WTF Sainsbury's?

[SapphireSeptember]

I've mentioned this before, but I try to avoid palm oil as much as I can. Sainsbo's have some of their Christmas food out already in the bakery section, including TTD mince pies. Which I bought last year and really enjoyed (no palm oil last year.) You can see where this is heading, right? So I checked the ingredients and palm oil is back (vegetable suet being the offender.) Why? Why did they have to put it back in when they were fine without it?
And surely now, especially when we know the damage palm oil production does to the environment companies would be cutting down on its use?
I'd complain, but I doubt they'd take any notice.
Also if Tesco do this to me as well I'm going to be royally hacked off.
It was only earlier this year I found palm oil free hot cross buns!
(Yes I know I could make things like this myself, but I can't be bothered, plus there's only one of me. It's cheaper to buy some than make some.)

[PsychoSyd]

They get around it by stating that the palm oil is from a 'sustainable source'. Regardless, it still makes stuff taste awful.

[SapphireSeptember]

I've read that 'sustainable' palm oil really isn't sustainable in the slightest, I think it's a ruse to make people feel better about using it.

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/palm-oil-sustainable-certified-plantations-orangutans-indonesia-southeast-asia-greenwashing-purdue-a8674681.html

I thought we were making progress. I think avocado and coconut oil will soon be in the same bracket because of high demand.

[threeamclub]

That's so annoying as they were delicious last year! The TTD mince pies were my favourite of all the supermarket ones :(

[moobar]

Aahhhhh, thank you OP.

I bought some on Saturday and had one bite and felt sick.

I was devastated as I thought its because I had maybe sickened myself eating only mince pies when cluster feeding last winter.

I bet that's what it was, they tasted totally different.

[inwood]

They do it because it's cheap.

Tastes like shit apart from the massive environmental impact. Another one off my list.

[CassianAndor]

surely the WTF is the fact that Sainsbury's are selling, and you are buying, mince pies in September? Now that gives me the fucking rage.

(obviously you are right about the palm oil)

[Needallthesleep]

It’s done because food costs are rising, Sainsbury’s needs to produce a mince pie that isn’t too expensive, but still maintain (/grow) their margin. Therefore the quality of the product has to decline.

I work in a food production industry and it has opened my eyes to how poor the quality is in processed food.

[CakeNinja]

Need I get your point totally and agree this is how supermarkets see it but the whole concept is totally wrong.
We eat too much. And we eat too much shit.
The prices should be increased and the product should be of better quality to reflect that. In turn, we should eat less of them.

[SapphireSeptember]

I ain't buying mince pies in September, far too early! Last year I got them in the week before Christmas. Although I agree with the sentiment, kids go back to school, the out pops the Christmas stuff. Revolution had their advent calendar on their website in the last week of August!

But one year? 2017 they had palm oil, 2018 they didn't, 2019 and they've gone backwards? Just leave the bloody vegetable suet out altogether, the pastry is 'all butter' so it's not that. (Cheaper mince pies vary with the crap they put in the pastry, sometimes you read a list of ingredients that you need Google to know what half the things are.)

Tesco Finest mince pies were also delicious, I hope they haven't done the same.

[Drogosnextwife]

I've bought 4 packs of mince pies so far, I love them, think they should sell them all year. I went to "the range" the other day and they were starting to set up their Christmas display, as was the garden center when I went for lunch the same day. That was last Tuesday!

[SapphireSeptember]

Just checked the Tesco website, looks like they're still okay. Thank goodness.

[NearlyGranny]

I make my own and never use oil or suet in any part! I make a rich shortcrust with butter and egg yolk and orange zest and my mincemeat is all the dried fruit we like plus walnuts and brandy. I start the mince early in a big kilner jar and invert it daily. Must be nearly time to start!

Palm oil? Who needs it?

[Kleptronic]

What bothers me more is the hypocrisy. I expect no better of Cadbury's since they were sold, but some of the Quorn, Linda McCartney's and Jordans products contain palm oil. But those companies all variously bang on about being healthy, sustainable, good for the planet etc. E.g. Jordan's - conservation grade oats, but fuck the orang-utans. Bastards. Linda McCartney would, I imagine, definitely absolutely not put palm oil in her foods. And Quorn! Vegetarian! Advertised by super healthy marathon runner and Olympic gold medallist! But really bad for the planet and the benighted orang-utans! Grrrrrrrrrrrrr!

[Kleptronic]

Not forgetting palm oil is a bad-for-you fat too! Bastards.

Right I'll stop frothing now.

[BogglesGoggles]

People have been aware of palm oil since the mid naughties at the very least. Somehow I don’t think that manufactures care.

[DontCallMeShitley]

I shop in Sainsburys because, unlike Waitrose they actually have some palm oil free things that I like (mince pies are foul from any shop so not a problem).

However, their 'Love Your Veg' range of ready made shite, has several different types of sugar and derivatives in it. They do sell biscuits and crackers with just butter and some things now made with rapeseed oil instead of palm.

On the whole though, most pastry products, including a lot of the ready to use pastry is held together with palm oil crap and the death of the rain forests.

Waitrose, however have continued to use palm oil in pretty much everything, cakes, tarts, ready meals, vegan stuff and use the 'sustainable source' line. They must be making a pretty good profit on that. Tesco too.

[Impatienceismyvirtue]

lyndseystripped.com/2018/11/18/why-im-not-boycotting-palm-oil-this-christmas-or-ever/

Have a wee read of this. Palm oil is a buzzword at the moment but there’s no perfect solution, and some companies have been using it as a scapegoat for wider issues and then hiding those behind their advertising campaign saying they’re reducing/stopping palm oil usage (namely the orangutan advert from Iceland last Christmas).

[skorpion]

NearlyGranny - pretty please - do you follow a recipe for the mincemeat? May I have it? Thank you

[DontCallMeShitley]

What bothers me more is the hypocrisy. I expect no better of Cadbury's since they were sold, but some of the Quorn, Linda McCartney's and Jordans products contain palm oil. But those companies all variously bang on about being healthy, sustainable, good for the planet etc. E.g. Jordan's - conservation grade oats, but fuck the orang-utans. Bastards. Linda McCartney would, I imagine, definitely absolutely not put palm oil in her foods. And Quorn! Vegetarian! Advertised by super healthy marathon runner and Olympic gold medallist! But really bad for the planet and the benighted orang-utans! Grrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Agree, I won't buy Linda McCartney or Jordans and I hate Quorn because it is crap. If I want to eat fungus or mould I will buy mushrooms or blue cheese not something that looks (and tastes) like sawdust and needs to be heavily treated (disguised) with spices or sauces to make it edible, however it is often wrapped in palm oil pastry, and Quorn is part of Cauldron Foods which, when I last checked seems not to contain palm oil, at least the things I bought didn't. Have bought Cauldron for years but if there is a whiff of palm oil I will stop. (Cauldron stuff is in my freezer so can't vouch for new stuff).

[Mlou32]

I'm very much a fan of simply voting with my feet. If you don't like palm oil, don't buy it. If everyone did that then they would soon notice.

[Fluffycloudland77]

Iceland’s own brand stuff is all palm oil free.

[Monkeyplanet]

RSPO palm oil is not sustainable at all. The certification is managed by industry leaders who have everything to gain by sticking a fancy label on something in order to sell it to "conscious consumers" and only 4% community stakeholders. It is green washing at best to make their palm oil seem like an ethical choice.

[BlackberriesAndCream]

Do companies have to say so on the label - if it's vegetable suet, for example, how can you tell whether it's one that contains palm oil or one that doesn't? I know there was a trend for companies to get away with just saying generically 'vegetable oil' when it meant palm oil, and I don't know if they do the same with suet. I assume there are varieties of vegetable suet that don't contain it?

Maybe it's trying to keep/make them vegetarian and not use animal suet, and this was their alternative? Were they vegetarian last year?
(I've had wondered whether they were trying to make them vegan, as that seems to be very popular this year, but you mentioned all-butter pastry, so I'm guessing not!)

[Fluffycloudland77]

I think all veg suet is palm, few other veg oils are solid at ambient temperature.

I saw an article that said if the saturated fat was half the total fat content then it was likely palm oil.

I buy a palm oil free spread in Sainsburys, Naturli, and it’s so much nicer than the other spreads. Fatty without being greasy. Dh has lurpak because he isn’t allergic to dairy which is also palm oil free.

[BeautifulWar]

Iceland are the only ones taking this seriously - they have also performed better than most of the other supermarkets in blind taste tests for their mince pies in recent years.