Codacons pays tribute to palmocrats, horrible but true. One cannot otherwise understand the meaning of the threatening letters (attached here) that the historic association is sending to virtuous confectionery industries. Which have replaced palm oil with higher-quality fats in response to demand from Italian consumAtors.
Associations that really want to protect consumers, in relation to palm, should first be concerned about food safety. (1) The exposure of children and adolescents to carcinogenic and mutagenic contaminants that palm contains 6-10 times more than other oils is of concern.
Serious health hazards-highlighted by the European Food Safety Authority-that the European Commission has wilfully failed to manage. In the acquiescence of politics and administrations evidently subservient to the lobbies of industrial giants. And Big Food, as we showed in the Palma-Leaks, had been clear about the dangers involved for at least 12 years.
Food labeling should make consumer groups worthy of the name rise up. Since in Italy, six years after the publication of reg. EU 1169/11, the fateful ‘sanctions decree’ has not yet been published. Widespread violation of European rules on consumer information, moreover, exposes allergic consumers and those with celiac disease to serious dangers. But still no voice of complaint has been heard.
Codacons’ priorities move elsewhere, however. The association activates reckless prosecutions of operators who employ the ‘palm oil-free’ claim. In labeling and advertising of foods that may contain-in fact, often previously contained-the bad tropical fat, and are instead free of it. Legitimate news, as long as it is useful to distinguish the ‘palm oil-free’ product from others in the same commodity category that do contain it.
It is curious to note how the theorems used by Codacons against the ‘palm oil-free’ claim are reminiscent of those inferred by Malaysian palm producers in Expo 2015. We then wrote to the Commissioner of Expo, now Mayor of Milan Giuseppe Sala, to obtain his removal.
The proximity of style between Codacons and Aidepi is also curious. The confectionery industry association, probably animated by that one giant claiming the use of palm, had in turn used intimidating tones toward companies boasting ‘palm oil-free’.
In some respects there is no surprise; we have already unmasked the lobbyists hiding behind the false flag of a supposed ‘citizens’ association.’ The permeability of some consumer associations to sponsors of large industries at their institutional events is also well known. But Codacons, that dommage…
DD
ANNEX The letter sent by Codacons
Notes
(1) Thus Altroconsumo, for example, has performed analyses on various foods intended for children. As well as on infant formula
Dario Dongo, lawyer and journalist, PhD in international food law, founder of WIISE (FARE - GIFT - Food Times) and Égalité.
