Italy’s environment minister said he planned to eat Nutella for dinner after French counterpart urged people to avoid product over deforestation fears 
 
 France’s environment minister Ségolène Royal has offered “a thousand apologies” after urging the public to stop eating Nutella because it was destroying the environment. 
 
 Royal’s Italian counterpart told her to “leave Italian products alone” after she criticised the use of palm oil in the hazelnut spread, which is made by Italian confectionery company Ferrero. 
 
 From rainforest to your cupboard: the real story of palm oil - interactive Read more 
 
 The spat over one of Italy’s most important products came at an already tense moment in Italian-French relations, with a bitter standoff over hundreds of migrants stranded in the Italian border city of Ventimiglia after being denied entry into France. 
 
 The migrant issue is likely to be raised in a meeting on Sunday between the Italian prime minister, Matteo Renzi, and François Hollande, the French president, who will be visiting his country’s pavilion at the Milan Expo, where Ferrero is a “major partner”. 
 
 Luca Galletti, the Italian environment minister, rushed to Nutella’s defence after Royal said in a television interview that the use of palm oil in the product was leading to “massive deforestation”, which was a cause of global warming. 
 
 The edible oil derived from palm fruit is grown throughout Africa, Asia, North America, and South America, though 85% of all palm oil is produced in Indonesia and Malaysia, where swaths of forest have been cleared for plantations. It is used in a wide range of products, from shampoo to ice cream. 
 
 “We should stop eating Nutella, for example, because it’s made with palm oil,” Royal said in an interview on Monday night on Canal+. She said the product ought to be made with “other ingredients”. 
 
 Galletti retorted: “Ségolène Royal is worrying. Leave Italian products alone. For dinner tonight … it’s bread with Nutella.” 
 
 Another senior Italian politician, Michele Anzaldi, demanded an apology from Royal, saying on Twitter that France had committed a “serious and ugly” slight against “Italian excellence”. 
 
 Michele Anzaldi (@Michele_Anzaldi) Grave e brutto scivolone della Francia sull'eccellenza italiana. Segolene Royal si scusi. Bastava andare sul sito: http://t.co/rnNAJykmiD 
 
 The French comments also prompted a quick response from Ferrero, which said in a statement on Tuesday that it was committed to sourcing the palm oil it uses in a responsible manner. 
 
 Royal backtracked on Wednesday afternoon with a tweet offering “one thousand apologies”. She also said she had agreed to flag up the “progress” made by the brand, which has vowed to use palm oil only from certified sustainable sources. 
 
 Ségolène Royal (@RoyalSegolene) Mille excuses pour la polémique sur le #Nutella. D'accord pour mettre en valeur les progrès. 
 
 The vast majority of the palm oil the company uses is sourced from Malaysia. It also uses palm oil from Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, and Brazil. 
 
 France's 'Nutella amendment' causes big fat international row Read more 
 
 It is not the first time that Ferrero has faced criticism in France. In 2012, a “Nutella amendment” that would have imposed a 300% tax on palm oil was defeated in parliament, despite arguments from some French senators that the ingredient was harming the environment and making children fat. 
 
 The same year, Nutella reportedly settled a class action lawsuit for $3m in the US, after a mother from California sued the company for misleading advertising. She claimed that she had been swayed by ads that claimed Nutella was “healthy” and part of a balanced diet, and was surprised to hear from friends that the chocolate spread she was feeding her four-year-old was in fact “the next best thing to a candy bar”. ||||| Italy has reacted with indignation to comments from Segolene Royal , the French ecology minister, that Nutella, the chocolate spread, should be boycotted because it leads to deforestation in the tropics. 
 
 Ms Royal urged people to stop eating the hazelnut spread that is beloved of generations of schoolchildren because it is made from palm oil, which comes from vast plantations in south-east Asia. 
 
 "We have to replant a lot of trees because there is massive deforestation that also leads to global warming. We should stop eating Nutella, for example, because it's made with palm oil," she said in an interview on the French television network Canal+. 
 
 "Oil palms have replaced trees, and therefore caused considerable damage to the environment," she said. 
 
 Ferrero, the Italian chocolate company which produces the spread, should use products other than palm oil to make Nutella, she said. 
 
 The trans-Alpine tiff was the subject of lively debate on Italian radio on Wednesday, with Italians pointing out that many French food products were also made with palm oil and that Nutella was being unfairly demonised. 
 
 The row added to an already high level of tension between Paris and Rome after the French closed their border with Italy, leaving hundreds of migrants and refugees in limbo and sleeping rough on a rocky stretch of the Riviera. 
 
 Many had reached Italy after crossing the Mediterranean from Libya and hoped to reach countries in northern Europe. 
 
 French minister for Ecology, Sustainable Development and Energy, Segolene Royal (AFP) 
 
 Gian Luca Galletti, Italy’s environment minister, said Ms Royal’s criticism of Nutella was “baffling”, telling her to “leave Italian products alone”. 
 
 Commenting on Twitter, he said: “I’ll be having bread and Nutella tonight for dinner”. 
 
 Roberto Calderoli, a senator with the centre-Right Northern League, a party whose defence of Italian values and products often verges on the xenophobic, also came to the defence of the chocolate spread. 
 
 “We grew up with Nutella and we’ll never give it up,” he said. “If the French don’t want to eat Nutella, too bad for them, they don’t know what they’re missing.” 
 
 Michele Anzaldi, a member of the ruling Democratic Party, said Ms Royal should apologise for her remarks, which he called “a grave blunder”. 
 
 Segolene Royal sconcertante: lasci stare i prodotti italiani. Stasera per cena... pane e #Nutella — Gian Luca Galletti (@glgalletti) June 16, 2015 
 
 The debate even made it to the front page of Italy’s respected and sober financial daily, Il Sole 24 Ore, which pointed out that palm oil was not just used in Nutella, but in a huge range of products, from biscuits and chocolate to ice cream. 
 
 “Boycotting Nutella will not slow down the consumption of palm oil, nor will it bring back the rainforests,” the paper said in an editorial. 
 
 Ferrero issued a statement in which it insisted that its palm oil was sourced from environmentally-sustainable plantations. 
 
 The company said that 100 per cent of its palm oil came from certified plantations. 
 
 Ferrero said it had signed up to an international agreement on sustainable palm oil and aimed to strike a balance between respect for the environment, the needs of local communities and the economic benefits of growing palm oil trees. 
 
 The company sources 80 per cent of its palm oil from Malaysia, with the rest coming from Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and Brazil – all countries where extensive deforestation has occurred. 
 
 Apparently stung by the criticism in Italy, Ms Royal appeared to backtrack on her remarks on Twitter. 
 
 “A thousand apologies for the controversy over Nutella,” she wrote in a tweet on Wednesday afternoon. “I agree about highlighting progress (in sustainable palm oil production)." 
 
 Mille excuses pour la polémique sur le #Nutella. D'accord pour mettre en valeur les progrès. — Ségolène Royal (@RoyalSegolene) June 17, 2015 
 
 In 2012, a group of French politicians tried to introduce a 300 per cent tax on palm oil, arguing that it was high in fat and that its cultivation resulted in the clearing of rainforest. The measure was defeated. 
 
 It may be sugary and fattening, but Nutella remains a jealously-guarded institution in Italy. 
 
 There was national mourning in February when Michele Ferrero, the patriarch of the eponymous chocolate conglomerate, died at the age of 89. 
 
 Mr Ferrero was Italy’s richest man, with his family’s fortune estimated at around £15 billion. 
 
 In a tribute, Sergio Mattarella, Italy’s president, called the chocolate baron “a born entrepreneur”, praising him for introducing products such as Ferrero Rocher chocolates, Tic-Tacs and Kinder Surprise eggs. 
 
 It was Ferrero's father, a small-time pastry maker, who laid the groundwork for the Nutella recipe. 
 
 During the Second World War, when cocoa was in short supply, he hit on the idea of mixing in hazelnuts, which are plentiful in northern Italy, where the company is based.
– France's environment minister caused an international brouhaha by picking on the wrong nutty spread. Segolene Royal singled out Nutella as the cause of environmental destruction, including climate change and "massive deforestation," and said people should stop eating it because it contains palm oil, the Guardian reports, prompting her Italian counterpart to tell her to "leave Italian products alone." Italian lawmakers similarly rushed to defend the hazelnut spread, calling Royal's remarks a "grave blunder," demanding an apology, and, in the case of the environment minister, vowing to have Nutella for dinner, the Telegraph reports. But while the production of palm oil—which is found in a huge variety of processed foods, often labeled as "vegetable oil"—is indeed responsible for environmental destruction in countries like Malaysia and Indonesia, environmental groups say Nutella maker Ferrero's sourcing of palm oil should be an example to others. The company, which gets all of its palm oil from plantations certified as sustainable, is "one of the more progressive consumer-facing companies," Greenpeace told Quartz in a statement. Royal eventually backtracked, offering "a thousand apologies" and agreeing that it's important to highlight sustainable production, the Guardian reports. (But France still won't let you name your child "Nutella.")