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Current Newsletter Newsletter Archives 2010 Issue 112 21 December 2010
Current Newsletter Newsletter Archives 2010 Issue 112 21 December 2010
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Food bites... The world's worst boss
Editor's Stuff - "Groot 'cluck' in die land!" |
That
would be you. Even if you're not self-employed, your boss is you. You
manage your career, your day, your responses. You manage how you sell
your services and your education and the way you talk to yourself. Odds
are, you're doing it poorly.
South Africans have been buying and eating tons of old, repackaged frozen chickens for years, reports News24. After a frozen chicken has passed its expiry date it is allegedly washed, injected, rebranded and sold again in leading supermarkets. Reprocessed frozen chickens produced by Supreme Poultry, the third-biggest supplier of the birds in South Africa, are also given new expiry dates. Supreme Poultry supplies Pick n Pay, Shoprite/Checkers and other outlets with frozen chickens.
Clover joined Afgri, Astral, Oceana, Rainbow and Sovereign Foods on the JSE's food producers board last week. The company has made big strides since it converted from a farmers co-operative into a commercial business six years ago... it sold off its retail chain, NCD Agri, disposed of factories, stainless steel manufacturing operations and 28 underutilised vehicle workshops and has converted from a supplier of commodity products into one of SAs most loved consumer brands. 
Newly-listed Clover Industries, which last week started life as a publicly traded company, sees opportunity for consolidation in the fragmented regional and niche end of the milk industry, CEO Johann Vorster (left) said.
Minister of Health Aaron Motsoaledi and Minister of Social Development Bathabile Dlamini have caused a stir with their recent announcement of possible drastic new measures to curb alcohol abuse. Their proposal includes banning booze advertising at sports events; limiting the number of new liquor licences, which will hit new restaurants; and making it illegal for motorists to drive after consuming alcohol, no matter how little. TimesLive. 
The Woolworths Foods Supplier Conference, held in late November 2010,
saw Foodcorp, the producer of some of the country's best-loved brands
such as Yum Yum peanut butter and Ouma rusks amongst others, walk away
with a number of awards.
Iconic new sauce packs for Nandos
Tiger Brands has launched an interesting packaging innovation for bacon - Enterprise Microwavable Bacon. Depending on the wattage of your microwave, a pack (you can choose between Streaky and Back Bacon) cooks in three to four minutes. Just place the pack on a paper serviette or sheet of roller towel on a plate, dial/press in the time, and watch it puff up and release steam; allow the pack to cool for a minute before it cutting open. Read more on this and several other new SA food-bev packs in Clive Glover's monthly column. FOODStuff SA. Click 
The Dannon Company (Danone in the US) will pay a $21 million fine and stop
making exaggerated health claims for two very popular Dannon products
under an agreement with the federal government and attorneys general
from 39 states. Dannon will stop claiming that one daily serving of
Activia yoghurt relieves irregularity and that its DanActive dairy drink
helps people avoid catching colds or flu, the Federal Trade Commission
announced last week. "These types of misleading claims are enough to
give consumers indigestion," says FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz. "Companies
like Dannon shouldn't exaggerate the strength of scientific support for
their products." USA
Today.
More bad news for Danone... The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has rejected Danone's claim that its
drinkable yoghurt Actimel effectively combats diarrhoea. The
world's largest yoghurt maker, claims that Actimel has a number of health
benefits, including that it can reduce the instance of diarrhoea, which the EU's
food safety regulator says is bogus. Millions of shoppers have bought into the
claims of yoghurt brands that pro-biotic ("good bacteria") products can boost
bodily defenses and combat so-called "bad bacteria". This isn't the first time
EFSA has ruled rejected the health claims of pro-biotic yoghurt makers - in
October 2009, 180 health claims for pro-biotic ingredients were thrown out by
EFSA.
The US Environmental Protection Agency has
dropped the artificial sweetener saccharin from its list of hazardous
substances, the agency said last week. The white crystalline powder used in diet
drinks, chewing gum and juice was dubbed a potential cancer-causing agent in
1980. While a review by the National Toxicology Program and the International
Agency for Research on Cancer cleared saccharin in the late 1990s, it has
remained on the EPA's potential hazard list. The EPA said it is dropping
saccharin and its salts from its hazard list after a request by the Calorie
Control Council, which argued that the scientific basis for remaining on EPA's
list no longer applies.
Mother Nature Network.
McDonald's has faced
intense scrutiny from critics who believe the chain plays a significant role in
the obesity epidemic. And in the last year, some special interest groups and
others have focused their attacks on the fast-food chain's practice of marketing
to children, who are too young to make responsible eating decisions but are good
at clamoring for toys and burgers. These groups say children risk becoming obese
and are learning unhealthy habits they'll carry for life ... With attacks
proliferating, McDonald's has underscored that it offers more-nutritious options
like apple slices as a substitute for fries, and defenders have argued that
parents, not laws and lawsuits, should control what kids eat.
Chicago Tribune. 
"McDonald's
position is that Americans should be able to eat themselves to death. It is a
well-reasoned argument. People who do not go to the fast food chain will
probably find high-calorie, high-fat meals somewhere else. McDonald's is tired of taking blame for soaring childhood obesity rates ... "
First the Brits were outraged that Kraft could whip away one of their prized national treasures, and now the fury has been rekindled with Kraft's announcement that it will move Cadbury's HQ to Switzerland. As the Motley Fool comments: "What Kraft is doing is taking advantage of
Switzerland's lower corporation tax rate (15% compared with Britain's 28%) in
order to reduce its overall tax liability. Why pay more tax than you have to?
Tax avoidance is acting within the law to reduce your tax liability. In
contrast, tax evasion is breaking the law by not paying taxes that you owe, such
as not declaring cash in hand payments ... Unfortunately, many politicians like
to confuse the two thus treating avoidance as illegal activity." Motley Fool UK.
For decades, the federal government has watched idly while a few gigantic
companies grabbed ever-greater control of the food industry. As big players
gobble smaller ones, they concentrate power at the top of the food chain - and
apply relentless pressure to cut costs, giving rise to many of the things I hate
about the food system. Workers, farmers, the environment, animals, public health
- all get abused so that mega-retailers like Walmart, meat producers like
Smithfield, and corn processors like Cargill can keep costs down while
profitably selling cheap food. Well, in a sharp break from its predecessors, the
Obama Justice Department is actually acknowledging the problem and contemplating
actually doing something about it. Grist Magazine.
Ten trends will dominate the UK food and beverage industries next year, predicts Leatherhead Food Research in the UK. It identifies these as: Reformulations and stealthy reductions,
sustainability, health and wellness, riding out the recession,
ever-expanding tastes, provenance, small indulgences, frozen foods,
convenience and obesity.
US: Food Channel predicts 2011 food trends
The South African snack market has three clear top categories that
outperform others in terms of volumes produced. These are: naks, potato
chips and puffs.
They said the bottled water
industry was in trouble
First, it was health and environmental issues,
including what to do with the used plastic. Then the global recession hit and
people really started to bash the business. Everyone expected cash-strapped
consumers to turn to the tap for their drinking needs. Yet somehow, despite
those reasonable predictions, bottled water became one of the food and drink
industrys star performers ... For all intents and purposes, it appears that
emerging market consumers have hit the bottle. Investment U.
US: Tropicana rolling out a new fruity product for kids
This news from a food giant should boost Cape Town food innovator, Fruit Pack, perhaps confirming that it's on the right path with the recent launch of a similar product on the SA market
- as reported in the last newsletter. 
The Havelock North Fruit Companys apple Rockit is up for an
international innovation award, hot on the heels of winning some New
Zealand innovation awards recently. Rockit is one of 10 entries nominated for the FRUIT LOGISTICA Innovation
Award 2011 (FLIA), that honours the most outstanding new products and
services in the international fresh produce industry.
The KeepCup has been a marketing phenomenon in Australia, achieving
sales of A$1m. Now, its Melbourne-based inventors are launching it into
another café society, the UK. Designed by former café owners fed up
with the waste from coffee-to-go, the KeepCup is a reusable coffee cup that
comes in the three standard sizes, and allows users to order a
coffee to go at their favourite café, while avoiding using a disposable
cup. 
The holiday season is here and with it all the guilty delights of a traditional festive diet. But if you want to fend off the flab, pushing thoughts of mince pies out of your mind might be counterproductive: indulging thoughts of eating a 
Most people probably find drinking a
milkshake a pleasurable experience, sometimes highly so. But apparently that's
less apt to be the case among those who are overweight or obese. Overeating, it
seems, dims the neurological response to the consumption of yummy foods such as
milkshakes, a new study suggests. That response is generated in the caudate
nucleus of the brain, a region involved with reward. Researchers using
functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) found that that overweight and
obese people showed less activity in this brain region when drinking a milkshake
than did normal-weight people. USA Today.
Milk, it turns out,
is a pretty healthy beverage after all. That's the conclusion of researchers
writing in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. They found that drinking
three glasses of milk per day may lead to an 18% decreased risk of
cardiovascular disease. The research conducted at Wageningen and Harvard
Universities, examined 17 studies from Europe, USA and Japan, also found no link
between the consumption of regular or low-fat dairy and any increased risk of
heart disease, stroke or total mortality. Consumer Affairs.
The worms within
Nutmeg is making headlines as an unconventional way of
getting high - it's called a nutmeg high. Nutmeg contains myristicin, a natural
compound that has mind-altering effects if ingested in large doses. The buzz can
last one to two days and can be hallucinogenic, much like LSD. "It's
the flavour of the month," says Dr Jeffrey Bernstein of the Florida Poison
Information Center at Jackson Memorial Hospital... "But most people only
try it once because they have such nasty side effects." ABC News Health.
The 100 Top Science Stories of 2010
Diacetyl - a chemical used in butter flavouring
may damages the lungs by reacting and forming complexes with amino acids in cell
membranes, according to a new US study. Findings published in the Journal of
Agricultural and Food Chemistry are amongst the first to propose a mechanism
between diacetyl and the lung disease bronchiolitis obliterans syndrome (BOS),
diagnosed in a number of workers at US popcorn manufacturing plants in 2007. Food Navigator-USA.
More
than 10,5 million kilos of meat and poultry were
recalled in 2010 by processors regulated by USDA's Food Safety and
Inspection
Service (FSIS). Meat and poultry recalls often involve bacterial
contamination,
but this year more than 8,4 million kilos of beef, pork, and poultry
were
recalled for a long list of infractions including ineligible imports,
foreign
materials, undeclared allergens, animal drug abuse and more. Six
Salmonella-based recalls were responsible for more than half of the 2,3
million kgs of meat and poultry recalled for bacterial contamination. Food Safety News.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has released a new
estimate of foodborne disease. But that does not mean that food
poisoning is declining or that farms and factories are producing safer
food. Instead, officials said, the governments researchers are just
getting better at calculating how much foodborne illness is out there. 
An insect-borne
bacterial disease that is ravaging Florida's citrus crop means the juice
squeezed from the Sunshine State's fruit may soon come from trees that
have had their genetic makeup modified. The blight, commonly known as "greening," is the world's most destructive citrus disease. GMO juice would likely be reviled by critics of the biotech industry, but most scientists who have studied the problem agree that genetic
modification, and the cultivation of trees resistant to the bacteria
that causes the disease, currently hold out the only real
long-term hope of fighting it. Truth About Trade.org. 
The science of your hangover
Overlooking his 50th floor worksite, ironworker Jeff Devine perches on the
roof of a high-rise with his typical day's worth of food in Chicago,
Illinois. The caloric value of his typical day's worth of food on a day in
the month of September was 6,600 kcals. He is 39 years of age; 6 feet, 1
inch tall; and 235 pounds. He carries a cooler of ready-to-eat food from
home rather than eat at fast food restaurants and vending trucks. 
Noolkisaruni Tarakuai, the third of four wives of a Maasai chief, poses with her day's worth of food outside her house in a Maasai village compound near Narok, Kenya. The caloric value of her typical day's food on a day in the month of January was 800 kcals. She is 38 years of age: 5 feet, 5 inches tall; and 103 pounds. Noolkisaruni has her own house for sleeping and a windowless cooking house with earth and dung chinked into the walls. Maasai wealth is derived from the cattle owned, the land, and the number of children born to support the family business: cattle and goats. She is photographed here with her day's worth of food: largely maize meal and milk. The fallen tree on which her food rests was knocked down by a marauding wild elephant. The Telegraph. 