Yum Restaurants International (KFC) Thailand Reacts to Greenpeace

 

CHIANGRAI TIMES – Thailand’s Yum Restaurants International (KFC) is prepared to cancel orders for food boxes made of paper pulp coming from trees in Indonesia’s rainforests.

Following strong protests by Greenpeace, the Thai unit checked facts on the pulp paper supplies. Milind Pant, managing director of the Thai unit, said that based on information from the packaging supplier, only 1 per cent of the packages are made of trees from Indonesia’s rainforests.

Despite the low level, Yum! Thailand is prepared to terminate the supply contract, to help reduce environmental degradation. According to Pant, all employees are encouraged to raise public awareness on global warming and environment conservation, through community activities originated at KFC and Pizza Hut stores nationwide.

Greenpeace last week launched a protest at Yum! headquarters, accusing its packaging suppliers in Indonesia of illegal logging and land clearing in Indonesia’s rainforest regions.

Indonesia is home to about 10 per cent of the world’s remaining tropical forests, but heavy-handed logging and clearing has seen its jungles decimated in recent decades, critics say. More than 2 million hectares of Indonesian rainforests have been lost to logging every year since 1996, according to Washington-based Global Forest Watch, a trend that has sent the country’s greenhouse gas emissions soaring.

Yum! operates 38,000 fast-food restaurants in 110 countries. In Thailand, it owns, manages, and awards franchise licenses of KFC and Pizza Hut. There are 306 KFC outlets in 56 provinces, and 75 Pizza Hut outlets.