Canola could benefit from pressure on palm oil producers

Pepsi now has a firm position on palm oil, which could be good news for Canada’s canola oil industry. In February PepsiCo, a company with annual revenues of more than $65 billion and about 260,000 employees, released a comprehensive policy on sustainable palm oil. It includes commitments to no deforestation, no development on peat lands and no exploitation of workers or indigenous peoples. In shorthand, Pepsi calls the policy NDPE. “It applies to all palm and palm kernel oil that we use globally and covers our entire supply chain, from direct suppliers to production sources at the group level, meaning NDPE should be applied across their entire operations and third-party supply chain and not limited solely to the palm oil sold to PepsiCo,” Pepsi says in a company document. “Our policy applies to all of PepsiCo’s operations, subsidiaries, joint ventures, brands and products worldwide.” On its website, Pepsi says it’s one the biggest buyers of palm oil in the world. Despite its size, ...