10/05/2011 (Liverpool Daily Post) - New Britain Palm Oil has announced a supply deal with Singaporean plantation owner Wilmar International that could increase capacity at its Liverpool refinery.

New Britain specialises in providing palm oil from sustainable resources in Papua New Guinea and opened its £18m new refinery on Regent Road last year.

It is increasing capacity on a weekly basis, but the deal with Wilmar could see the plant producing more specialist types of palm oil for various food sectors in the UK market.

The deal involves a supply chain to provide continental Europe with fully traceable and segregated palm oil from New Britain’s Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands plantations.

Palm oil sourced from sustainable resources is considered the most ethical and environmentally-friendly for indigenous eco-systems and wildlife.

It will be available from Wilmar’s refinery in Brake, Germany, within a matter of weeks and will establish links between Brake and the Liverpool refinery in the production of a range of palm oil products.

Different versions, or refinements, of palm oil are needed for the production of, for example, biscuits, compared with chocolate.

New Britain chief executive Alan Chaytor said: “New Britain Palm Oil’s refinery in Liverpool and Wilmar’s Brake refinery in Germany will assist each other in the specific palm oil product formats that they individually do not have.”

Wilmar director Martua Sitorius added: “We have heard for a long time from food manufacturers that it has been difficult to source many of the palm oil products needed in a sustainable format and therefore they have set their targets for using only sustainable palm oil quite far off in the future.

“Wilmar and New Britain hope that our working together in Brake assists these companies to meet their targets and potentially bring them forward.”

The continental Europe palm oil market has a capacity of approximately five million tonnes per year.

Wilmar’s Brake refinery can produce 700,000 tonnes a year, of which about 300,000 tonnes will be provided by New Britain under the agreement..