The UK government and commercial organisations have signed an agreement pledging to achieve 100% sourcing of ‘credibly certified sustainable palm oil’ by the end of 2015. “We at Ufac-UK have been aware of this situation for several years and have been working towards removing palm oil from the vast majority of our products,” said Martin Smith, Ufac-UK’s national sales manager.  “Instead, we focus on using EU-produced oils such as rape-seed and olive oil. We have even dispensed with palm kernel meal preferring, instead, to use materials such as maize cob meal.” Unsustainable production of palm oil — the world’s most used vegetable oil — can increase the risk of destruction of tropical rainforest and drainage of peat land areas with a major impact on the environment and biodiversity. As a result some organisations, such as Marks and Spencer, avoid using products containing palm oil wherever possible including those from livestock fed diets containing palm oil. “Palm oil is cheap, but nutritionally there is little justification for its use for livestock, so we are using locally-sourced, highly-digestible vegetable oils which provide more energy per gram fed,” added Martin.