoderant, lip balm and moisturisers from them as well. I'm using up my current supplies of moisturiser etc. at the moment but we have given the Apeing around apple soap a go over the last couple of days.

It smells divine and is really nice and creamy; I really like it. It's too soon to say whether, together with moisturiser it will keep my eczma at bay. I'm not using the moisturiser that I bought yet as I want to finish my Oil of Olay first. Plus just in case I have a reaction to a new moisturiser, I would prefer it to be early next week as I obviously have to meet my public on Saturday on my market stall.

When I asked DH (darling husband) what he thought about the apple soap, he wasn't that keen on scented soaps. In the past few months, we have been using Dove soap (unscented uses palm oil), Simple Soap (unscented, not sure on palm oil as I don't have a wrapper at the moment) and more recently Tesco Pure (unscented, definitely uses palm oil). I asked him what the problem was with the scent and he said he'd prefer to smell like a man ... which led me to ask what a man smells like? He didn't have a ready answer for that (most unlike him!) When I offered the hypothesis that maybe it was flatulence and beer, we had quite a laugh!

I have pointed out that I also have Oatmeal and Shea & Simple soaps in my sample pack which sound scent neutral so he can have those.

Yesterday's half hour was spent replying to Tesco about how labelling of products and identification of palm oil in the plethora of ingredients that are derived from palm oil or have traces in it. I asked how palm oil products are labelled on their own brand goods.

I also put forward the suggestion to Tesco that maybe they could work with the WWF as they're doing a lot of research on their palm oil scorecard. Perhaps my idea of on an on-line database that consumers could consult indicating whether palm oil is present could be incorporated into the WWF project. Tesco provide the baseline data via their on-line database of products as well as resources in keeping it up to date and they could have a bit of a coup on their PR/marketing front in return. I suggested that such a database might also be expanded to address allergy concerns that other consumers have such as containing nuts, aspartame etc. I like to be constructive rather than "bad bad supermarket" finger-waggling. I'll be interested in how they respond.

I wrote to Tiptree products a while ago, they make marmalade, jam, chutney, bar-b-q sauce, some of their products are in my cupboard/fridge and so I wanted to know (as this is a typically palm oil containing product-line) what their policy on palm oil was. I got this very clear response: "With the exception of mincemeat and Christmas puddings, all Tiptree products are free from palm oil or any derivative thereof. I hope this helps".
So that's excellent news, I imagine the minemeat and Christmas puddings have processed vine fruit in, which, as I know from previous enquiries, has palm oil sprayed on it at source to stop it clumping together in transit.

As you can see from above, I'm beginningto expand my enquiries into lunch things and I do like chutney with cheese sandwiches. Got to get onto bread next (which is going to be one of the biggest challenges, methinks).