"Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family. Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one."

Jane Howard, British actress, model & novelist

Food bites... Put packaging on equal footing with product development!

“Why do some products succeed and others fail? The reason well may not be a poor product but rather a lack of synergy between the product and its packaging. That often is the case with products from independent, upstart companies. Typically, the creative mind behind the product is a whiz at product development, but has little or no experience in marketing. Not surprisingly, the packaging for their new product is treated as an afterthought and therefore fails to deliver an appropriate value proposition to their target audience."

Jim George, Marketing & Design Editor, www.packworld.com

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Editor's Stuff -Jury out on SA food labelling 

With the new labelling regulations certain to be promulgated this year, food labelling issues will be an industry priority of 2010. There was interesting related news this week, with a new study from Unisa that investigated attitudes of South African shoppers of packaged food to food labelling and healthful living. 

While consumers value general pack information such as expiry dates, when it comes to the hot potato of labelling's role as facilitator for healthier food choices, the results are depressing. The study concluded that it remains debatable whether the SA consumer is able to use the nutrition information provided in food labelling to its fullest potential, with some 70% of respondents claiming they never or seldom read on-pack nutrition information; and those that do are from upper income groups in the main. Read more

It's no different in Europe, where food nutrition labels fail to impress consumers there. Less than one-third of European consumers look for nutrition labels when shopping, according to a new study by the European Food Information Council (EUFIC) published in the Journal of Public Health. Read more  

Many of the delays in getting our new labelling regulations into the Government Gazette have revolved around health/nutrition issues and definitions of good food versus bad food. Their penning, drafting and redrafting has been an excruciating, drawn-out affair - looking at these two studies, the cynic in me wonders why!

Talking sceptics, those who believe homeopathy is 19th-century snake oil will feel vindicated by a British parliamentary committee that this week concluded just this - and will recommend that it has no place within the NHS.

Enjoy this week's read!

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Food Business

SA: Nampak: A whole new package?

Packaging group Nampak has disappointed investors for many years. It's now working on changing its pattern of weak performance. It has new management, its board is being rejuvenated - with former Reserve Bank governor Tito Mboweni joining as chairman from June this year - and there is a new strategic plan.

Rising demand in the local economy, disposals or turnarounds of loss-makers and curbs on capital spending should help lift the group's earnings sharply this year. "Without the losses and with lower capex, we expect to be quite profitable," says CE Andrew Marshall. Read more  

SA: How will Pioneer recover from its massive fine?

According to a Financial Mail report, Pioneer management has worked hard to tidy its balance sheet and cut costs - with the result that while profits may be affected by the fine, margins will be unaffected and should improve. Distribution is being streamlined - sometimes at the price of market share: "This is the consequence of removing nonproductive costs from the system," says Pioneer financial director Leon Cronjé.

In other cases, categories have been rationalised: instead of producing 100 different bread products, it now produces 50; and small, distracting product lines, such as soya milk, have been sold or closed. "We took the diversification of our product lines too far," says Cronjé. Read more  

SA: Pioneer Foods faces another penalty

Pioneer Foods may have to pay another penalty in addition to its R196-million bread-case penalty. In 2007 the Competition Commission launched an investigation into the maize and wheat-milling markets concerning allegations of collusion among industry players, including Pioneer Foods.

The Competition Commission has reportedly informed Pioneer Foods that it had concluded this investigation and would be referring the matter to the Competition Tribunal for adjudication. Read more  

Nestle opens huge factory in UAE

Illustrating the growth potential of the Middle East region, Nestle has opened a new 165 000m2 facility in Jafza in the UAE, a plant currently devoted to producing powdered milk and the repacking of Mackintosh Quality Street chocolates. Nestlé plans to start manufacturing chocolates and wafers, as well as water from the new facility later in 2010.

"The production capacity of the new facility will be more than 100,000 tons per year. We have made enough provision to expand our operations to meet growing market demands for the next few years," said Yves Manghardt, chairman and CEO of Nestlé Middle East FZE (erstwhile boss of Nestle South Africa). Read more 

Nestle chief speaks of evolution, not revolution

Paul Bulcke, chief of Nestle since April 2008, described the company as "une force tranquille," able to make changes without a flurry of anxious activity. "What we are is long-term inspired," he said. "We're never going to give up on the long term in pursuit of short-term gain." Read more  

US: Coke unveils plan to buy most of its largest bottler

Coca-Cola has revealed plans to buy the bulk of its largest bottler following a similar move from rival PepsiCo last year. Read more  

 Kraft readies for passage to India with Cadbury

Kraft Foods will soon launch its world-famous biscuit, chocolate and snack brands in India, taking advantage of Cadbury’s distribution network to put pressure on Nestle, Britannia and Unilever's share of this promising consumer market. Cadbury’s entrenched brand position and a large distribution network have provided the Illinois-based foods giant with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to increase growth in emerging markets. Cadbury got 38% of its growth from emerging markets. The figure for Kraft is a low 20%. Read more

Oreos for everyone: food companies target emerging - and less obese - markets for growth

With a dragging US recession and a population in which 67% are already eating too much, you have to wonder how food companies like Kraft and General Mills are going to find growth in their primary American market. The answer is: They’re not. Read more

US: PepsiCo CEO promotes values

According to Indra Nooyi, chairman and CEO of PepsiCo, running a corporation calls for three things: head, heart and hands. Speaking at the Yale School of Management Leaders Forum, Nooyi said: “I think leadership is a very personal thing. I don’t think any CEO can pattern themselves after anybody.” Nooyi added her own style of leadership has evolved over the years, making it difficult to characterise; that a CEO must be innovative and forward-thinking to keep a company out of obsolescence; that there is no exact formula to follow — no “recipe” from a cookbook — and that she writes her rules along the way. Read more

Food Trends & New Product Development

Innova Market Insights: Cereal market shows emphasis on premium adult products

Despite relatively low penetration of breakfast cereals globally and the maturity of the sector in the dominant markets of North America, Europe, product activity appears to have continued unabated in 2009 and, despite the recession, there seems to have been increasing emphasis on premium adult products, including organic lines. The Innova Database recorded over 2,300 launches globally in 2009, up 8% over the 2008 total when numbers breached the 2,000-mark for the first time. Read more

UK: Fairtrade is no marketing gimmick for big brands

A couple of years ago, you would have been forgiven for touting Fairtrade, organic and ‘green’ as fads that would pass us by . . . Instead, the Fairtrade movement is gaining momentum and becoming more and more mainstream with big brands such as Cadbury’s and Ben & Jerry’s declaring their commitment. Last week, Sainsbury’s was named as the UK’s largest retailer of Fairtrade products with sales of £218m, up 10% from 2008 ... The study found that more than half (52%) of shoppers feel that the pay and conditions of people producing their groceries in poorer countries is an important consideration, while an additional third (34%) would like these workers to enjoy good conditions even if they don’t normally think about it. Read more  

Ben & Jerry’s rolls out Fairtrade worldwide

Ben & Jerry’s has announced a commitment to go fully Fairtrade across its entire global flavour portfolio by the end of 2013. Unilever-owned Ben & Jerry’s was the first ice cream company in the world to use Fairtrade-Certified ingredients starting in 2005, and today it’s racing ahead as the first ice cream company to make such a significant commitment to Fairtrade across its global portfolio. Read more

Tetley Tea switches to 100% Rainforest Alliance

Tetley, the world’s second largest tea company, has committed to sourcing all of its tea for its Tetley brand worldwide from Rainforest Alliance-certified farms. The Tetley commitment will increase the number of British-quaffed cups of tea from Rainforest Alliance-certified farms from 60 million to 95 million. Read more

US: Consumer “new frugality” may be an enduring feature of post-recession economy

A “new frugality,” born of "The Great Recession" and evidenced by two consecutive years of declining per capita consumption, is now becoming entrenched consumer behaviour that is reshaping consumption patterns in ways that will persist even as the economy rebounds, according to a new survey of 2,000 U.S. consumers. Read more  

SA: Fair Cape Dairies launches one kilo yoghurt range

Fair Cape, manufacturers of Fair Cape Free Range milk and dairy products, has launched a striking new range of Fair Cape Free Range 1kg yoghurts. [No link]

Cupcakes for beefcakes

David Arrick, a Wall Street lawyer, was laid off in 2008. Because he couldn't afford to eat out, he became a really good cook. And just when things looked bleakest, Arrick found his calling. Strolling around one day in the West Village, a neighbourhood in downtown Manhattan, Arrick spied people lining up around the corner for Magnolia Bakery's cupcakes. This piqued his interest in the business, but he was disgusted by their "pink and magical" image.

"Where's the masculine aesthetic?" Arrick asked. "We needed to butch it up, buttercup." And so Butch Bakery, an online delivery "masculine" cupcakery was born. The bakery sells the usual fare, but with a twist. It offers flavours like kahlua-soaked vanilla cake with Bailey's Bavarian cream and maple cake with milk chocolate ganache and crumbled bacon. Read more 

Spirit of Innovation

As seasoned veterans of the innovation game we well understand, there is no magic formula for success. Nor, for that matter, is there any guarantee that sheer diligence or hard work will even be rewarded. Sure, you can experiment with brand extensions or tweaks on existing product categories, but that’s not real innovation. Repackaging your widget may stimulate interest or lead to a quick spike in sales, but that is not innovation.

True innovation leads to what we like to term “a new way of doing". . . At a bare minimum, authentic, successful innovation requires two critical factors for success. And then there is a third factor that we believe most fail to ever fully consider. Read more 

Red kiwifruit variety the new hit from NZ

The new ENZARed Kiwifruit was one of the stars of the show at Fruit Logistica 2010, the recent trade fair in Berlin for the international fresh fruit and vegetable business. The ENZARed’s flesh colours, exotic flavour and creamy texture is said to be generating strong interest from customers across the globe. Read more

Health & Nutrition Stuff

US: When it comes to salt, no rights or wrongs. Yet.

Suppose, as some experts advise, that the new national dietary guidelines due this spring will lower the recommended level of salt. Suppose further that public health officials in New York and Washington succeed in forcing food companies to use less salt. What would be the effect? ...... Don’t worry, there’s no wrong answer, at least not yet. That’s the beauty of the salt debate: there’s so little reliable evidence that you can imagine just about any outcome. Read more  

Diabetes exacts toll on developing countries

Diabetes is becoming more common in developing countries, putting an enormous financial burden on health care systems, say public health officials. Three-quarters of the nearly 250 million people worldwide who have diabetes live in the developing world. As this picture illustrates, the World Health Organisation (WHO) reports that the UAE is number two in the world for prevalence of diabetes, with 19.5% of the local population suffering from the disease. More worryingly, studies show that approximately half of people with diabetes in the country were unaware that they had it. Read more

Green tea may be good for your eye

A new study suggests drinking green tea often mat help protect against common eye diseases like glaucoma. The study in the current issue of the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry found that catechins are absorbed by the lens, retina and other parts of the eye and reduce oxidative stress in the eye. Read more  

High street food allergy tests mislead consumers

Health tests available at private clinics and high street shops are misleading consumers by convincing them they have “allergies” that may not exist. A Sunday Times investigation has found that people are needlessly being told to cut out dozens of products, including oranges, sugar and white wine, after taking so-called food intolerance tests costing up to £265.

Critics say the tests — some of which are available over the internet — are trading on people’s obsession with their diet. Read more

UK: No place for homeopathy on the NHS

A parliamentary committee will recommend that it cannot be right for the NHS to pay for homeopathic remedies which are no better than placebos while refusing to pay for cancer drugs that are effective, but judged too expensive. This week, the Commons Science and Technology Committee issued a withering verdict that NHS funding for homeopathic treatment, which has continued uninterrupted for 60 years, should cease.

Even its supporters admit homeopathy is "scientifically implausible". . .What matters, they claim, is not how homeopathy works but whether patients get better. It would be quite wrong, they say, to abandon patients whom conventional scientific medicine cannot help. Well, up to a point. Compassion is a critical ingredient of care. But that is not an excuse to resort to magic. The problem for homeopathy is not only that there is no plausible explanation for how it works, but also no evidence that it works better than a placebo. Read more  

COMMENT: Homeopathy foolishness gets the treatment it deserves

This week saw the news that the UK government is considering shutting off NHS benefits for homeopathic treatment. Their argument is simple: there is no evidence that homeopathy works, so why should we be using taxpayers’ money to pay for people to use it? The notion that homeopathy is bunk may come as a surprise to many people. If, like me, you grew up thinking homeopathy was a more “natural” form of medical treatment, using “natural” substances and herbs to cure disease where modern medicine (called “allopathy” by the homeopaths) uses nasty chemicals and invasive procedures. My personal experience of homeopaths is that they are kindly, caring sorts who spend hours taking careful medical histories and asking sometimes bizarre personal questions in an attempt to treat you “holistically”.

As it turns out, most of that last paragraph is not true. Homeopathy is in fact a study of masterful marketing... Read more

Why pediatricians are advocating a hot dog redesign

"If you were to take the best engineers in the world and try to design the perfect plug for a child's airway, it would be a hot dog," says Gary Smith, director of the Centre for Injury Research and Policy at the Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.

In the US, 10 000 children ages 14 and younger visit the emergency room due to food-related choking each year, and between 66 to 77 children age 10 and younger die each year from food-related choking. According to one study cited in the report, 17% of food-related choking deaths involve hot dogs. This TIME article looks to better understand the magnitude of childhood choking risks, new professional recommendations, and what a redesigned hot dog might look like. Read more

Food Science Stuff

First wines demonstrate effects of prelude, Chr Hansen’s new yeast product

Prelude is a premium ‘wild yeast’ product that claimed to represent a major step forward for wine-making, because it offers demanding winemakers a way to achieve alcoholic fermentation with the benefits of spontaneous fermentation.

The company reports promising results following Prelude's Northern Hemisphere launch in August, creating wines with rounder mouth-feel, distinct aromas, and increased overall complexity. It has since been launched in Argentina, Chile, New Zealand, Australia and South Africa for the vintage 2010. Read more

Food microbiology marches on

Safe food, via the first rudimentary food cans, meant strong troops and power to Napoleon back in 1810. The message isn’t so different today for food companies, which have learned from the history of food microbiology. They realise their businesses could be toppled by a large recall or a reputation for tainted foods and that outbreaks can sicken or kill consumers. Millions of dollars are lost to product recalls as production halts, products sit on warehouse shelves and then are discarded, and the public hesitates to buy from that company again.

That’s why companies have embraced testing for pathogens, thus enabling the evolution of better food microbiology tools. Scientists have used Petri dishes to grow samples and analyze them, added immunoassays and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tools in the 1990s, and are now pushing toward more rapid test results. Growing cultures — a pervasive part of testing even today — can take up to a week and remains a bottleneck. Government and industry groups have also pushed for regulations and good manufacturing practices to advance the field of food microbiology. Read more

Packaging Stuff

UK: No more "pork pies" in pork labelling

A new labelling "country of origin" code of practice for pork will be implemented in Britain. Supermarkets have agreed to own up to the large amounts of foreign meat in pies, pasties and sandwiches, much of which is misleadingly labelled as "Made in Britain".

The change, announced by the Environment Secretary Hilary Benn, comes amid complaints that shoppers wishing to support domestic farmers and higher animal welfare are being misled about the origin and provenance of meat. Read more  

US: Innovation for baby formula

For Abbott Nutrition in the US, the switch from a round, composite can to a custom-engineered, extrusion blow-molded container for its infant formula resulted in a package that the company describes as “parent-friendly,” “easy-to-use,” “convenient,” and “mess-free.”

The new Similac SimplePac, launched nationally in August, represents a complete rethinking of Abbott’s infant formula package. Read more

SA: Innovation for nutritional supplement formula

RAP International has produced a packaging design ‘first’ with a user-friendly and innovative container for the relaunch of a Muscle Science range. Read more

Sustainability Stuff

Unilever drops major palm-oil producer

Unilever has distanced itself from a major palm-oil producer after a BBC documentary filmed its staff clearing protected rainforest to make way for palm plantations. In its second blacklisting of a palm-oil producer in three months, Unilever said it would avoid buying supplies originating from the Indonesian company Duta Palma, ensuring they did not end up in best-selling brands such as Dove soap and Flora margarine. Read more  

Israel plans packaging recycling revolution

Israel has proposed a “revolution” in the recycling of packaging that would impose personal responsibility on all manufacturers to collect and reprocess the waste packing from their products. Read more  

Coca Cola signs on to test cutting edge fuel cells from bloom energy

Coca-Cola has agreed to test fuel cells powered by environmentally friendly biogas to power its Odwalla juice packaging plant in Dinuba, California. The company has signed on as a Foundation Partner with Bloom Energy, a California-based firm that manufactures fuel cells that can generate electricity from a variety of energy sources, including natural gas.

The core technology, called solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC), was originally developed for NASA. It is one of the most efficient devices available for converting hydrocarbon fuels, such as natural gas, into electricity. Read more

Miscellany

Networks are the key to life – pass it on

Our happiness, health and behaviour are shaped by our connections...Your friend’s friend can make you fat. You are 45% more likely to be happy if a friend became happy in the past six months. If your friends know each other you are less likely to kill yourself. Back pain in Europe is as weird as penis loss anxiety in Africa. . . These are all network effects and they represent the strangest and, perhaps, the most politically significant findings to emerge from the social sciences. They have emerged now because of our new power to store and sift vast databases and because of a deeper understanding of complexity science. Read more  

Why won't anyone clean me?

America has a dirty kitchen secret: most clean their fridges only once or twice a year. Now, appliance makers like Whirlpool, Viking Range and Sub-Zero are tackling the messy fridge problem with a host of new features including souped-up shelves, bacteria-killing devices and better lighting. Read more 

That's all for this week, folks