Search Results for: food

BY KEITH NUTHALL
SWITZERLAND has donated US$2.5 million to a new international BioTrade Facilitation Programme funding the development of food exports from under-exploited natural resources in poor countries. The scheme is run by the UN development group UNCTAD and the International Trade Centre.…

BY JONATHAN THOMSON
BRITISH government backed scientists have launched a pioneering research project that could see natural plant fibres being used to manufacture car body shells. Biomat is a four-year project using various forms of flax and hemp fibre, as well as willow, and is being funded by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission is to spend Euro 4.4 million on a Danish-French programme to promote sales of European Union bacon in Japan. Coordinated by Danske Slagterier, the Danish Bacon and Meat Council, the three-year campaign should stress the quality, hygiene, food safety, nutrition, labelling, animal welfare or environment-friendliness of EU bacon.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE ENVIRONMENT committee of the European Parliament wants a review of the safety levels of food additives used in confectionery to check whether they are safe for children. It backed a report by Swedish liberal MEP Marit Paulsen, which calling for a European Commission act within three years, because such additive levels are set with the health of adults in mind.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has proposed a European Union (EU) ban of the plant protection product ingredient Aldicarb, which has been shown to be potentially lethal to small birds and possibly damaging to earthworms. It has asked ministers to approve a prohibition on the sale of pesticides containing Aldicarb within six months of a decision and an immediate block on any future approvals of other plant protection lines containing this chemical.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE GROCERY Manufacturers of America group has applauded a new trade agreement between the United States and Chile. The GMA says the pact will spur freer trade of processed food to south America, and singles out the agreement’s proposed reductions in tariffs for such items as breakfast cereals, pasta and french fries.…

BY PHILIP FINE

THE UNITED States Food Safety and Inspection Service has begun posting the names and addresses of US companies that have more than twice sold livestock or poultry that had unallowable levels of chemical residues. Producers are placed on an alert list for one year.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
NO solution has yet been reached to the problem over the freezing of half the European Food Safety Authority’s budget for 2003 by the European Parliament. The new EFSA executive director Geoffrey Podger told journalists in January this was worrying but “several things have to be done at once and it’s a mistake to concentrate on one.”…

BY ALAN OSBORN
PROPOSALS by the European Commission to ban state aid for the disposal of slaughterhouse waste and fallen stock could put many British slaughterhouses out of business, said Robert Kennard, a spokesman for small abattoir operators.

Under the Brussels plan, state aid for the disposal of slaughterhouse waste of any kind would be made illegal from the start of 2003, though European Union (EU) Member States would be given leeway in exceptional circumstances to grant 50 per cent aid for the disposal of specified risk material and meat and bone meal with no further commercial use.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
THE CITY of Santa Clarita, California, has launched America’s first nappy recycling programme which will pick up nappies from 500 families in special plastic bags. The recovered material will help make non-food packaging and products including wallpaper, oil filters, and shoe insoles.…