Iceland is the first British supermarket to pledge a crackdown on palm oil by removing the environmentally devastating food ingredient from its own-brand food.

The frozen food specialist said it had made an ethical decision to reformulate 130 food products to completely remove palm oil from its list of ingredients by the end of the year.

The ubiquitous vegetable oil is used in around half of all supermarket products, from soap and chocolate spread to oven chips and crisps, despite its damaging environmental consequences.

Iceland said it has already replaced palm oil in 50pc of its range across its 900 stores.

It has also rolled out 100 new lines which forego the ingredient blamed for destroying rainforests and threatening critically endangered species including the orangutan.

The pledge to end palm oil use comes amid brewing trade tensions between the western governments mulling a palm oil ban, and Indonesia and Malaysia, where 90pc of all palm oil is produced.