JAKARTA – Korté Chocolate has decided to conduct market withdrawal of its products labelled with “Palm Oil Free”, following strong protests from Indonesian palm oil stakeholders.

“It’s correct. Currently, we’re in a process of withdrawing the ‘palm oil free’ labelled products from all of our distributors,” Korte Chocolate Chief Officer Jeffry Lukito said on Thursday (11/1).

According to him, they had also met with the trade ministry and the foods and drugs supervisory board (BPOM) on Wednesday (10/1). “We’ve also had discussions with the health service and trade minister regarding the steps that we need to take to resolve the problem,” said Jeffry.

He said that since its establishment in 2014, Korté is committed to supporting farmers, including the cocoa growers in Indonesia.

“Regarding the “Palm Oil Free” label, we apologize to all palm oil industry players. Actually, we have two kinds of chocolate products which contain only cocoa butter and the other one added with fat from palm oil,” said Jeffry.

According to him, the label is aimed to differentiate the products, and there is no intention to denigrade palm oil industries. “Actually, our company uses palm oil derivatives in many products, such as Praline Bar, Cornflake Crunch, Cookies & Cream Bar, Othello Pops, Sweetheart Pops,” he said.

He said that they have received a lot information and proposals on the labels. “We then quickly take actions to cover the products already distributed, and take the necessary steps to replace them with products in new packages,” he said.

“We’re grateful for the information and support given by our friends in the palm oil sector. We’ll gather more information on palm oil that we need in our endeavor to support our national economy and our agriculture,” said Jeffry.

Meanwhile, the trade ministry’s Trade Order Protection Director General Moga Simatupang confirmed that Korté Chocolate will withdraw its chocolate products with ‘Palm Oil Free’ label from the market. He said that they had clarified the case with the Korte producer and the company has apologized for the label use.

“Korte has been informed that the “palm oil free” label is part of the negative campaigns against palm oil. The Korte producer has apologized for the label. It wasn’t intentional. They have decided to conduct a market withdrawal of the products,” Moga said on Thursday (11/1). (*)

Source: sawitindonesia.com