A COUNCIL worker has voiced her outrage at what she says is a retailer’s misleading poster campaign.

Amy Marshall, an employee at Welwyn Hatfield Council, walked into Marks & Spencer in WGC last week to buy her lunch and noticed a poster condemning the use of palm oil.

The billboard, at the entrance to M&S’s Howard Centre store, reads: “We think destroying rainforests for palm oil is too high a price to pay for a biscuit.”

The 23-year-old then bought an own-brand salad and packet of crisps believing them to be eco-friendly, only to discover they both contained palm oil.

Amy, from Sweet Briar, WGC, said: “I think it is awful that a company as established as M&S can get away with false advertising.

“I raised the issue with a sales assistant who looked at me blankly and said I would have to speak to someone higher up.

“When I spoke to them they just stared at me blankly as well so I got no explanation.”

Palm oil production is a controversial topic, with campaigners against it saying the cost to the environment is devastating, with rainforests in south-east Asia being torn up to provide land for plantations.

A spokesman for Marks & Spencer said: “The in-store poster is advertising our palm oil commitment to only use sustainable sources by 2015 and, until then, purchase GreenPalm certificates to cover our entire use of palm oil.

“Every major food producer and retailer uses palm oil, but palm oil production doesn’t have to destroy rainforests and that’s why we’ve made the GreenPalm investment to encourage the production of sustainable sources.”

Companies who purchase palm oil bearing a GreenPalm certificate are assured their money is invested in sustainable palm oil production.