Greenpeace Aotearoa is celebrating a win against intensive dairy greenwash, as Fonterra admits that it broke the law with misleading packaging on Anchor butter, sold between Dec 2023 and April 2025.
In September 2024, Greenpeace Aotearoa filed a lawsuit against Fonterra Brands for breaching the Fair Trading Act by using misleading packaging to sell its Anchor butter.
Today, Greenpeace and Fonterra have settled the claim outside of court.
Greenpeace spokesperson Sinéad Deighton-O’Flynn says, “This is an open-and-shut case of greenwashing. Fonterra claimed that its Anchor Butter was ‘100% New Zealand Grass-Fed’, but that isn’t true. Fonterra dairy cows can be fed up to 3 kilograms of palm kernel a day – an imported feed linked to rainforest destruction.
“Palm kernel is a dry, gravelly cow feed that comes from the destroyed paradise rainforests of Southeast Asia. It isn’t grass, and to claim otherwise is misleading and deceptive.”
The Anchor Butter packaging had a prominently displayed logo with the words ‘100% New Zealand Grass-Fed’, a claim inconsistent with the fact that Fonterra cows can be fed up to 3kg of palm kernel expeller every day.
New Zealand is the world’s largest importer of palm kernel, importing more than 2 million tonnes every year primarily to feed Fonterra’s dairy herd.
Deighton-O’Flynn says, “This admission from the world’s biggest dairy exporter is a win against corporate greenwash. It exposes the cynicism of Fonterra and its intensive dairy model: instead of ending its links to rainforest destruction, Fonterra just slapped a misleading label on its packaging and continued business as usual.
“In a cost of living crisis, New Zealanders have been getting ripped off. We’ve been paying at times upwards of $20 a kilo for butter, while also being misled about the quality of that butter.”
Palm kernel expeller has notoriously murky supply chains, and in early 2025, Greenpeace Aotearoa used research from Rainforest Action Network and Nusantara Atlas to link companies selling palm kernel into New Zealand to illegal deforestation in Indonesia’s Rawa Singkil Wildlife reserve.
“New Zealand is the biggest importer of palm kernel expeller in the world. When palm kernel suppliers are involved in illegal deforestation, it is highly likely that some of that illegal rainforest destroying palm kernel ends up here – in the butter New Zealanders spread on their toast,” says Deighton-O’Flynn.
“Most New Zealanders would be horrified to know that rainforests are being destroyed, with precious wildlife pushed to the brink of extinction, to grow cheap feed for Fonterra’s oversized dairy herd. And that’s likely why Fonterra tried to hide the truth.”
Fonterra has agreed that it will not continue to use the ‘100% New Zealand Grass-Fed’ logo. The company has now changed the logo to one that only says ‘Grass-Fed’.
Deighton-O’Flynn says, “Companies shouldn’t deceive customers to sell products. Where the government fails to adequately regulate greenwashers, it’s up to New Zealanders to stand up for our values and call out greenwash where we see it.”
Greenpeace has been calling on Fonterra to phase out palm kernel for over a decade.
Deighton-O’Flynn says, “The reality is Fonterra has only changed the label. It hasn’t changed its destructive practices. Instead of greenwash tactics, Fonterra should take action to phase out palm kernel on all of its farms.”
Call on Fonterra to end the use of rainforest-destroying palm kernel on its farms.
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