The government is considering whether to ban a type of locally made chocolate after a “palm oil-free” label on the product caused anger among palm oil producers who feared it would negatively affect perceptions of the country’s top export commodity. The chocolate is sold under the brand Korté Chocolate Cashew & Seasalt, which is produced by Surabaya-based CV Korté Mitra Kreasi.
Tommy Andana, Trade Ministry director of trade compliance, said in a statement on Thursday that it considered the label negative campaigning against food products containing palm oil. He said the label violated a Drug and Food Control Agency’s (BPOM) 2021 regulation on processed food labels, Article 67 of which prohibits businesses from including statements that directly or indirectly denigrate other parties’ goods and/or services.
The labeling may result in the withdrawal of the company’s products from the market, as stipulated in Article 71 of the regulation, Tommy explained. The statement came amid protests from the Indonesian Palm Oil Association (GAPKI), palm oil smallholders and the Council of Palm Oil Producing Countries (CPOPC), the secretariat of which is located in Jakarta.
However, experts have said that rather than punishing firms trying to distance themselves from palm oil, the government should instead improve its labeling standards, which still lack a means to ensure the public is well-informed regarding the products they consume. Sudaryatmo of the Indonesian Consumers Foundation (YLKI) said one such improvement would be to inform consumers whether palm oil used in a product is sustainably resourced.
“Does it comply with social and environmental standards? This is what we lack. To date, the solution is encouraging certification like the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil [RSPO] and Indonesian Sustainable Palm Oil [ISPO],” he told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.
He added that prevailing BPOM labeling standards were vague, citing as an example vegetable oil content information on biscuit products, which it found to only state “contains vegetable oil” but did not explain where the oil was derived from, let alone the processes involved. Vegetable oil may be derived from palm oil, sunflowers or soybeans, some may go through a partial hydrogenation process, producing industrial trans fatty acids, which the World Health Organization (WHO) aims to eliminate from the global supply chain due to risks to human health. The BPOM did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Palm oil is the world’s most consumed edible oil and tops the world’s vegetable oil production, followed by soybean oil. However, the global palm oil trade has been targeted by green activists for contributing to forest loss and fires, as land is cleared to plant oil palm trees, as well as exploiting workers, Reuters reported. he world’s two largest palm oil producers, Indonesia and Malaysia, have been fighting European Union (EU) moves to restrict imports of palm oil deemed to be driving deforestation.
Eliza Mardian, a researcher at the Center of Reform on Economics (CORE) Indonesia, said the government needed to ensure that every actor in the plantation commodity supply chain is certified, monitored and complies with good agricultural standards. “This way, the quality of the products can be maintained to convince the market that the quality of Indonesian products is guaranteed,” she told the Post on Thursday.
Eliza suggested the government increase the involvement of private testing, inspection and certification (TIC) companies to assess product-sustainability aspects, which remains limited for several reasons, including high certification fees. Indonesia aims to get more oil palm companies RSPO or ISPO certified, but only 33,000 hectares of oil palm plantations had ISPO certification in 2023, according to Eliza, equivalent to only 0.2 percent of an estimated 6.5 million of oil palm plantations in the country.
Adhi Lukman, the chairman of the Indonesian Food and Beverage Producers Association (Gapmmi), said on Thursday that it would be best if companies were tolerant of each other and did not discredit other sectors to maintain a favourable business environment. Korté Chocolate said in a statement on Thursday that the company apologized to palm oil smallholders.
It emphasized that it did not have any intention of demeaning the palm oil industry, adding it has used palm oil as ingredients in many of its other products. The company will replace the packaging, while sticking patches on the labels of the products already on the market.
Source: thejakartapost.com
