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Palm Oil Free Chocolate

Image: chocolate in a jar and broken up into chunks
Jane Turner
By
Jane Turner

How to avoid chocolate brands that use palm oil

Chocolate does not usually contain palm oil. However, it is commonly filled with biscuit and other such fillings, and so palm oil is still used by companies in a lot of chocolate bars and boxes.

In our shopping guide to chocolate we rated 25 companies on their palm oil policy, and below are the ratings for all of them.

Our palm oil ratings for chocolate companies

We assessed the palm oil policies of 25 chocolate companies producing 84 brands. We highlight companies which are palm oil free and those that are not, but that still get high marks for their policies. We may also incorporate external criticisms of companies’ palm oil supply chains into our Palm Oil column, such as those from Greenpeace.

These companies produce palm oil free chocolate

Monchoco, Conscious Chocolate, Cocoa Loco, The Raw Chocolate Company, '57 Chocolate,  Divine, Chocolat Madagascar, Pacari, Moo Free, Booja-Booja, Seed and Bean, Montezuma, Tony’s Chocolonely, Fairafric, Vego, Ombar, MIA, LoveRaw, Plamil.  

These companies got our best rating for palm oil sourcing

Hotel Chocolat

These companies got our middle rating for palm oil sourcing

Lindt  

These companies got our worst rating for palm oil sourcing

Nestlé, Mars, Cadbury/Mondelez, Ferrero Rocher

How we rate companies for Palm Oil Policy

Large companies will get the highest rating if they use no palm ingredients at all. If they do use palm ingredients their rating will be better the more of the following criteria they satisfy: 

  • all palm ingredients are certified by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO)
  • over 50% of their palm ingredients are certified to the more stringent RSPO standards - Segregated or Identity Preserved
  • they list their mills and producers
  • they are not using producers identified as having the most ineffective 'No Deforestation, No Peat, No Exploitation' measures
  • they publish an annual grievance list

Medium and smaller companies can also get higher ratings if they are using organic certified palm ingredients.

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Also of interest

  • Brands and Companies that use Palm Oil

    image: palm oil fruit all piled up in mass brands and companies that use palm oil
    Companies and Brands to avoid over unsustainable palm oil use The companies listed below all score our worst ratings for their use of palm oil.  This doesn't mean that all of the company's brands sell products containing palm oil, but if you want to avoid companies that contribute to the palm oil problem, then it's worth avoiding all their brands.
    Read more

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