Nutellagate: French Minister Apologizes After Speaking Out Against the Hazelnut Spread

Ségolène Royal, France's ecology minister and onetime Socialist candidate for president, backpedaled Wednesday on her controversial call for the public to stop eating the popular chocolate-hazelnut spread Nutella, in which she tied its use of palm oil to deforestation.

"We have to replant a lot of trees because there is massive deforestation that also leads to global warming," she said in a televised interview on Monday. "We should stop eating Nutella, for example, because it's made with palm oil."

The widespread use of palm oil has been condemned by environmentalists and conservationists because the growth of palm farming has resulted in "a massive deforestation that has also increased global warming," she noted.

Her comments received international attention, irritating consumers who have grown highly affectionate of the chocolatey spread and garnering frustrated reactions from the Italian company that makes it, Ferrero, as well as politicians in Italy and even some environmental groups.

"A thousand apologies for the fuss over Nutella," Royal tweeted on Wednesday. "It's fine to focus on progress."

Mille excuses pour la polémique sur le — Ségolène Royal (@RoyalSegolene)17 Juin 2015

Related: Indonesia Is Killing the Planet for Palm Oil

Palm oil is a vegetable oil that is derived from the fruit of oil palms. Although its production is very profitable, it also comes with massive deforestation. Producers in Indonesia and Africa raze swathes of forest to cultivate oil palm plantations, and the devastating environmental impact of this production has become an increasing issue.

Ferrero has undertaken to ensure that 100 percent of its palm oil is sustainable using measures established under its Palm Oil Charter, a statement of purposes launched in 2013 "to address the leading causes of deforestation and create a balance between the conservation of the environment, community needs and economic benefit and viability." The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), a group that certifies businesses' palm-oil sustainability practices, praised Ferrero for these efforts, suggesting that they presented no harm to the environment.

When approached for comment, Ferrero France told VICE News that the company would not comment on Royal's statement, but said that it uses 100 percent certified sustainable palm oil for its products manufactured in Villers-Écalles, the French production site for Nutella in Upper Normandy.

In Italy, Ségolène Royal's words on what she called a "humorous show" caused a national outcry. Following her comments, her Italian counterpart, Environment Minister Gian Luca Galetti,shot backon Twitter: "Ségolène Royal is unnerving; leave Italian products alone. Tonight, for dinner, it's bread and Nutella."

Segolene Royal sconcertante: lasci stare i prodotti italiani. Stasera per cena… pane e — Gian Luca Galletti (@glgalletti)June 16, 2015

The spread is an institution in Italy, something that Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi's wife Agnese confirmed on television this Wednesday as she ate a Nutella crêpe with her daughter at Expo Milano 2015 — organized under the theme "Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life."

Francia contro la — La Stampa (@la_stampa)17 Juin 2015

Greenpeace even came out in support of Ferrero, telling the news site Quartz that "a blanket boycott of this agricultural crop will not solve problems in its production." It applauded the company's "ambitious policy" to ensure the sustainability of its supply. "We therefore consider Ferrero to be one of the more progressive consumer-facing companies with regards to palm oil sourcing," it said.

"Consumers should know just how destructive palm-oil farming can be," noted the NGO Vérité. "But Ferrero seems to be one of those rare companies to have adopted the highest standards" in regard to responsible palm oil production.

Alain Rival is a correspondent for the palm-oil industry at Cirad, a French public research institute for agronomical research and development. He has worked in Indonesia — one of the world's two largest countries for palm oil production, along with Malaysia — for nearly 25 years. He explained to VICE News that oil palms "grow in the humid tropics, which are the world's last hotspots of biodiversity and absolutely need to be protected. We must be extremely vigilant when it comes to cohabitation between these protected spaces and palm fields."

Related: Rogue Palm Oil Companies Continue to Destroy Indonesia's Forests

For about twenty years, palm oil production has grown exponentially from 15.2 to 56 million tons between 1995 and 2013. Greenpeace says that palm oil farming is the primary cause of deforestation in Indonesia, which has lost around 620,000 hectares of forests per year. As a result, the natural habitats of numerous protected species, such as Sumatran tigers, have been endangered. Although the RSPO has helped spur progress, the World Wildlife Fund estimates that in more than 50 percent of cases, palm oil is being cultivated in places where natural forests once stood and have now been cleared.

Oil palm cultivation is a major industry in Southeast Asia. About half of palm oil growers are "small producers," according to Rival. The industry has exploded because the plant is very profitable, robust, and is perennial, while the price of oil has stayed relatively high and stable, making it a preferable investment for these producers.

Rival, who has written a book on oil palms and the controversies around them, explains that "the palm in and of itself isn't responsible, but planting them can be troublesome if they're planted without much thought for location or practicalities" — hence the interest in supervision and certification. He was quick to note that the RSPO's norms are the "minimum standards of sustainability," and believes such standards can go much farther.

The real challenge will be to convince purchasing countries to pay increased costs for sustainable production, he proposed. The oil is used in products worldwide and is popularly consumed in China, India, Pakistan, and Indonesia.

"These countries have to be convinced to pay a little more for sustainable palm oil, just as we pay a bit more for organic cherry tomatoes," Rival said.

Follow Pierre Longeray on Twitter: @PLongeray