The Swedish consumer association Äkta Vara has awarded the ‘food bin of the year 2019’ award to a product of the Danone group. An Alpro-branded vegan liquid preparation-of similar functionality to whipping cream-whose trade name refers emphatically to soy. However, soybean is present in a minimal share (2%), compared to palm oil, which instead is the second ingredient (25%) after water.
Alpro Cuisine Soya, the food bin of 2019
Alpro Cuisine Soya Whippable
(literally, ‘whippablecooking soy‘) is the product that garnered the most votes-nearly 50 percent of the 19,100 collected-in the consultation held by the Swedish consumer association Äkta Vara. And it has therefore been elected to ‘Food Bluff of the Year 2019,’ as a result of the online survey that has collected opinions on the food labels considered most misleading every year since 2015.
The word ‘SOYA‘ towers in large, capital letters on the front-of-pack of the label in question. Nonetheless, the product contains soy in a laughable amount, 2 percent, even in comparison with soy beverages of the same brand, which contain 8 percent instead.
Swedish consumers then particularly resent the absence of references on the label front to palm oil. As this is the most prominent ingredient, after water, in Alpro’s vegetable-like cream. In the remarkable amount of 25%, or 250ml out of 1 liter.
Sweden, consumAtors against palm oil.
The rejection of palm oil by Swedish consumers has already been apparent for several years:
– In 2017, domestic confectionery giant Örkla Confectionery & Snacks Sweden decided to exclude it from 98 percent of its references, eliminating 1,500 tons/year of saturated fat from its production. And in that same year the newspaper Svenska Dagbladet published an extensive interview with the writer as a proponent of boycotting tropical fat in Italy. (2)
– In 2018, the Äkta Vara Association’s ‘Anti-prize: food bluff of the year‘ was awarded to a vegetable margarine. ‘Lätta Original,’ produced by Upfield, which acquired the brand name from Unilever), popular in Sweden as well as in Germany. Again, palm oil represented the second ingredient in the recipe (21 percent), while the label boasted only the presence of local canola oil (in smaller amounts, however, 18 percent).
Swedish consumAtors,” explains Björn Bernhardson, vice-president and executive member of Äkta Vara, “are particularly concerned about issues related to tropical fat production as a primary cause of land robbery and deforestation, biodiversity loss and climate change.
Palm oil, deforestation and greenwashing. #Buycott!
Danone is one of about 191 signatories–among corporations, states, NGOs and cooperatives–of the New York Declaration on Forests in 2014. (4) A non-binding policy statement also signed by the planet’s top palmocrats as well as Big Food, all of whom claim to be ‘sustainable’ because they have the farcical RSPO (self-)certification.
The Münchhausen Barons of the 21st century had pledged to halve deforestation and regenerate 150 million hectares of vegetation. Instead, between 2014 and 2018 there was an annual loss of 4 times the size of the UK, 104 million hectares, with an average increase of 43% each year (!). Last June, in the Brazilian Amazon alone, the deforestation rate increased by 88 percent compared to 2018. And NYFD’s(New York Forest Declaration) five-year report reiterates how precisely palm oil production still constitutes a primary cause of deforestation. (5)
#Buycott! Palm oil, GMO soy, and American meats. The petition launched by Égalité Onlus together with GIFT(Great Italian Food Trade) – with the endorsement of Legambiente, Associazione Comuni Virtuosi, European Consumers, Coalition Against Land Grabbing, Humus Social Network, Disability Pride Italia and Senegal – is always waiting for your support, following the link https://www.egalite.org/buycott-petizione/.
Dario Dongo and Marina De Nobili
Notes
(1) See Swedish consumer association website Äkta Vara,
Här är Årets matbluff 2019
(Here is the food bin of the Year 2019), 22.1.20,
(2) https://www.svd.se/jurist-om-myndigheternas-tioariga-tystnad-kriminellt, https://www.svd.se/industrin-skalver-palmolja-en-hornsten-i-skrapmaten – SvD-palm attachment
(3) Äkta Vara,
Finalisterna till Årets matbluff 2018
,
(4) New York Declaration on Forests, 9/23/14. Updated text at %20on%
(5)NYFD (New York Forest Declaration). Protecting and Restoring Forests. A Story of Large Commitments yet Limited Progress. Five-Year Assessment Report, September 2019, https://forestdeclaration.org/images/uploads/resource/2019NYDFReport.pdf
(6) Cf. https://www.alpro.com/uk/products/cream-variation/cream-variation/soya-cuisine-single-uht/
(7) SEE https://www.alpro.com/uk/products/cream-variation/cream-variation/soya-cuisine-single-uht/
(8) https://www.alpro.com/uk/products/cream-variation/cream-variation/soya-cuisine-single-uht/
(9) https://www.alpro.com/de/produkte/pflanzliche-kochcrèmes/cream-variation/soja-kochcreme-cuisine/
(10) https://www.alpro.com/es/productos/crema-vegetal-para-cocinar/para-cocinar/soja-cocina/
Dario Dongo, lawyer and journalist, PhD in international food law, founder of WIISE (FARE - GIFT - Food Times) and Égalité.
Graduated in law in Trento, she follows a master's degree in food law at Roma Tre. She is passionate about food and wine, she is between culture and tradition.
