Ferrero, the world's second-largest chocolate and food producer, has lost a lawsuit in France, as reported by Que Choiser on January 25, 2024, and the reason for the lawsuit is still palm oil, the company's palpable pain point.
Here's how it happened, there was a small sauce company in Italy called Rigoni Di Asiago. Between 2019 and 2020, the small company highlighted in a TV commercial broadcast in France that the sauce they produced called Nocciolata was absolutely "palm oil-free".
It stung Ferrero's glass heart, and they saw the ad as an almost undisguised attack on his Nutella chocolate sauce. As a result, Ferrero sued the Italian SME in a French court for "defamation".
According to an online media outlet LInformé reported on January 12, 2024, Ferrero lost the appeal after losing the case in the first instance. As a result, the Ferrero France subsidiary was ordered to pay Rigoni Di Asiago France €10,000 in compensation.
Why is Ferrero so sensitive to the word palm oil?
Ferrero Group, an Italian manufacturer of branded chocolate and confectionery products and the second largest chocolate producer and confectionery company in the world, comprises 38 trading companies, 18 factories and approximately 40,000 employees, producing approximately 365,000 tons of Nutella per year. In a 2009 survey, the Reputation Institute, Inc. ranked Ferrero among the most prestigious companies in the world.
One of Ferrero's most profitable products, one of the main ingredients in Nutella sauce is palm oil. Due to Ferrero's large volume of palm oil purchases, WWF regularly ranks Ferrero among the top large palm oil sourcing companies (first out of 173 palm oil sourcing companies in 2020 and third out of 223 palm oil sourcing companies in 2021).
However, the use of palm oil in food processing has been controversial in the field of food safety.
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) published a study in May 2016 that palm oil produces carcinogens - "glycidyl fatty acid esters" (glycidyl fatty acid esters) at more than 200 degrees Celsius, and the glycerol fatty acid ester content of palm oil is the highest among vegetable oils, 5 to 6 times higher than the second highest content of margarine, so children are urged to avoid eating.
Nutella hazelnut butter has been removed from the shelves of major supermarkets and other retailers in Italy due to concerns about its carcinogenic risk due to its carcinogenic risk due to the use of palm oil. According to Reuters, Ferrero consumes 185,000 tonnes of palm oil a year to make food products such as Nutella hazelnut paste, and palm oil is a lower-cost vegetable oil that would increase costs if converted to other vegetable oils.
Therefore, whoever mentions Ferrero's use of palm oil, he is in a hurry, especially the French market, which has a 66% share, and cannot allow others to advertise this kind of Piriyangqiu.
On the one hand, Ferrero explained that it used palm oil to avoid the use of partially hydrogenated vegetable oils containing trans fatty acids, and claimed that the low-temperature process minimized the amount of possible carcinogens produced in the finished product.
In the Chinese market, he simply played with words.
According to the "Preferred Consumer Report" survey, Ferrero indicated to consumers outside China that its ingredients contained palm oil, but on the other hand, it faced Chinese consumers with palm oil to vegetable oil, avoiding the sensitive word palm oil through word games. (For more information, see "The World's Most Reputable Company Switches Concepts in Ingredient Lists for Chinese Consumers Who Don't Understand English!")
For example, its English website clearly states that palm oil is included in its seven ingredients.
But its Chinese website changed palm oil to vegetable oil.
At the same time, it has also changed palm oil to vegetable oil in stores such as Sam's Shop.
Palm oil is the most consumed vegetable oil in the world due to its low price and unrivalled production. 80% for food, 10% for cosmetics and 10% for biofuels. However, the World Health Organization (WHO) considers palmitic acid to have the potential to lead to an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, and the National Health Institute (NIH) recommends that the intake of saturated fatty acids, including palm oil, should be minimized.
Of course, there are also different voices, such as the German Institute for Risk Assessment, which assessed the risk of ingestion of GEs from vegetable oils in the European population, and concluded that GEDs ingested by vegetable oils in the general population pose no safety risks to health.
But no matter which side is more convincing, the word palm oil has become an eternal pain in Ferrero's heart, not only can not be mentioned, we must let it quietly disappear in front of consumers!
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