Darrell Lea Becomes First In Australia To Remove Palm Oil From All Products

Darrell Lea has become a frontrunner in Australia after making a big change to the way they make their delicious foods.

The Aussie company has listened to campaigners from around the world and decided to remove palm oil from its products.

Palm oil has become a dirty product in the minds of animal rights activists and environmentalists.

A hell of a lot of deforestation occurs in the likes of Indonesia and Malaysia in order for palm oil to be harvested and mass produced. In addition to the loss of rich rainforests, plenty of animals are being caught up in the mayhem and are either killed or displaced.

Darrell Lea's marketing director Tim Stanford said it doesn't want to have any part in that.

"In recent years, our customers have told us that they don't want palm oil in our products. There is no doubt that palm oil production causes major devastation to rainforests and endangered animals, such as the orangutan," he said.

"We call on all businesses, not only in the confectionery industry, but across the board to look into their supply chain and make better decisions about the ingredients they use."

Darrell Lea will be come the first Australian supermarket brand to make this move.

Mr Stanford says some companies try to be sneaky in their packaging by labelling palm oil as vegetable oil or vegetable fat. He ensures that all of Darrell Lea's products have had their ingredients updated and are now 100 per cent free of palm oil.

The move follows another sustainable decision from Darrell Lea last year, which was the switch to using 100 per cent sustainable cocoa in their chocolate.

Darrell Lea says on its website: "To make it happen we turned to Cocoa Horizons, the award winning cocoa sustainability programme which we determined was clearly the best at delivering real impact.

"With their focus on training and auditing, the opportunities we could bring together meant incredible positive changes to cocoa producing communities. Since then, we have never looked back."

If you've been needing a sustainable option that you know isn't hurting the planet then Darrell Lea certainly is standing out.