Kellogg chief challenged on rainforests during earnings call

Kellogg chief executive John Bryant found himself ear-to-ear with a shareholder activist on Thursday's earnings conference call.

Lucia von Reusner, who works for Boston-based Green Century Capital Management, wanted to know what the world's largest cereal maker planned to do about allegations that an Asian partner, Wilmar International, had contributed to the destruction of rain forests.

Kellogg is the latest target of environmental groups looking to stop the ploughing under of Southeast Asian rain forests to farm palm oil, which is used in everything from food to beauty care.

SumOfUs, a web-based US environmental group, simultaneously presented a petition at Kellogg's headquarters in Battle Creek, Michigan, asking the cereal maker to get tough with Singapore-based Wilmar or end its supply and distribution joint venture with the company.

"As a company publicly committed to sustainability, how will Kellogg ensure that the Kellogg brand is not associated with the illegal deforestation that its partner Wilmar has been accused of," von Reusner said on the call. "How will you ensure the Kellogg brand remains sustainable and all that?"

Bryant defended the company's record on sustainability and in an interview minutes after the call said: "We take the whole area of sustainability of palm oil very seriously. We buy sustainably sourced palm oil, and where it's not available we buy the green certificates to cover it."

Such certificates, bought by companies from certified palm oil producers and traded on special exchanges, allow companies to claim they have supported the sustainable production of palm oil, according to trading platform GreenPalm.