BERTOLT Brecht famously dismissed those who passed moral judgement on starving German women fraternising with Russian soldiers after the fall of Berlin, saying: “First comes Bread, then comes Morals”. Having endured the war he had seen through both bread and morals.

       But Iceland Foods Ltd, a British supermarket chain headquartered in Deeside, North Wales proclaimed they are different. Puffing his chest, Richard Walker, its managing director, laid claim to putting morals before bread by not selling products containing palm oil in its 1000-plus odd company owned outlets and franchised stores across Europe to stop tropical deforestation.

       Until very recently that is. Then falling off his high horse in the manner of Humpty Dumpty, which surely rhymes better than plain old “Rang-tan”, the Orang Utan, he reversed the ban on palm oil amid an acute shortage of sunflower oil, a staple ingredient in frozen chips and breaded fish.

       “The only alternative to using palm oil under the current circumstances would simply be to clear out our freezers and shelves of a wide range of staples, including frozen chips and other potato products,” said Richard, expressing “huge regret” about still using palm oil.

       Why does it always take war and the Russians to bring the West to its senses? United Kingdom food manufacturers have been warned that supplies of sunflower oil would run out in weeks as crops are trapped in Ukraine and Russia, who between them produce 70% of this stuff.

       A journalist writing for The New Indian Express recently described the Ukraine war, thus: “Having pushed Ukraine into war, the United States does not know how to save it. Having started it, Russia does not know how to end it”. Ditto the European Union’s (EU) war on palm oil.

       Having pushed consumers into a war with palm oil, Iceland Foods does not know how to save them. Having started it, the EU does not know how to end it. What shameless hypocrisy! As Russell Peters said in one of his outrageous standup comedies, “Be a man!”

       Which begs the question, who is this supermarket chain that had the audacity to steal the name of a small, proud country with lots of fish but less of people? Yes, “Iceland” the brand is actually “Iceland Foods”. But there is more. I mean, those dirty little secrets.

       In November 2016, the Icelandic government filed a legal challenge at the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) to have the company’s trademark invalidated “on the basis that the term ‘Iceland’ is exceptionally broad and ambiguous in definition, often rendering the country’s firms unable to describe their products as Icelandic”.

       Of this travesty, the Icelandic Magazine had this to say: “It is an insult to common sense to maintain that the supermarket chain has a stronger claim to the trademark than the country.” Fortunately for Iceland, in April 2019, EUIPO invalidated the Iceland trademark. Iceland the country did indeed come in from the cold! Cheers to them!

       Which brings us back to the “Rang-tan” advert controversy involving this same company. In November 2018, Iceland Foods submitted a version of an animated short starring a fictional orang utan, originally released by Greenpeace to Clearcast.

       Fortunately, this submission was denied but by this time the mischief of smearing palm oil had run its course.

       And there is still more. Malcolm Walker, the founder of Iceland Foods was forced to step down in 2001 after it was revealed that he had sold million worth of shares just weeks before the company released several profit warnings.

       Why do rich people and rich countries think rules do not apply to them? Perhaps it comes from feeling omnipotent. Or is it because crookedness is common?

       Then in 2013, two labs in Ireland and Germany, on behalf of the Irish State Agency found 0.1% equine DNA in some Iceland Foods products. Queried why these products had passed British tests but failed the Irish ones, Malcolm replied: “Well, that’s the Irish, isn’t it?” By the way, that isn’t an Irish joke but this one looks like one: he became Sir Malcolm Walker in 2017.

       Richard, his son, launched the campaign against palm oil, riding a smear wave created by the EU. Unlike Buffalo Bill who shot bison by the millions to starve the Native Indians, Richard removed any food containing palm oil from his shop shelves to save “Rang-tan”, not humans. It was not done for sport but because of moral outrage, he said. His, not ours.

       A familiar pattern is emerging. The father-son tag team is a formidable act. In 2018, Iceland Foods announced that it would end the use of plastic for all its own-brand products by the end of 2023. Weeks ago, in an exercise of public self-flagellation, Richard admitted to feeling like a hypocrite for not being able to remove plastic from his shop shelves by next year.

       Then he adds more spiel, designed to make us giddy: “Sustainability cannot only be for the rich”. Now we get the picture! The joys of sustainability have been borne by the rich for too long. The poor can chip in. The millions of cocoa, coffee, tea, rubber, coconut and oil palm workers and producers too must do their part by tightening their belts a notch or two. How thoughtful!

       All this is sheer madness! Like the Ukraine war. Like the sanctions that force countries to throw out the baby with the bathwater.

       Things are becoming clear now to billions of people in the Third World that the powerful and rich are up to their necks with hypocrisy and choking on it. Imagine, war and armaments and hate and hypocrisy are not banned but a crop like oil palm can be?

       But we remain ever optimistic about oil palm as a crop that is of immense benefit to mankind. The numbers don’t lie. By any measure and by all objective research, oil palm as a crop has advantages that cannot be denied or wished away, when compared to other oilseed crops, providing a livelihood for millions which in and of itself makes it a sustainable crop, par excellence.

       To paraphrase Groucho Marx: “These are my thoughts living in a country that grows oil palms for a living and if you don’t like them, I have others”.

       M. R. Chandran is a 50-year veteran in the agro-commodity industry.

       The views expressed here are his own.