Palm oil

Papoutsanis, the company which set up modern Greece's first industrial-scale soap producing plant in 1870, expects its losses this year from the shuttering of hotels to be offset by soaring supermarket sales. The increase in demand as people wash their hands more frequently - due to the coronavirus outbreak - has seen its factory increase output in recent days.

Global food prices hit a five-year high in December, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said on Jan. 9.

The FAO Food Price Index soared 2.5 percent on a monthly basis, averaging 181.7 last month, due to strong rallies in vegetable oils, sugar and dairy markets, said the FAO.

Greenpeace activists have blocked the entrance of a refinery in southern France, where oil giant Total uses controversial palm oil to produce biofuels.

Environmentalists say palm oil is causing deforestation, with huge areas of tropical rainforest in Southeast Asia being cut down or burned in recent decades to create space for plantations.

The Indonesian Ministry of Commerce has threatened to impose higher tariffs on EU dairy products in response to the proposed measure by the bloc on palm oil biodiesel, the BTA quoted France as saying.

The warning could exacerbate the trade dispute between the EU and Indonesia, which is the world's largest producer of palm oil. The EU plans to reduce palm oil-based biofuels by 2030.

Indonesia, which is the largest producer of palm oil, plans to raise the import duties on dairy products from EU countries to 8-18 percent.

The intention of raising the tariffs was announced by the Minister of Commerce of the Asian country Enggartiasto Lukita. The measure is in response to the Union's plan to impose similar duties on Indonesian palm oil biodiesel, he added.

Today's imitation dairy products in the country will only be sold at designated store shelves, and only in individual packages. Non-compliant products should be withdrawn from the market.
 
The compliance with the rules will be inspected by reviewers from the Bulgarian Food Safety Agency. The new regulation came into force in the middle of last year.

Unilever has secured approval from competition officials in Bulgaria to snap up a local ice-cream maker.

The FMCG giant, the world's largest ice-cream business by sales, has been given the green light to buy Sladoledena Fabrika, also known as Denny Ice Cream after one of its main brands, reports Just Food. 

One of Europe's largest retail chains, Germany's Kaufland, and one of the world's largest consumer goods manufacturers, Unilever, entered into a trade dispute over the prices of the goods sold. This has led to a break in their relationship, which will also affect the Bulgarian market. In early September, the chain decided to remove from sale 480 Unilever products in Germany.

Bulgarians consume an increasing amount of palm oil in their milk products according to Ivan Grancharov from the Association of Dairy Processors in Bulgaria.

Unilever, the Anglo-Dutch consumer goods multinational whose vast stable of brands includes Dove, Knorr and Ben & Jerry’s, is basing its headquarters in the Netherlands, ending its longstanding structure of having head offices in both Rotterdam and London, the company announced on March 15.