A weak corporate palm oil policy is not the same thing as proof that every product from that company contains unsustainable palm oil. That distinction matters when a parent company owns dozens of brands, formulations vary, and even ostensibly palm-oil-free products can sit within a group receiving a low rating.
The source list, dated August 4, 2026, gives its lowest ratings to companies that either failed to provide sufficient information or had received serious third-party criticism concerning their palm supply chains. Some may have policies on paper; others disclose little. The rating is therefore a warning about corporate sourcing and accountability, not a product-by-product ingredient audit.
For consumers, the useful question is not simply which names to avoid. It is what kind of decision you are trying to make: avoiding palm oil in a particular product, rewarding stronger sourcing policies, or declining to support an entire corporate group.
What a lowest rating actually means
The assessment places a company in its lowest tier when it demonstrates no or minimal commitment to sourcing sustainable palm oil. It can also receive that rating when it has apparently stronger policies but has faced serious criticism over abuses in its supply chain.
Those are materially different weaknesses:
- Minimal commitment suggests the company has not set a sufficiently strong sourcing standard.
- Insufficient information means consumers cannot adequately judge its practices.
- Supply-chain criticism raises questions about whether stated policies are effective in practice.
The source does not provide the underlying criticism, company responses or case details for each name in the list. It also does not identify which individual products currently contain palm oil or derivatives. Inclusion should not therefore be read as proof that every named product is made with unsustainable palm oil.
Some explicit exceptions make the limits particularly clear. H!P is described as palm-oil-free even though its owner, Love Cocoa, appears in the lowest-rated list. Hotel Chocolat is likewise identified as palm-oil-free while being listed under Mars. Lily’s Kitchen is excluded from the concerns attached to Nestlé’s other pet-food brands.
A consumer looking only at the front of a packet could therefore reach a different decision from one evaluating the policies of the parent company.
Lowest-rated companies by shopping category
The following names are drawn from the source’s lowest-rated category lists. Brand examples identify corporate reach; they do not establish that every current formulation contains palm oil.
Butter, margarine and spreads
The source gives its lowest rating to:
- Groupe Lactalis, including President
- Kerry Group, including Pure Dairy Free
- Iceland
Iceland also appears in the food-retailer category, alongside Amazon Fresh.
This overlap shows why the level of scrutiny matters. A retailer can be assessed for its own-brand or corporate sourcing policy, while an individual spread can be assessed by ingredients and manufacturer.
Chocolate
The lowest-rated chocolate companies are:
- Love Cocoa, including H!P, which the source identifies as palm-oil-free
- Mars, including Celebrations, Galaxy, Maltesers, M&M’s, Twix and palm-oil-free Hotel Chocolat
- Mondelez, including Bournville, Cadbury, Green & Black’s, Milk Tray, Roses and Toblerone
- Nestlé, including Aero, After Eight, Kit Kat, Matchmakers, Smarties and Yorkie
This category illustrates the difference between a brand-level and company-level decision especially well. A product may be described as palm-oil-free while its owner still receives a low corporate rating. Avoiding the ingredient and avoiding the parent company are not necessarily the same act.
Fast food, coffee and takeaways
The source lists:
- Domino’s Pizza
- Caffè Nero
- Camden Food Co
- Upper Crust, owned by SSP Group
- Papa Johns
- Pret A Manger
- Starbucks
- Subway
Because the assessment is presented at company or chain level, it does not establish the ingredients or sourcing route for every item sold at every location. The practical concern is the company’s overall commitment, disclosure or supply-chain record.
Pet food
The lowest-rated pet-food groups and brands include:
- Colgate-Palmolive: Hill’s Science
- Nestlé: Purina, Gourmet and Go-Cat
- Mars: Whiskas, Sheba, Royal Canin, Lovebug, Perfect Fit and James Wellbeloved
- Spectrum Brands: Eukanuba and IAMS
The source specifically says Lily’s Kitchen is palm-oil-free and separates it from the other Nestlé names listed.
For pet owners, changing food can involve considerations beyond corporate sourcing. The rating can inform the next purchase, but it does not by itself establish that an immediate switch is necessary or suitable for a particular animal.
Beauty and personal care
This is one of the broadest categories in the source. Lowest-rated groups include:
- Yellow Wood Partners: Alberto Balsam, Bed Head, Timotei and Impulse
- Procter & Gamble: Aussie, Head & Shoulders, Herbal Essences, Old Spice, Pantene and Gillette
- PZ Cussons: Bayley’s of Bond Street, Carex, Childs Farm, Imperial Leather, Original Source and Charles Worthington
- Unilever: Dove, Lynx, Pears, Radox, SheaMoisture, Simple, TRESemmé, Wild, Schmidt’s, Sure and Vaseline
The source also names Attitude, Yaoh, Beauty Without Cruelty, bareMinerals, Malibu, Australian Gold, Ultrasun, Mitchum, Revlon, Elizabeth Arden, Soft & Gentle, Perspirex, AKT and Nuud among its lowest-rated beauty businesses or brands.
A low company rating does not answer whether a particular shampoo, deodorant, sunscreen or cosmetic contains palm oil or a derivative. It instead signals that the company’s sourcing evidence or supply-chain performance did not meet the assessment’s standard.
Laundry products
The source lists several large manufacturers as well as smaller or ostensibly environmentally positioned brands:
- Procter & Gamble: Ariel, Bold, Daz and Lenor
- Unilever: Persil, Surf and Comfort
- Reckitt Benckiser: Vanish and Woolite
- Attitude
- Earth Breeze
- Ecozone
- Homethings
- INEOS
The presence of a brand associated with ecological marketing should not be treated as evidence of either strong or weak palm oil performance. What matters under this method is the sourcing standard, certification, disclosure and record—not the broader style of the packaging or brand.
What stronger palm oil accountability looks like
The assessment’s highest ratings establish a more useful benchmark than a blacklist alone.
Companies can receive the highest scores when they do not use palm oil or its derivatives. Large companies may also score highly when they meet all of several conditions:
- All palm oil and derivatives are certified by the RSPO.
- At least 50% comes through Segregated or Identity Preserved supply chains.
- The company publishes its mills and producers.
- It publishes an annual grievance list.
- Its producers are not among those with the most inadequate “No Deforestation, No Peat, No Exploitation” policies.
The method is more lenient with small and medium-sized companies. For those businesses, it places greater emphasis on whether they source certified palm and derivatives or are trying to avoid palm oil.
This difference reflects the structure of the rating rather than a universal rule. Larger companies are expected to provide deeper supply-chain disclosure, while smaller ones are judged more heavily on their direct sourcing choices.
How to examine a company before switching
A lowest rating is a starting point for scrutiny, not a substitute for it. When current company information is available, six questions follow directly from the source’s scoring method:
Does the policy cover derivatives?
A company may discuss palm oil while saying less about palm-derived ingredients. The source’s higher standard explicitly covers both palm oil and derivatives, so a policy addressing only one is incomplete under this framework.
Is certification quantified?
A general commitment to “certified” or “responsibly sourced” material is less informative than a stated proportion. The assessment’s high-rating threshold requires all palm oil and derivatives to be RSPO-certified.
What kind of supply chain is used?
For large companies, the source looks for at least 50% from Segregated or Identity Preserved supply chains. A company that mentions certification without identifying its supply-chain approach has not supplied all the information used by this assessment.
Are mills and producers disclosed?
Publishing supplier information allows claims to be examined beyond the finished brand. Under the source’s method, listing all mills and producers is part of the standard for a high score.
Does the company publish grievances?
An annual grievance list indicates whether supply-chain complaints are being recorded publicly. Its presence does not resolve every concern, but its absence leaves consumers with less information about problems and responses.
Are policies matched by practice?
A company can have a seemingly good policy and still receive the lowest rating if serious criticism concerns abuses in its supply chain. Written commitments and operational performance are separate questions.
Choosing the right level of action
The source list supports several defensible consumer responses. None is automatically correct for every purchase.
If your priority is avoiding palm oil itself, examine the individual product rather than assuming every item from a lowest-rated company contains it. The source explicitly identifies palm-oil-free products inside some listed groups.
If your priority is corporate accountability, ownership matters more. You may decide that buying a palm-oil-free product from a poorly rated parent company does not meet your objective.
If your priority is stronger sourcing, compare companies against the disclosed criteria: certification, Segregated or Identity Preserved supply, mill and producer publication, grievance reporting and producer policies.
If switching would waste a usable product, finishing what you already own and applying the criteria at replacement time remains an option. A company rating does not make an existing bottle of shampoo, box of detergent or packaged food more useful when discarded.
If the evidence is incomplete, postponing the purchase or asking the company for its current policy may be more proportionate than treating a dated rating as permanent.
A warning list, not a final verdict
The phrase “brands that use unsustainable palm oil” is stronger than the evidence presented for every name here. The source establishes that these companies received its lowest rating because of minimal commitments, inadequate disclosure or serious supply-chain criticism. It does not show that every named brand currently uses palm oil, that every product formulation is the same, or that all palm oil sourced by every listed company is unsustainable.
The bounded judgment is still useful: these are companies for which the source found the policy, transparency or practical record insufficient. Consumers who care about palm oil should treat the list as a prompt to inspect ownership and sourcing—not merely ingredients—and to distinguish promises from traceable evidence.
Sources & methodology
This analysis is based solely on the pasted source article, “Brands and Companies that use Palm Oil,” dated August 4, 2026. It reorganizes that article’s lowest-rated company lists and stated scoring criteria.
No independent product testing, ingredient verification or additional research was supplied. The source did not include evidence links for individual criticisms, current company responses, product-level formulations or the dates on which each company policy was checked. Long-term performance and subsequent policy changes therefore cannot be established from the available material.
