Manner also uses palm oil as one of its product ingredients. Palm oil has technical and sensory properties that many other oils do not. It provides the products with stability. This is why it is an essential part of manufacturing certain products.

The original recipe of our Neapolitan wafers used to contain vegetable fat, and still does so today. Because previously used fats had to be hydrogenated, and since these were portrayed negatively in the media debate due to possible adverse health effects, we decided to discontinue using them decades ago. The main raw materials such as cocoa and hazelnuts have not changed, as these are the main quality factors.

Coconut oil or rapeseed oil is often used as an alternative to palm oil in the confectionery industry. But both types of oil need a large surface area for their production, since the yield of the plants is much lower than that of oil palms. Therefore, it is our policy to buy palm oil via the RSPO in order to further promote sustainable cultivation (https://rspo.org/). Manner has been a member of the RSPO since 2011 and the necessary certification processes for our production sites have been successfully concluded. Manner is committed to protecting the environment and biodiversity with regard to its palm oil production, even though palm oil is used in relatively small quantities in the confectionery industry worldwide (0.2% of total consumption).

The creams of our wafer products are made with a fat mixture of palm and coconut oil. Strictly speaking we add coconut oil in different proportions. The ratio of both fats (coconut and palm fat) in our products lies in the range of around 2:1 to 4:1 in favour of coconut fat. As our wafer products need a certain firmness and structure from the fat used, it is essential to add palm oil if we want to avoid using hydrogenated fats or altering the flavour significantly.

Of course, Manner will continue to track developments on these issues to ensure that we always act in accordance with our social and environmental responsibilities. The changeover to 100% certified sustainable Fairtrade cocoa for Manner wafer products and the use of waste heat from the baking process within the district heating network around our factory in Vienna are just two of the many activities that have resulted from this.

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