Newsletter 13 June 2014

 
SmartStuff:    “Remind yourself that ‘done is better than perfect’.” From Forbes’ Productivity Tips, see more
 
Editor’s Stuff: Have you seen the new food labelling and
advertising draft regulations?
It’s finally here! As you may already know, the draft of Phase 2 of SA’s labelling and advertising regulations descended from government printer cyberspace on May 29 in the form of R429. So what’s up now? Ultimately R429 will replace the existing R146 regulations and include the new, and long-awaited, health claim aspects.
 
FOODStuff SA and DRINKStuff SA readers are fortunate to have commentary from Nigel Sunley, one of SA’s foremost labelling and regulatory experts, who offers cogent insights and opinion on the new proposals, and strongly advises that if you want to submit comments, you’d best get busy. Read on!
 
 
A revamped FOODStuff SA!
If you click through to FOODStuff SA, you will see a refurbished space; over the past two weeks the website has undergone a major upgrade and migration to latest software, and with it comes much enhanced aesthetics and functionality.
There are still some tweaks to be made in this huge exercise, but the outcome, I hope you will agree, is great! DRINKStuff SA will follow suit shortly.
 
Enjoy this week’s read….

Brenda Neall: publisher & editor

 
FOODStuff SA is a hub for food-bev industry recruitment! Advertise your openings now! Click here

  Local News and Developments
 
Continuing on a path of innovation, SAB has brought to market its first nitrogenated draught in a can – Castle Milk Stout Ultra Smooth.  
 
Consumers nudges SA bakers to cut controversial ADA bread additive
Consumer opinion rather than health risk is forcing the hand of top SA bread companies to remove azodicarbonamide (ADA) from their recipes, an additive used in baking bread which helps keep the flour white, the dough stronger and the bread bigger and softer. 
 
Leading South African snack manufacturer Simba has officially commissioned its new state-of-the-art manufacturing plant in Prospecton, KwaZulu-Natal, its third in the country.
 
Speaking to outgoing Illovo MD Graham Clark
The changing of the guard at Africa’s largest sugar producer, Illovo, will be a smooth affair. Outgoing MD Graham Clark, who was appointed in April 2009, and incoming MD and current operations director Gavin Dalgleish have worked together for some time. Clark will be relocating to Lagos as group MD of Dangote Sugar.
 
Dovetailing the global trends of health and tea with the consumer need for style and innovation, homegrown Red Espresso has been blazing a trail in the global beverage world. Now, a move to new eco-friendly ‘Redquarters’ in Paarl signifies not only the company’s expansion but, it says, the beginning of a new era for the business and brand.
 
Frankie’s moves into hot drinks
From one end of the temperature spectrum to the next… Hot on the heels of its new summer-time ice lollie range, Frankie’s has launched new “rich and creamy” hot chocolate, another innovation from this creative little brand. 
 
Tell’s cider moves into glass packaging
Launched by Stellen Fine Wines two years ago, popular Tell’s cider has taken the big step from PET packaging into glass. 
 
Taking place at the Gallagher Convention Centre, in conjunction with the Africa Big Seven expo, on June 24, the DRINK TECH AFRICA CONFERENCE will be putting the spotlight on the beverage & liquid food manufacturing and marketing in Africa. Here are the program details for the day. 

In case you missed it: Banting on a budget
Can poor people afford the latest high fat, low carb fad diet that’s hugely popular among South Africa’s middle classes? A community service doctor in Mpumalanga has challenged herself to ‘Bant’ on the budget of a poor rural South African ie on only R150 per week. 

 International Developments
 
Modern day slavery exposed in Thai prawn industry
After a six-month investigation, the Guardian newspaper has uncovered how big supermarkets in the UK, US, Europe and Australia are selling prawns in a supply chain fed by slave labour. The Thai fishing industry, it claims, is built on slavery, with men often beaten, tortured and sometimes killed – all to catch ‘trash fish’ to feed the cheap farmed prawns sold in the west.

US bakery giant Panera to swear off artificial ingredients by 2016

Panera, the chain of bakery cafes, which has about 1 800 US locations, says it will remove artificial colours, flavours, sweeteners and preservatives from its food by 2016, a reflection of the growing distaste people are showing for such ingredients.
Consumers from Beijing to Boston are gobbling up more meat and dairy products, fueling multibillion-dollar mergers in the food industry and reshaping global agriculture. 
America’s ‘King of Beers’ is bowing down to a food blogger. Anheuser-Busch unveiled the ingredients of Budweiser and Bud Light for the first time yesterday, a day after a popular food blogger started an online petition to get major brewers to list what’s in their beverages. 

Sugar industry fed up with Fed Up film’s attempts to vilify sugar

“The film, like many before it, is being billed as the film ‘the food industry doesn’t want you to see’. What is actually being concealed, however, are important facts about a substantial 40-year decline in per capita sugar consumption, which simply doesn’t match up with the filmmakers’ negative narrative and misleading propaganda…” Comment by Andy Briscoe, president and CEO of The US Sugar Association.

Pom Wonderful gets go ahead to sue Coca-Cola

The US Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that drink producer POM Wonderful can sue over allegations that Coca-Cola Co has misled consumers over its marketing of Minute Maid pomegranate blueberry juice.

 Trends, Marketing and NPD
A strong interest in protein content and high-protein products across the food and drinks market is continuing to develop, reports Innova Market Insights, despite the fact that most Western consumers already get enough protein in their diets. 
 
The global food industry is on the eve of an online retailing revolution that will lead to fundamental changes for players along the supply chain, from processors through to retailers. For brands and private-label food processors of every size it means exploiting opportunities and tackling the challenges of securing on-screen visibility. 
 

US baby-food giant, Beech-Nut is hoping to bring millennial parents back to a declining category – they are leaving the baby food aisle in preference to making their own food at home using simple and nutritious ingredients – with a new line of superbly designed natural baby foods. 
 
Why soup is a dying business for Campbell Soup
Campbell is trying to cut costs by shutting down two plants and slashing its headcount by 700 people. The real problem is that consumers don’t seem to particularly fancy the company’s new soup products.

UK: Waitrose to offer ugly and fallen tomatoes

Upmarket UK retailer, Waitrose, is now selling bags of tomatoes that have either fallen naturally or are misshapen as a drive to cut food waste. 
 
Coca-Cola is to launch Coca-Cola Life, its first new cola drink in Britain for eight years and which contains a third less calories and sugar than the regular variant.  

ICYMI: Soda wars turn to a new front – sparkling waters
The US soda wars appear to be shifting to another corner of the beverage industry — sparkling, flavoured waters.
 See all 2014 trends reports here!

 Food Science and Technology
 
Several new developments in the world of microalgae-derived ingredients have transpired recently. Agribusiness giant, ADM, is entering the fray to produce DHA, and there’s a new name hailing from Portugal and that’s calling for its products to be considered for several good reasons. 
 
Yielding only 1 kcal/g, polydextrose has become a multipurpose synthetic ingredient helping manufacturers increase non-dietary fibre content while replacing portions of a product’s sugar, starch and fat. This, in turn, helps food and beverage makers create products with reduced calories and lower energy density in a variety of foods.
 
Nestlé scientists have developed a theory that predicts with greater accuracy the way in which certain soluble substances will dissolve in water. It could enable the creation of powdered food and beverage products that produce fewer lumps and a smoother texture when mixed with liquid. 
UK scientists claim to have cracked one of the secrets behind the perfect cup of coffee. And the secret ingredient is surprisingly simple.
 
A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips – or so the saying goes. UK-based food inventor Charlie Harry Francis is looking to challenge the idea that the sensory delight offered by our favourite foods need live on in the form of bulging waistbands. 

ICYMI: Sushi’s secret: Why we get hooked on raw fish

Raw fish is sizzlingly popular around the globe. But why do so many of us find utter bliss in eating raw sea creatures but aren’t so inclined when it comes to uncooked birds, cows or pigs?

Health and Nutrition 
 
US: Pre-diabetes, diabetes nearly double over the past two decades
Cases of diabetes and pre-diabetes in the United States have nearly doubled since 1988, suggests new research from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
 

One of the fiercest marketing battles in the world takes place in kitchens and at dining room tables across the world. The sellers are parents, trying everything to persuade their children to eat their vegetables. Now, new research shows why parents – and food marketers – might be doing themselves no favours.

 
Hypoallergenic peanuts move closer to commercial reality
Hypoallergenic peanuts, peanut butter, and other peanut products are a step closer to grocery stores with the signing of an exclusive licensing agreement for a patented process that claims to reduce allergens in peanuts by 98 percent.
 
White bread helps boost some of the gut’s ‘good’ microbes
White-bread lovers take heart. Scientists are now reporting that this much-maligned food seems to encourage the growth of some of our most helpful inhabitants — beneficial gut bacteria.
 
Fat-phobia has become a dietary axiom. For 50 years scientists have been presenting evidence linking fats, especially saturated fats like those found in animal products, with cardiovascular disease. Yet new studies show that drinking low-fat milk is like throwing out the baby with the bathwater – and can even lead to obesity. 

Food bites…2014: They said it!

Eat GMOs without fear
“WE’VE eaten about seven trillion meals in the 18 years since GMOs first came on the market. There’s not one documented instance of someone getting so much as a sniffle.
   “There have been about 2 000 studies and there is no evidence of human harm in a major peer-reviewed journal.”
Jon Entine of the Genetic Literacy Project

Why do the industry’s big guns continue to ignore America’s millions of diabetics?

“I’VE ranted before (many times before) on the failure of the food industry to better serve America’s tens of millions of diabetics. Over the years, the industry track record in meeting the low-carb needs of diabetics is disappointing at best.

   “Now comes a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, that ‘diabetes numbers continue to rise in the US’ (now approaching 10% of the total population). Other than Atkins Nutritionals, I can’t think of a major food company in the US that has put a serious effort into developing mainstream diabetic-friendly foods.
   Now, granted, it can’t be easy designing products with low carbs while still meeting tough consumer taste demands. But we’re talking a demographic totaling 29 million people, not insignificant, and they are motivated to try products that fit within their dietary agenda. You build it, they will find it. But to date, the industry has dropped the ball in creating new products for this huge market.”
Bob Messenger, editor The Morning Cup, foremost US food industry commentator
Brenda NeallPublished weekly as part of www.foodstuffsa.co.za and www.drinkstuff-sa.co.za, this newsletter is a cherry-picking, agglomerating service for all food and beverage industrialists. It aims to be topical, insightful, provocative, intelligent… fast, fresh and full of additives!
FOODStuff SA and DRINKStuff SA, websites with reams of pertinent and interesting stuff about FMCG food-beverage manufacture from farm gate to retail shelf, are published and edited by Brenda Neall. For editorial and advertising matters, contact her at: [email protected]

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