Household cleaning items

I wrote to a few of the suppliers of the household cleaning items I routinely use at home a couple of days ago. The first response is from Unilever. I only use two of their products:

1. Cif Lemon Cream Cleaner
2. Domestos Bleach

Palm Oil is an ingredient which is used in many food products, toiletry and cosmetic products. Due to our broad portfolio and scale of business, Unilever is the world's largest user of palm oil.

Hence we are leading the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil, a not-for-profit association set up to ensure that companies will be able to purchase certified sustainable palm oil as soon as possible. The challenge in finding an effective and long term solution is the problem of "traceability" (being able to trace every palm kernel back to the plantation which grew it). This is complex in an extended supply chain where there are many thousands of growers - both large and small.

Unfortunately, due to the brands and number of products that Unilever produces, we are unable to provide the generic ingredient details that you are asking for. We are nevertheless committing to traceability in our European supply chain for straight palm oil by 2012.

I hope this has reassured you about the use of palm oil in our products, and I will pass your comments on to our Product Development team. We welcome all consumer feedback - both positive and negative - as it helps us to improve our products and policies, so thank you for taking the time and trouble to contact us.

I understand why traceability is going to be a difficult problem but I can't see why it is so hard for them to provide me with a "yes, we use palm oil in those products" or "no, we don't use palm oil in those products".

Phew!

I got a reply from Heinz very quickly asking me to give them a ring so I did. The Customer Services lady I spoke to just now said that very few Heinz products have palm oil in them and the vegetable oil they use in salad cream is rape seed oil or sunflower oil. I should've asked why they don't know which one but perhaps they standardise their labelling. Either way, I don't really mind which it is so I'm just leaving it at that - one of life's little mysteries!

Good news from Heinz

Heinz have sent me the following:
"Thank you for contacting us with regard to Baked Beans, HP Sauce, Salad Cream, Tomato Soup & Vegetable Soup. I would like to confirm these products do not contain Palm Oil."

I'm slightly surprised by the response as Heinz Salad Cream has vegetable oil in its ingredients list so I am writing to them again just to clarify what oil the vegetable oil is. I really like a scraping of salad cream on a ham/cheese and salad sandwich so I'm really hoping for a positive response and not a re-run of the Morning Foods fiasco!

No other responses yet but I'll keep you updated on replies.

Excellent news also from The Cambridge Cheese Company, an independent cheese shop and delicatessen in All Saints Passage, just behind the Art & Craft market in Cambridge where I sell my jewellery on a Saturday. We often buy gourmet items from them. Geoff, my husband, goes shopping for our Saturday evening meal there whilst I'm on the stall.

They stock a bread which is made in France, it comes in a big cob and it is palm oil free. We tried some a couple of weeks ago and quite liked it. It's not as moist as a loaf and according to the chap who runs the shop, it never goes off. It's quite dry (but not as dry as a crispbread) to start with so you need to make sure you put lots of moist items in it to make a palatable sandwich. After a couple of days it is even drier but makes great toast if you put some Tiptree marmalade or jam on it (palm oil free!) Trouble is supply seems to be a bit sporadic, last week they didn't have any in because it was a bank holiday in France and this week, they just didn't deliver ... I guess that's the French for you (bless em!)

Additionally, Geoff asked about their policy on palm oil and the owner said that his wife did most of the buying and apparently it sounds as if she feels as strongly about palm oil as I do; he couldn't guarantee that nothing ever gets under her radar but I'm really reassured by that! They have great handmade pickles in there so I'm quite relaxed about giving up salad cream if I have to and using that instead. :-)

We went to my mum and dads for lunch yesterday for Father's Day and we've come home laden with strawberries and raspberries from my dad's allotment so breakfast with Oatiflakes is well and truly sorted now. Especially now I know from Heinz that baked beans are palm oil free - on the odd occasion when we have a cooked breakfast, I can now be sure that every breakfast from now on is palm oil free. I feel like I'm getting somewhere.