Brands vow to become more socially conscious, plan on removing palm oil from products

Food brands are pushing to eliminate palm oil from their products, but the process is taking longer than anticipated. Due to supply chains, progress toward company goals has been at a standstill.

“Once a company goes into the palm oil supply chain, it gets incredibly complex,” Alexis Bateman, a research associate with the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics, told The Wall Street Journal. Companies “can have multiple different products that contain the material and then palm oil can come from several different derivatives—from fruit bunches, from the tree, from the palm kernel.”

Fast-food giant McDonald’s announced this month it will be implementing a “comprehensive” supply chain sustainability program that will reduce deforestation in its beef, poultry, coffee and palm oil sourcing and will also give the company the ability to trace and eliminate combative material from products. Steve Easterbrook, McDonald’s chief executive officer, is vowing to make big changes within the company in wake of sagging sales.

The brand is joining Yum Brands Inc. and Dunkin’ Donuts in pledging to use only sustainable palm oil as part of a bigger effort to be more health and socially conscious.

This comes on the heels of Chipotle Mexican Grill vowing to remove all GMO ingredients from its restaurants and PepsiCo removing aspartame from its diet products.