  "In a time of drastic change, it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists."
Eric Hoffer (1902 – 83), US philosopher
Food bites . . . a different take on organic
"Organic food is more expensive than ordinary food that has been treated with pesticides, growth hormones and antibiotics. I'm not sure why. It must cost farmers a fortune to give their sick chickens antibiotics, never mind all that time spent out in the fields tenderly spraying their crops with life-prolonging hormones. I would be so grateful if someone took the time to spray me with hormones."
 Editor's Stuff - In for a bashing again!
It's food-industry-bashing time again! Only this week it's going global with the latest TIME magazine that has a front cover and article with "some ugly truths about how America produces its meat" entitled “The Real Cost of Cheap Food”.
The article repeats a wide range of “factory farming” claims, including the common myths/truths (depending on your stance on these matters) about modern beef production’s over-reliance on corn and antibiotics, the distorting effect of farm subsidies and poor farm animal living conditions, and the high cost to the environment, animals and humans. You can read the article here
 It's time for TIME to get real, rails one critic, Matt Bogard, writing on www.AgWeb.com. He calls it "one of the worst pieces of pseudo science I've seen in a long time." He goes on to say that a main assertion made in the article is that modern, science-based agriculture (or 'industrial agriculture' if you prefer the more negative connotation) is leading to ever more use of ever more toxic chemicals and environmental degradation. On the contrary modern agriculture is becoming more sustainable every day . . . Read his opinion piece here
And www.consumerfreedom.com says "if you’re looking for the real story about agriculture, you won’t find it in “Getting Real About the High Price of Cheap Food.” It add that “Sustainable” food purists are working overtime to earn their reputation as ignorant elitists and that the article is full of falsehoods and misinformation calculated to capitalize on fear and guilt. For instance, the writer attacks farmers in the Midwest for having the audacity to grow crops and raise livestock efficiently and cheaply enough to feed the whole country, and intoning, without a hint of irony (or proof): “Our food is increasingly bad for us, even dangerous.” He says meat is disproportionately responsible for global warming -- a myth that has been thoroughly, repeatedly debunked. And he praises organic farming and other “enlightened” agriculture fads which produce very little that ordinary consumers can regularly afford. Read this opinion piece here
The cover artwork on the magazine carries the warning: “CAUTION. This hamburger may be hazardous to your health.” I'd say this article, right or wrong or distorted as its contents may be, is very hazardous to the food industry and yet another log in the fire of consumer concern as to how their food is produced. This pressure ain't going away anytime soon. Enjoy this week's read! And do go to the end of the newsletter, there are some great lighter aspects of the food game to uncover.
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SA Food Industry Stuff
 2009 Sunday Times Top Brands winners
The Sunday Times Top Brands Awards for 2009 were announced 20 August 2009. Pick n Pay stole the show by winning two out of the four top awards despite Coca-Cola once again winning overall favourite brand. Read more
KFC has reason to be cock-a-hoop KFC dominates the Fast Foods Category and is far more popular than its rivals, says Neil Higgs, director of innovation and development at TNS Research Surveys, referring to the recently announced results of The Sunday Times Top Brands Awards.
“The brand has around 570 outlets nationally and this is supported by strong marketing. KFC's usage at 81% is very high and even among non users it has a high number of people who aspire to the brand. Read more
 Focus on selected markets boosts Shoprite
Focusing on the right market segments stood Shoprite in good stead in the year to June, as the retail giant grew turnover 24.5% to R59.3 billion even as consumers buckled under financial pressure. Read more
 New labelling 'will raise food costs'
Food prices would rise when food manufacturers started changing the labels to comply with the new regulations on food labelling and advertising, Jannie de Villiers, the executive director of the SA Chamber of Baking, says. Read more
To be the toast of Tanzania Distell is spearheading a viticultural initiative in Tanzania expected to enable wine farmers in the Dodoma highlands to double their grape crops within three to five years - and may yet be developing a feasible model for rolling out vineyard productions across sub-Saharan Africa. Read more
Food Industry News
 A-B InBev wants Budweiser to go global, with Coke as a model
Anheuser-Busch InBev has named Omnicom Group's DDB lead global ad agency for its iconic U.S. beer brand Budweiser, with an eye toward transforming it into a global player much like another iconic beverage, Coca-Cola. Read more
 FMCG: The game has changed
The recession has spelt disaster for most brands of packaged goods, but not all. Firms that specialise in food, including Nestlé, Kraft and Kellogg, are holding up better than those that sell products for cleaning and grooming, but only because consumers are preparing more meals at home. Read more
 Uncertain milk prices fuel debate
Some in the beleaguered dairy industry will have taken comfort from recent signs that milk and dairy prices on the global commodities market have started to pick up. However, the question of whether this is a short term fluctuation or the start of a longer-term recovery remains contentious. Read more
Unilever looking to make ambient ice cream? Unilever is said to be pondering how to make an ice cream that is made, shipped and sold warm, with the consumer taking the final step of actually freezing the product. The goal would be to reduce energy and emissions spent on keeping ice cream cold throughout the supply chain. Read the original article here
But a spokesperson for Unilever denies the claim, saying that ambient ice cream is “something we are aware of, but we have no plans to develop this kind of product”. And he would, such is the secrecy that surrounds this highly competitive sector.
Unilever has made headlines for its development of other ice cream texture solutions in recent times. In May it received European novel foods approval for its ice structuring proteins (ISP), which can help reduce the fat and calorie content of products by up to 50%. They are also said to allow more fruit to be used, better taste, better structure and slower melting. Read more
New player prepares sucralose launch in Europe BioPlus is introducing a new sucralose to manufacturers around the world, and sees future market growth in developing new versions of the popular sweetener.
In 2006, India’s Pharmed Medicare, owned by the Aurora family, reported it had developed a new process for making sucralose claimed to be completely different to the processes used by market leader Tate & Lyle. Now BioPlus Life Sciences, a company with links to Pharmed, is preparing to launch the sweetener as an ingredient to food and beverage manufacturers around the world under the name Solo Sucralose. Read more
Campaign to change US over-21 drinking age Nearly 5,000 people below the age of 21 die because of excessive alcohol consumption each year. Oddly, this has triggered a new movement to lower the drinking age. In America, young people can vote, drive, marry, divorce, hunt and go to war before alcohol is legally allowed to touch their lips. In 1984 Ronald Reagan oversaw the passage of the “21 law”, which requires states to set 21 as the minimum drinking-age or risk losing 10% of their highway funds. Now campaigners want to move it back. Read more
EXCLUSIVE! New Nutrition Business on www.foodstuffsa.co.za
 UK-based, New Nutrition Business (NNB) is the longest-established consultancy and journal on the global food and nutrition business, providing an unrivalled collection of news analysis and case studies on companies, brands, products, ingredients, markets, regulations. In a valued collaboration, we have the rights to publish select articles from NNB's monthly magazine, normally only available by subscription.
 Gluten free grows up
No longer the domain of dusty products with poor flavour made by tiny companies and sold solely in health-food stores, the buzz around the gluten-free category is attracting more consumers and also bigger, more mainstream companies who want a piece of the action. Read more  Kellogg signals that fibre is the must-have ingredient
Kellogg is enhancing the fibre content of many of its ready-to-eat cereals in the US and Canada – signalling that digestive health is, has long been and will remain the biggest trend in the business of food and health, already accounting for almost half of the entire functional foods business in Japan and in Europe. Read more
Food Trends and NPD
Collaboration & development All players in the food industry, including suppliers, are waking up to the fact that collaboration can significantly fuel new product and technology development. Open innovation, an approach to NPD that taps into third party knowledge, is very much in vogue among food manufacturers, with the likes of Mars and Unilever embracing this more collaborative way of working.
And it seems to have caught on further up the supply chain too, as suppliers of ingredients and processing machinery increasingly build mutually beneficial relationships with one another and with other technology providers. Read more
 Growing UK consumer interest in Fairtrade
Despite the tough economic conditions at home, British shoppers are showing increasing concern over the welfare of people producing their food and groceries in developing countries. Says research company, IGD: "The resilience of the trend, even throughout a recession, sends out a strong message. Ethical sourcing is growing increasingly important for shoppers. That’s why it’s fast becoming a new competitive frontier for food retailers and brand owners." Read more  UK: For Goodness Shakes – Britain’s first after-sport drink
A look at Goodness Shakes, the UK's first commercial after-sport drink that's in acceleration mode, with 30% growth year on year. Read more
 US: Nestle launches its first rPET bottled water product
Food giant Nestle is to launch its first range of mineral water in the US packaged in bottles containing 25% recycled PET (rPET) and is supporting the launch with a recycling scheme. Its first use of rPET, Nestle has teamed up with Whole Foods Market to sell the new Re-Source brand natural spring water at outlets throughout the US. Consumers will be encouraged to recycle the bottles at collection points in Whole Foods Market stores. Read more  US: Introducing Perky Jerky ... getting a kick out of meat
The Performance Enhancing Meat Snack Company, Denver, has launched Perky Jerky, a caffeinated beef jerky combining premium strips of peppered beef with an energising additive. Each package of Perky Jerky contains roughly the same amount of caffeine found in two cans of a popular energy drink. Read more
Health and Nutrition
 Cut sugar consumption by more than half, says AHA
The average American consumes about 22 teaspoons (355 calories) of added sugar a day, according to a report released yesterday by the American Heart Association (AHA). That amount should be cut down to a maximum of six teaspoons (100 calories) a day for women and nine teaspoons (150 calories) for men, the group recommends. Read more
Obesity: why fat itself may be the answer Something strange is going on. While obesity levels have grown year on year, so have levels of physical activity. More people in Britain do the recommended amount of exercise – at least 30 minutes of moderate-intensity activity at least five times a week – than did 12 years ago. Use of personal trainers and gyms has soared . . . Is it possible that all that exercise is doing nothing to make us slimmer? Read more
Sustainability
An entirely new form of fish farming  Aquaculture produces around half of the fish eaten worldwide, and since wild stocks are waning and global demand for fish is increasing, fish farming is destined to play a big role. National Geographic reports on a possible future of aquaculture, which includes free-floating, autonomous, remote-control fish farms that move through the open ocean that mimic the movements of wild schools.
The robotic fish farms could help lead to larger, healthier crops of farmed fish far from crowded coastal areas, where farmed fish both suffer from poor water quality and, by producing waste, add to water woes. Read more
 Watermelon juice is the latest source of renewable energy
Forget chip fat, sugar cane or rapeseed oil – the latest source of biofuel could be watermelons. Scientists have discovered that the fruit is a great source of sugar that can be readily distilled into alcohol to power cars and farm machinery. And because retailers rejects 360,000 tons of “substandard” fruit annually in America alone they could be used as an economical way to make fuel. Read more
Food Science & Technology Stuff
Givaudan reappraises umami to create new approach to taste  Givaudan reports that it's conducting new and extensive scientific and culinary research into umami through its TasteSolutions programme. The idea is to create flavours - and clean food labels - which provide a "new level of deliciousness and authenticity" in foods without having to rely on the addition of declarable taste enhancers, such as MSG. Read more
It has not pleased the Glutamate Association who says Givaudan is ignoring the role that glutamate plays in diet and nutrition and is encouraging food companies to stigmatise a safe and beneficial ingredient. Read more
 Low-salt bread ‘technologically feasible’, says study
Formulating breads with one quarter of current levels is possible without detrimentally affecting the rheological properties and the performance of the dough, says a new study from Ireland. Read more
Miscellany
 Is this the perfect temperature-regulating coffee mug?
It's an everyday irritation: Your coffee's too hot to sip, so you dump in some more milk and set it aside for a minute while you answer just one email. Turn back to the coffee, and now it's tepid and unappetising. The geniuses at the Fraunhofer Institute, just like us, are fed up with such nonsense. Unlike us, though, they're German engineers, so they've created the Perfect Coffee Mug to expunge imperfect coffee once and for all. Read more
Is Yemen chewing itself to death? By four in the afternoon, most men walking the streets of Sana'a are high, or about to get high — not on any sort of manufactured narcotics, but on khat, a shrub whose young leaves contain a compound with effects similar to those of amphetamines.
Khat is popular in many countries of the Arabian peninsula and the Horn of Africa, but in Yemen it's a full-blown national addiction. As much as 90% of men and one in four women in Yemen are estimated to chew the leaves, storing a wad in one cheek as the khat slowly breaks down into the saliva and enters the bloodstream. For its many devotees, khat is a social lubricant on a par with coffee or alcohol in the West. Read more
 Turning Red Bull into amazing sculptures
This year's Red Bull Art of Can exhibit in Washington, DC runs from October 8-19 in the main lobby of Union Station. It's a showcase of art made from recycled materials, either created with or inspired by empty Red Bull cans. Big on creativity and originality, Red Bull encourages entrants to "Build, sculpt, weld, glue, hammer, bend, fold, print, tape and paint, whatever!" their way to artistic victory. Read more
 Watch your label copy!
Apparently a genuine mistake made in Ireland ... This was actually sold in the supermarkets - until they twigged ... Look at the bottom of pack.
That's it for this week, folks!
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