If you crossed Willy Wonka, you could end up in a garbage chute or transformed into a giant blueberry. Right now, Nestlé could be wishing it had the same power.
In the Roald Dahl classic Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the worst Wonka had to deal with was a handful of rude children and their parents. There were no mass demonstrations outside his factory protesting his treatment of Oompa Loompas and no defacing his ads with complaints about the ingredients of his chocolate. But then, his products were superior. With magic on his side, surely he never stooped to padding the recipe with palm oil?
By contrast, Nestlé does use palm oil in its chocolate – problem one. It has also been trying to censor its critics on the web – problem two. It is all rather reminiscent of the Nestlé baby milk scandal of my youth, except this time there are more ways for consumers to make their voices heard and the babies in question are orange and furry.
Palm oil is a vegetable oil used to replace expensive cacao butter and derided by foodies as cheap filler. More importantly from a green perspective is the fact that palm plantations are blamed for the destruction of rainforest in South-East Asia. I have written about this issue for EcoSalon before, when Cadbury tried to introduce palm oil into its chocolate in Australia and New Zealand but then backed down in the face of fierce public opposition.
Nestlé has committed to using “certified sustainable palm oil” by 2015 – a measure dismissed by environmentalists as too little, too late. Aside from the long timescale – bear in mind that Nestlé was under fire over the palm oil issue at least as far back as 2007 – questions remain about the integrity of the certification schemes. Personally I believe they should drop palm oil from their products altogether.
The issue is not new but it came up again two days ago when Greenpeace highlighted the link between Nestlé’s Kit Kat bars and dead orangutans in a graphic video. Nestlé allegedly had the video pulled from YouTube, but the Vimeo version is still live at the time of going to press.
The censorship didn’t stop there. Nestlé seems to have blocked protest emails from consumers sent via the Greenpeace video page. (I myself received a “Delivery Status Notification (Delay)” message and Greenpeace has its own suspicions about it). The company has also upset consumers with its approach to moderating its Facebook page, which has over 90,000 fans. The moderator’s defiant tone and aggressive approach to deleting comments has further eroded support. I have to say, it doesn’t appear that Nestlé truly understands that social media is about two-way communication.
Now the Swiss food giant might be rethinking its social media strategy as it is caught in the throes of a full-blown PR disaster. Partly this is because of Greenpeace’s ad, but Nestlé’s attempts at censorship and heavy-handed moderation have only made it worse.
There’s no censorship on Twitter, where for the last day or two critics of Nestle have been organising around the hashtags #kitkat and #nestle with comments such as: “Give the orang-utan a break! Stop Nestle using palm oil from destroyed rainforests http://bit.ly/KitKat”
But on Facebook the company has been trying its darnedest to hold back a tsunami of criticism with a teaspoon. Last night the status was: “We welcome your comments, but please don’t post using an altered version of any of our logos as your profile pic — they will be deleted.” Several hours later it posted the same message prefaced with the words “to repeat”. Nestlé also said: “Thanks for the lesson in manners. Consider yourself embraced. But it’s our page, we set the rules, it was ever thus.” Advertising Age has a useful summary.
Of course, social media being social media, such attempts at control have been counter-productive to say the least. The Facebook page is now inundated with criticism about the palm oil issue, with many people becoming fans simply so they can leave comments. Here are a few examples:
“nestle, i became a fan for two reasons. 1. so i can write on your wall. 2. so i can write on your wall to let you know i put the killer nestle logo as my facebook pic because you are idiots. that is all. unfanning now.” – Brian Ries.
“How dare you use doves of peace in your logo? Apart from not wanting baboons to die, I don’t want to EAT palm oil.” – Jean Barker
“I didn’t even know anything about the plight of the orang-utan’s until Nestle banned the ad, good work legal depatment. Got loads of FB ‘friends’ now though!!” – Mark Woodhouse
“Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. Case study in how not to engage with your customers. We’ll await the inevitable apology and climb down.” – Mark Watts-Jones.
“Nestle, you guys should be more tactful at publicly lashing your fans. Shame on you! Your response to this situation is worst than the act committed – A disgrace on your part!” – Etta Thorpe.
“Simple rules of a PR crisis: When your cow falls in a ditch, firstly get the cow out of the ditch, then find out how it fell in, then make sure it never falls in again. I’m afraid your cow is still in the ditch.” – Alan Stevens
“I had a comment that said social media is about community voice – removed from this page – it did not have a logo in it – screen prints being kept … please allow us to have our say.” – Rebecca Varidel
The Nestlé fan page says “Social media: as you can see we’re learning as we go. Thanks for the comments.”
Quite. The problem is that learning while doing tends to be painful. This is a social media case study in the making.
Perhaps I can help? Here’s a short-cut to managing social media. 1. Be ethical in your business practices to begin with. 2. Accept that social media is a two-way conversation – listen and learn.
Nestlé is not the only company using palm oil in its products – for more on the issue, check out this World Wildlife Fund score-card of European companies.
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This is part of my series on sustainable food, in collaboration with Chris Perrin of Blog Well Done.
Previous posts:
Blog Well Done: Why I support #MeatlessMonday
Roaming Tales: Local versus organic
Blog Well Done: Locavore versus Organic-avore
EcoSalon: Think cheese is more eco + humane than meat? Think again
Roaming Tales: Where do you shop and the 3/50 Project
Blog Well Done: Why a series on sustainable eating?
Roaming Tales: New Year Resolutions: A new series on sustainable food
Blog Well Done: New Years Resolutions: A New Series on Sustainable Eating
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Photo credit: “Orangutan 3″ by Axinar on Flickr. Licensed under Creative Commons.
Caitlin,
This is a really fabulous post. I’m always impressed by your even handed point of view while simultaneously raising issues from all sides.
As for Nestle’s learning curve with social media, it seems they are not ones who are generally willing to listen. Do you think the pressure from social media will make a difference to them and perhaps lead to a change in policy on any front?
Thanks for the comment and kudos! It’s hard to say for sure as I don’t really have a deep insight into the inner workings at Nestlé HQ – it’s such a massive company that I’m sure there are people with different points of view internally. However, I do believe that Cadbury changed tack on palm oil in Australia and New Zealand, mainly because of a massive social media campaign (which led to coverage in mainstream news). So it’s not impossible. – Caitlin.
Great post Caitlin!
.-= jess (fushmush)´s last blog ..Summer craftiness =-.
Very nice post and interesting case study on social media.
It’s a pity that Nestle is not listening. Hopefully consumers will have their say, by using their purchasing power and letting their wallets talk too. Great account of what to do, and what not to do in corporate social PR too. Its great that social media gives us a community voice. Thank you for writing this post. @frombecca
.-= Rebecca @ InsideCuisine.com´s last blog ..salt and salmon = gravlax =-.
Great article! Wow, did they really say, “Thanks for the lesson in manners. Consider yourself embraced. But it’s our page, we set the rules, it was ever thus.” Unreal!
But some of the wall comments you posted are also very interesting. I thought the issue was with orangutans, not baboons. And is their response to the controversy really worse than what they are doing in the first place…?!
.-= Nick´s last blog ..Three Egypt travel secrets =-.
Hi Nick, thanks for commenting. Yes, they did say that – crazy, huh! I selected a few comments from the wall at random to give a flavour – but there are thousands of others.
Yes, I think the commenter who wrote about baboons was confused! Greenpeace highlighted the issue in South-East Asia, which is about orangutans and the forest they live in. It’s possible that some palm oil plantations in Africa (there are a few) have displaced baboons but this is a marginal issue. Deforestation in Africa is serious but baboons themselves are not an endangered species.
And no, personally I don’t think that what Nestlé is doing now from a marketing standpoint is worse than the original crime of inaction over sustainable palm oil. It might be worse from a PR point of view because it’s making more people aware of the issue, but in my book it’s certainly not worse from an ethical standpoint. – Caitlin.
I remember the baby milk scare way back then, my mother, being a midwife, made the concious decison to ban Nestle products from our house then and she still continues today. It annoys me because NGOs are out there working hard at educating developing nations on the benefits of Corporate Social Responsibility while this western multi-national seems intent on destroying much of their work.
Consumers have the power to speak out and boycott this company’s products just as many did years back.
Cadbury did change tack because of consumer out cry, I mean who would want to eat chocolate made of palm oil, the idea sounds positively blah.
Thanks for raising this issue Caitlin.
.-= Cate´s last blog ..Photo Friday -Wandering through Te Papa with a camera =-.
The fact is, at least in the United States, most chocolate you buy in a grocery store or convenience store is made from palm oil rather than cacao butter. While I have no respect for Nestle here, it’s not as if many other chocolate vendors aren’t doing the same thing – substituting real cacao butter with palm oil. And this isn’t a trend unique to chocolate. Buy “organic”, buy whatever label the corporations tell you, but it’s still food that isn’t what we ate decades or centuries ago. And I don’t mean that to imply we’ve made any progress.
In the defense of the corporations, sadly, we live in a day and age where there are far too many people on the earth, and for too few resources from which we can get “natural” food. And this is why so many compromises are made. Blame the corporations, but also blame population and consumers who refuse to accept increasing rarity and demand in products. Food itself is beginning to become scarce. It can only get worse as the world population continues to burgeon.
I certainly agree that over-population is one of the most pressing problems facing the world today but that’s a much larger topic.
On the more specific topic of palm oil in chocolate, you are correct that Nestle is not the only culprit. However, I believe it makes sense for campaigners like Greenpeace to target large corporations like Nestle because their actions have the biggest impact and big brands can be quite susceptible to consumer pressure. For example, did you know that last year Cadbury introduced palm oil to its chocolate in Australia and New Zealand and then dropped it a short time later due to consumer backlash? I wrote about this for EcoSalon: http://ecosalon.com/cadbury-bows-to-people-power-drops-palm-oil/
It’s pretty easy to tell whether your chocolate contains palm oil. It will be listed as either palm oil or vegetable oil on the list of ingredients. Not all chocolate has it, even at an American supermarket! It’s also used in other foods and cosmetic products such as soap.
There’s nothing unnatural about palm oil, by the way. The problem is the deforestation to grow the mega palm plantations, nothing to do with the naturalness of the product.