Sainsbury's household products

As I reported here, I wrote to Sainbsury's asking them about the palm oil content of all the household products that I thought I could buy from them to replace any ones that are already (or subsequently become) suspect. Here are the products I asked them about:

• Sainsbury’s Antibacterial Spray Cleaner
• Sainsbury’s Washing Up Liquid Lemon
• Sainsbury’s 2 in 1 Tablets Lavender and Jasmine (for clothes washing)
• Sainsbury’s Tablet Bio (for clothes washing)
• Sainsbury’s Tablets Non Bio (for clothes washing)
• Sainsbury’s Bathroom Cleaner Trigger Spray
• Sainsbury’s Oven Cleaner

I received a response in the post from Sainsbury's which happily informs me that none of these items contain palm oil or its derivatives.

I have looked again at the Reckitt Benckiser reply, basically, they have just given me a link to a site which lists the products they sell in the UK and you can find a list of ingredients for each one by drilling down. But it's up to me to check whether the ingredients are palm oil or derivatives.

As people who have been reading this blog for a while will realise, manufacturers can be very coy about calling palm oil "palm oil" and use any number of different euphemisms (see the extremely long list to the left!) Plus many of the items are derived from oil, but doesn't have to necessarily be palm oil. So if I find any of the ingredients listed on the website correspond with the list of euphemisms, then I will have to get back to Reckitt Benckiser to find out if those derivatives are from palm oil or some other oil like (for example) coconut oil. Seems a lot of work for me to do (there are eight products on my Reckitt Benckiser list as as Laura found out, it takes ages just to check one single product) Why do these companies have Customer Services departments if they don't provide any kind of service other than a purely perfunctory one?

Sainbsury's and Tesco and many other suppliers are happy to do the checking of their own brand products for their customers and say yes or no, I think if Reckitt Benckiser want me to continue to use their products, they need to do the work and tell me if the products I'm interested in are palm oil free. I have written to them to that effect to give them a final chance to retain my custom on the products that I buy from them:

• Windowlene original
• Brasso
• Cillit Bang Power Cleaner Grime & Lime
• Dettol Anti-bacterial surface cleaner
• Dettol Anti-bacterial surface cleaner
• Finish Powerball
• Vanish Pre-Wash Stain Stick
• Vanish Stain Remover Pre-Wash

Some of these products, I am happy to just do without if have to. If I don't get a positive response from Reckitt Benckiser, I'm going to have to do some research on alternative brands of dishwasher tablets because Sainsbury's don't have an own brand on those.

Still haven't heard from Homecare Products about Hob Brite, I've e-mailed them twice now 22 November and 14 February with no reply - time to resort to snail mail!

Sainsbury's letter

I've written a letter today to Sainsbury's. Firstly letting them know that I have switched my on-line purchasing to them instead of Tesco and congratulating them on their superior WWF Palm Oil Buyers Scorecard rating. Secondly, I've listed several household cleaning products which I think I may want to use from their own label brand and asked if any contain palm oil or palm oil derivities.

Even Tesco were prepared to research each own brand product I asked about and let me know yes or no. With Sainsbury's much better labelling policies, I am hopeful they will be willing to let me know.

Any response will be reported here.

Still on the household products trail

I have sent out a raft of e-mails to various companies on my long list of the products under my kitchen sink that I purchase for cleaning the house etc. I'll log any responses here.

Some of the products I use are made by Proctor & Gamble but they make it very difficult to contact them in writing either by e-mail or letter. I tried going to the individual product websites, where one exists, but they were exactly the same. I did finally find a form to fill in but they wanted all kinds of information like date of birth which isn't relevant to such an enquiry and is powerful information for people who want to steal your identity so I declined to continue on that line of enquiry. I need to make time to telephone them at some point during the day on the number that they give. I'd prefer a written response but needs must.

I'm still using Vecon vegetable stock, which is confirmed as palm oil free. It doesn't seem to be stocked by supermarkets, certainly not Tescos or Sainsbury's. I've been getting it from Holland & Barratt in Cambridge - but we find it a bit salty and as my husband has high blood pressure, we need to keep his sodium intake within sensible limits.

I noticed that Sainsbury's sell "Very Low Salt Vegetable Stock cubes" made by Kallo Foods. I wrote to them last week but I just got a one-liner reply stating "We would like to inform you that this product is made using palm fat". Not even a policy statement on sustainable palm oil! Very disappointing. We'll keep going with the Vecon but have to use it sparingly. In the meantime, I'll keep an eye out for other palm oil free stock cubes.

Good news on the dumplings front, Atora The Original contains only beef dripping and wheat flour so I can use that instead of the mixes that are based on vegetable fat (and probably therefore palm oil). After a very cold day of being snowed, sleeted and rained on manning my stall at Cambridge Art & Craft market yesterday, I tried some dumplings made using the straightforward recipe on the side of the packet with beef stew and they were delicious! Not very healthy but comforting and warm - an occasional mid-winter treat - a little of what you fancy, does you good :-)

No more dumplings? Arghh!

I thought I had got to the stage where everything I eat and drink at home was palm oil free but I have just discovered another foodstuff that I think probably contains palm oil. At this time of year I love to make stews and casseroles. It's particularly useful to make double or triple quantities towards the end of the week so I have a quick meal to reheat when I get home after a cold day of manning my jewellery stall. I never feel like cooking after such a long cold day and whilst I will occasionally resort to a frozen pizza (some of Co-op's own brand are palm oil free). I always prefer to eat non-processed food.

Stew wouldn't be stew without dumplings and I usually use a dumpling mix rather than make my own from fresh (what a contradiction after the last paragraph!) but all the brands I buy contain vegetable oil or vegetable fat. I have only just discovered dumpling mixes and suet contain vegetable fat because the cold weather has been so long arriving, I've only just got out the casserole dishes!

I haven't written to the brand manufacturers to enquire if - as is usually the case - the vegetable oil/fat is palm oil but I am abstaining from dumplings in the meantime until I have chance to write some letters/e-mails.

In the new year, when the big rush for my business has becalmed, I will be researching dumplings quite thoroughly. In the meantime, if anyone knows of palm oil free dumplings, I'd be very grateful!

EDIT: Recipe here that uses butter for dumplings. I will give these a go!

Update on household products, I have the following list of further manufacturers to write to about the household products that I use:

Clorox Car Care Ltd
Colron
Darcy Industries Ltd, Bolton
Emma Ltd
Homecare Products Ltd
Jeyes
Kiwi
Mykal Industries
PC Products (1001) Ltd
Persil
Proctor & Gamble
Reckit Benckiser
WD-40 Company Ltd

My response to Unilever

Many thanks for your reply, I agree that traceability must be a difficult problem that faces RSPO. However, I am avoiding palm oil all together as I don't believe sustainable palm oil is going to address the problem in sufficient time to save the Orangutans and other wildlife from losing vast tracts of their habitat. I only asked you about two products:

Domestos Bleach
Cif Lemon Cleaning Product

I can't understand why it is so difficult for you to say "Yes, these products contain palm oil (or palm oil derivatives)" or "No, these products do not contain palm oil or palm oil derivatives".

I am not asking for trade secrets here, food manufacturers are only too happy to tell me yes or no. Please can you explain why you cannot be more transparent on this issue?

New tap

I've had a new tap fitted in my kitchen this morning. To enable the plumber to get to the pipes, I had to remove all the items under the sink. The contents of this cupboard represent my entire stock of household cleaning items. It was therefore an opportune time to make a list of the products along with the name of the manufacturer. When I get this typed into a Word table, I'll be able to sort the multitude of items by manufacturer and then write one letter about all the items I buy to each company and ask them if any contain palm oil/palm oil derivatives.

Will keep you posted!