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Editor’s Stuff: Upping the anti-GM ante!
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 LATEST news today is that Tiger Brands says it has begun the process of sourcing non-GM maize for its Purity baby products following complaints by the anti-GM group African Centre for Biosafety (ACB) and consumers.
One up to the anti-science lobby. As leading SA environmental journalist, Ivo Vegter (twice winner of SAAFoST’s annual Journalism Award) has said of it: “Their arguments are very flimsy. Proving the safety of biotechnology is, of course, logically impossible. One cannot prove that negative effects will never occur – only that they have not occurred in the past and are unlikely to do so in future. This standard, the highest that is possible in the real world, has been met. The onus ought to be on opponents of biotechnology to prove its dangers.” Read more
So the Luddites win again, and when it comes to the emotional issue of feeding infants of course their scare stories will hold sway. The commercial imperative means that business will oblige/exploit their itsy minority rantings. If only such extravagent energies were rather put into things that truly matter; where they could make a real difference to poor peoples’ lives, to those of threatened animals, or the environment.
Changing tune completely…. Now, this has absolutely nothing to do with food, but will no doubt be of human interest to all female food industrialists out there, and every other woman on the planet, so it needs to be shared. Some good, light relief for the end of the week!
Unnecessary evil: Bras are no longer a girl’s best friend
Bras have been a socially accepted clothing standard for the greater part of 100 years. Yet one scientist believes these garments which are seen as a necessary evil are, in fact, more evil than necessary.
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| Local News and Developments |
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Nampak is breaking new marketing ground for the packaging giant, with the launch of a first brand television commercial aimed at the broader consumer market. Similarly, in the recent past, Consol Glass has also directed its marketing campaigns at the secondary consumer market, rather than its direct B2B client base.
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Chicken importers head to court The Association of Meat Importers and Exporters (Amie) will file an application at the High Court in Pretoria related to import duty costs. The action was about obtaining confidential information that might shed light on what future chicken import duty costs should be, executive committee member Georg Southey said.
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The man who brought Burger King to SA Hassen Adams, executive chairman of Grand Parade Investments, increasingly needs no introduction given that he’s now known largely as the man who brought Burger King to South Africa
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In celebrating World Environment Day this week [5 June], PETCO (PET Plastic Recycling SA) has launched its moving story of PET bottle collection in this country – showing how the collection of plastic soft drink bottles, for recycling, is changing the lives of many. [Heartening stuff!]
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Flavourome, an entrepreneurial success story in SA’s fiercely competitive flavour arena, has every reason to be ‘cheersing’ its 15th birthday.
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International News & Developments
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Pigs will fly: A Chinese buyer for America’s biggest pork producer Is pig farming a strategic industry? This question is likely to give a whole new meaning to “pork-barrel politics”, as American politicians decide whether to approve the sale for $4.7bn of Smithfield Foods, the world’s largest pork producer, to Shuanghui International, a giant Chinese meat company.
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PepsiCo’s chief executive Indra Nooyi has denied speculation that the carbonated drinks maker is engaged in negotiations to buy Israel’s SodaStream International for $2bn.
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The EU list of authorised food additives has taken effect and previous European directives are replaced with a single regulation from 1 June 2013.
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Gum arabic is a stabiliser commonly used in food products like chewing gum and soft drinks. It is a natural product derived from the sap of the acacia tree. Most of it comes from war-ravaged Sudan – and the latest battle over it has left 64 people dead.
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Mondelez International, the maker of Cadbury chocolate, is reportedly close to introducing heat-resistant bars it can sell at market stalls in Africa and some of the world’s hottest places.
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It is not often that, in global terms, there are three major pieces of M&A in the same sector in the space of three weeks. The sector in question is organic baby food.
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Food Trends, Innovation and Marketing
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New research from Tetra Pak forecasts that flavoured milk consumption will grow at more than double the rate of white milk globally between 2012 and 2015.
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America’s sweet tooth is finally being tamed — at least, a bit. In a nation obsessed with weight loss and healthier eating habits, children are eating far fewer sugary sweets than they did 15 years ago, according to data from the research specialist NPD Group. The numbers are eye-popping and the change — which is already impacting the country’s biggest makers and sellers of all things sweet — appears irreversible because the decline is only accelerating.
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Protein products are increasingly being marketed in supermarkets to ordinary people. Do they serve any real purpose for non-athletes? The “sport-related” protein product sector is booming. It’s estimated that the world will be chewing and gulping down £8bn a year of bars, drinks, and other supplements by 2017.
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A whey drink aimed at mainstream consumers as well as sportspeople has been launched by UK dairy ingredients company Volac. The new high protein, low fat dairy drink – Upbeat – is made from fresh liquid whey protein concentrate and real fruit, and is a first for the UK.
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Who needs coffee for breakfast when you can pour Wired Wyatt’s caffeinated maple syrup over your Wired Waffles? Americans, it turns out, are willing to gobble up caffeine in all kinds of foods — from potato chips to sunflower seeds to beef jerky. Not to mention gummy bears and marshmallows.
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So it’s 2013, and people are still getting worked up about interracial couples in ads – in America! In late May, a seemingly benign television commercial over breakfast cereal, in this case the ubiquitous Cheerios, has generated something of a media tornado in America. No, it’s not about General Mills’ use of GM grains, salt or sugar to make its products. Rather, the uproar is over the composition of the impossibly warm and cuddly family that is portrayed.
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The last time Red Bull funded a record-breaking jump, it went over pretty well. “Stratos,” the video account of Felix Baumgartner’s jump from the edge of space, is the No 4 branded video of all time, according to Visible Measures. The campaign has received 194 million views since it launched in February of 2012. It went so well, Red Bull thought we might like another.
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Move over cupcakes! The Cronut, an iced doughnut made from deep-fried croissant pastry, rolled in sugar and filled with cream, has become the subject of New York’s latest frenzied food fad.
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These days, one might be forgiven for confusing the candy store and cosmetics counter. What started with sweet-scented lotions and potions has evolved into pumpkin-spice exfoliators, licorice serums and crème brûlée body washes, enough to stock a French patisserie.
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With snacking the predominant consumption trend in the US, there was an ebullient mood at the recent annual National Confectioners Association’s Sweets & Snacks Expo in Chicago.
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Food Science, Technology and Ingredients Stuff
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Strawberry lovers rejoice: the days of unpacking your luscious berries from the refrigerator only to find them sprouting wispy goatees of mould may be numbered thanks to LED technology.
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There has been a lot of press, both positive and negative, about a recent UN report in which scientists recommended that we start eating insects to fight world hunger. But the other UN recommendation — that farmers should consider feeding insects to poultry and aquacultured fish — did not garner nearly as much attention, despite seeming more feasible. |
Ishida expands x-ray detection equipment Ishida Europe has expanded its x-ray inspection machines with the launch of a model capable of detecting metallic and non-metallic contaminants within packed products.
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Photocatalysis has been dubbed the best new technology to potentially cut billions of dollars of losses yearly from ethylene, the silent, invisible killer of fruits, vegetables and cut flowers.
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Health and Nutrition Stuff
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A recent study at the Oxidative Stress Research Centre, Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT), has proven the ability of rooibos to improve liver function and protect the liver against oxidative damage.
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To get drunk, people are endlessly creative. But, in the US, the growing appearance of an unusual form of drinking, known as “smoking” alcohol, has doctors concerned.
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The Paleolithic, or Caveman, diet, started to whet people’s appetites as early as the 1960s and is available in many different forms today. It has passionate supporters and equally ardent critics who call it a Paleofantasy — the truth, as always, is far more complex. [Excellent, in-depth look at this topic. Ed]
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Michael Pollan, the American food writer and campaigner, says eating together round the table every night is the way children learn best how to get along in the wider world.
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Weird, Whacky and Wonderful Stuff
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No kidding! Lollyphile, a Texas-based candy company, has released a vegan lollipop that tastes like breast milk. Founder, Jason Darling, said he came up with the idea after he noticed that breast milk was turning his friends’ furious babies into a docile, contented ones.
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Food bites…2013: More cancer but less of it fatal. Should we be happy or sad?
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 “WE face a future with more cancer but less of it will be fatal. So should we be sad – or happy?
“It is hard to know. On the one hand, more cancer is a marker of a society’s success. Thanks to improved nutrition, housing and education we are living longer and the longer we live the greater the likelihood that we will develop cancer. It is a disease of old age.
“On the other hand more cancer means more anxiety, more visits to hospital, more unpleasant treatment and more side effects such as nausea, fatigue and, sometimes, pain. The war against cancer is far from won – it still causes more than one in four deaths.
“Part of the reason for the rise in cancer is that we are detecting it earlier, which is good because that is when it is easier to treat. But it also means people are living longer under the shadow of cancer, with all the worry that brings.
“What has changed for the better is that cancer is no longer a death sentence, as it once was. Today, increasingly, it is a chronic disease that people live with rather than die from.”
Jeremy Laurance, blogger with The Independent
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