Pressrelease

Pressrelease

AAK, Herbicides and Environment

The important and critical subject relating to the use of herbicides
within the worldwide farming industry has lead to many constructive
public debates. Recently this has concerned the production of palm oil
and more specifically the use of the herbicide Paraquat in the
cultivation of oil palms.

In relation to this AAK wishes to state the following:

Paraquat is one of the most widely used herbicides in the world today 
AAK's view is nevertheless  that concerted efforts should be made by all
Palm Oil Producers, particularly all members of the Roundtable for
Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO members) to work towards minimising or
phasing out Paraquat as soon as possible. As one of the world's major
Specialty Fats and Food Ingredient players, AAK buys large quantities of
vegetable oils derived from several different raw materials, palm oil
being one. This is then refined and often further processed at AAK's
facilities around the world into a broad spectrum of products.

AAK purchase palm oil from a number of large and respected suppliers,
one of them being United Plantations, who is widely recognised for
pioneering within sustainable agriculture and remains at the forefront
of the developments in terms of environmental improvements.
“Nevertheless, the supply of palm oil from United Plantations, only
represents a smaller share of our total palm oil supply chain says Arne
Frank. United Plantations are owned by one of the main share holders of
AAK.  However supplies from United Plantations are dealt with as per
“arms length” principles and always based upon strictly professional
decisions to the best interest of AAK.

Work environment is a part of our supplier code of conduct, Arne Frank
continues. "Suppliers shall offer a safe working environment for all
employees. Adequate health and safety procedures shall be implemented.
As a minimum, suppliers shall comply with all local and national health
and safety legislation. AAK audits all of its suppliers on a regular
basis and we follow up if anyone does not follow rules and regulations”.

Arne Frank continues, “We have just completed the production of our
first sustainability report”. It is now available at
www.aak.com (http://www.aak.com/). Here, you can follow our very focused
and ambitious work on all of the sustainability subjects for all of our
raw materials and more.
We see this as our tangible commitment towards taking responsibility and
also leadership towards more sustainable practices, which will be to the
benefit of all.

 

For further information, please contact:
Arne Frank, President and CEO                             
Phone: + 46 40 627 83 10  

 

Facts about AAK

AarhusKarlshamn is the world's leading producer of high value-added
speciality vegetable oils and fats. These fats are characterized by a
high technological content and are used as substitute for butter-fat and
cocoa butter, transfree solutions for fillings in chocolate and
confectionery products, and in the cosmetics industry. AarhusKarlshamn
has production facilities in Denmark, Mexico, the Netherlands, Sweden,
Great Britain, Uruguay and the US. The company is organised in three
Business Areas; Chocolate and Confectionery Fats, Food Ingredients and
Technical Products & Feed. Further information about AarhusKarlshamn can
be found on the company's website www.aak.com (http://www.aak.com/) 

 

Appendix

AAK is one of the initial founders of Roundtable of Sustainable Palm Oil
(RSPO), an organization representing all stake holders, plantations,
processers, customers, environmental NGOs and social NGOs. AAK still
retains a seat on the Executive Board of RSPO. AAK believe RSPO is the
best positioned organization to effectively encourage and develop the
palm oil industry towards not just only better environmental practices
but also better social practices. In this work, RSPO also strongly
drives the herbicide/pesticide debate and has clearly recommended that
any RSPO member shows measurable intentions of minimizing and/or phasing
out the use of Paraquat. Paraquat has been used as an herbicide during
the immature phase. Also substances deriving from Paraquat have never
been found in the final product as the substance breaks down very
rapidly.

“We promote environmental subjects strongly to all our suppliers,” says
Arne Frank.  “We find it hugely satisfying that more and more growers
are becoming members and active participants in RSPO.  They are then
thereby obliged to drive their operations in line with the demands being
defined and communicated.  Based on our discussion with United
Plantations, which was the world's first certified producer of
sustainable palm oil in accordance with the principles and criteria of
the RSPO, we can confirm they will completely out-phase the use of
Paraquat within the next few months.  Then United Plantations will be,
to our knowledge, the 2nd plantation company to achieve this very
important objective.  As documented by publicly records, United
Plantations has been taking measurable steps to reduce their usage of
Paraquat since 2008 thus reducing their usage to levels which are
amongst the lowest in the industry today.