KFC Australia announces switch from palm oil to Australian-grown canola oil
KFC Australia has announced its intention to switch from using imported palm oil to cook its food to Australian grown and locally sourced canola oil.
KFC said the shift to high-oleic canola oil “will help support Australian farmers, and won’t change the taste of its food.”
KFC has been trialling the new oil in Tasmanian stores since October 2010. The canola will be sourced from Australian suppliers, including Cargill, MSM Milling and Integro Foods.
Canola farming is a AU$1.6billion industry in Australia with the 2011/12 season turning over three million tonnes of canola.
KFC Australia spokesperson Nikki Lawson said, “By late-May 2012, all our stores across Australia will be using canola oil to cook our chicken.”
Stuart Roberts, managing director of Integro Foods, a division of Goodman Fielder Limited said, “This is a great vote of confidence in the Australian industry. Cooking with high quality oil sourced solely from Australian farms is a fantastic example of a company listening to its customers and delivering on their expectations.”
Good move by Integro Foods (Goodman Fielder) to source “high quality oil”. This counts GM canola out. Why then is Cargills-AWB offering GM farmers special deals to shore up supplies of GM canola? How can KFC guarantee non-GM if their suppliers are so keen to handle both?
The occasional order of KFC fries was a guilty pleasure I used to enjoy. Not any more. Not now that they’re going to be soaking all their food in the oil of a genetically modified crop. And they have the audacity to advertise it as “healthy.” No more KFC for me or my family.