Nortech Foods has joined up with New Britain Oils Limited (NBOL) to offer fully certified sustainable palm oil in a packaged format to food manufacturers.

NBOL, via its parent company New Britain Palm Oil Limited, has plantations in Papua New Guinea, which are certified as sustainable by the international Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil. NBOL will provide Nortech with palm oil from its UK refinery in Liverpool, which will be fully commissioned this spring. The processing facility will offer all the main palm oil grades in a sustainable format at a price that is comparable with oil from unknown/unsustainable sources.

The partnership will help to overcome the primary challenges facing the wholesale conversion to sustainable palm oil among the UK manufacturing and food-service industry, namely affordability and traceability.

Andy Worrall, director at NBOL, said: "Our research tells us that over 80% of consumers want food manufacturers and retailers to know where their palm oil has come from and that it was produced in a sustainable way."