ABSTRACT
The popular consumer program ‘Kassa’ (‘Checkout’) manages to attract approximately 1.3 million Dutch television viewers every week. It usually discusses consumer complaints about failed products or uncooperative producer behavior and tends to support consumers in their efforts to actively pursue consumer rights. On December 12, 2009 during the Copenhagen Climate Summit 2009 there was a special episode of Kassa about the relationship between climate change and deforestation. In this episode the Swiss retail company Migros was mentioned as an example of a firm which has taken large sustainability steps, especially with regard to palm oil. In the year 2000 Migros started a trajectory to include sustainable instead of conventional palm oil in the products sold under the Migros private label. This label was covering almost 90 per cent of all products sold in Migros supermarkets in 2009. About 60 per cent of these labeled products contain sustainable palm oil, the aim being 100 per cent coverage in two or three years time. In the program, Monica Weibel from Migros explains why Swiss consumers cannot find this information about sustainable palm oil on labels of the products
We used to put this information about sustainable palm oil on the labels of products, when we started 8 years ago. However, now sustainable palm oil is standard in our products. We do not inform our consumers about something which is standard (Vara, 2009).
