Archive

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EU health and consumer affairs commissioner David Byrne has called for a strategic rethink by the food industry regarding the safety, quality and cost of its products, so that the sector is not driven purely by the desire for low prices.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has published a long-term strategy to combat the presence of PCB’s and dioxins in food, complementing its moves to establish maximum contamination values for these chemicals. For the next five years, Brussels wants to conduct hazard identification, risk assessment and management, research, public information and international co-operation on the problem.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AN INTERNATIONAL Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture has been approved by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation. Once it is ratified, the treaty will ensure access by all countries to plant genetic resources worldwide, to related knowledge and technologies, plus financing to make use of the agreement.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union’s Scientific Steering Committee has called for a redoubling of efforts to check whether sheep can carry BSE, after British tests into the potential problem were found to have been worthless, because brain tissue examined actually came from cattle.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD Trade Organisation has agreed at its ministerial meeting in Qatar, to intensify its ongoing agriculture talks, which cover confectionary products; it was part of a decision to launch a general round of trade negotiations. Ministers established a deadline of the next WTO summit, (in 2003), for member governments to propose a complete list of formal concessions they are prepared to make on quotas, tariffs, subsidies and other trade barriers for food and drink goods.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
CANADIAN beer giant Molson has launched a new Indian Pale Ale, albeit a brand without the characteristic bitterness of the style. Part of the Molson Speciality Brands, the company describes Rickard’s Pale as being “reminicsent of traditional IPA’s without the hoppy taste.”…

BY MONICA DOBIE
A UTAH brewery has launched a beer brand seemingly designed to offend followers of the locally dominant Mormon faith. Called Polygamy Porter, its name recalls the days when the sect allowed its men to take multiple wives. The beer bottle label features nude women with the blurb: “Why have just one?”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
OFF-LICENCES cannot rely on EU consumer protection laws when trying to protect themselves against unfair contracts imposed by suppliers, the European Court of Justice has ruled. The case centred on the supply of automatic drinks dispensers from a company called Idealservice to two Italian companies, which later objected to a clause in the operational contract.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EU ministers have been asked to approve a formal plan to computerise and coordinate the European Union’s customs procedures controlling the movement and surveillance of excisable products, including alcoholic drinks. The tabled EU Decision would establish a Euro 35 million Brussels budget to set up the system within five years, hopefully by 2006, which is to be matched by between Euro 5 and 12 million from each Member State.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
FRANZ Fischler has been making a lot of speeches recently. It is not because he has time on his hands, he is in charge of the European Commission’s largest two budgets, agriculture and fisheries after all. Rather it is because he is cross with the Americans, whom he accuses of playing Janus at the WTO.…