The jury of the Food Ingredients Europe Innovation Awards has awarded IOI Loders Croklaan with the Sustainability Champion Award for its efforts in building a traceable, transparent and sustainable palm oil supply chain. The Palm Oil Sustainability Program of IOI Loders Croklaan shows the ability to demonstrate and stimulate innovation and raises the bar for the industry.

IOI Loders Croklaan’s award-winning Palm Oil Sustainability Program consists of a dedicated three-step approach to trace back to the supplier mill and plantation level, and works in conjunction with its Sustainable Palm Oil Policy and the third-party supplier annex. The commitments in the area of traceability and transparency are part of the overarching long-term sustainability strategy of IOI Loders Croklaan.

With the program and policy in place, the organization has shown significant progress in the past few years in building a transparent and sustainable palm oil supply chain. The Sustainable Palm Oil Policy and third-party supplier annex sets high standards and requirements for the business and applies to all suppliers, leveraging the broad reach of IOI Loders Croklaan in the industry to drive those standards down the supply chain. The corresponding three-step approach – focusing on traceability, risk assessment and supplier capacity building – enables IOI Loders Croklaan to ensure suppliers become compliant with the policy. The most recent achievements can be found in the regularly updated online Palm Oil Dashboard.

Ben Vreeburg, Director Sustainability at IOI Loders Croklaan, explains: “We are very proud to receive this Sustainability Champion Award, as it recognizes that we are on the right track and that we are a driver for innovations in and transformation of the industry. We have achieved 100% traceability to mill level. With our strengthened policies and commitments – particularly our third-party supplier policy annex – we have set a new standard for best-practices in the sector.”