Search Results for: food

BY MARK GODFREY, in Beijing
CIGARETTE counterfeiters have borne the brunt of recent Chinese government efforts to curb the country’s rampant trade in fake goods. However, Beijing’s recent efforts to rationalise and modernise the country’s cigarette industry – by some measures, the world’s largest – have unwittingly aided the counterfeiters.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Food Safety Authority (EFSA) is investigating the food safety and environmental implications of using live cloned animals and their offspring to make meat and dairy products. EFSA is calling for experts to submit high quality data.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
INTELLIGENT packaging is a buzz-concept in the food sector, using chemically sensitive materials which could change colour when a food goes off. But a European Union (EU) research project is taking a step further, developing organic light emitting device materials (OLEDs) that could actually flash and beam out messages: “Don’t drink this milk, you could throw up!”…maybe.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Free Trade Area (EFTA) of Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein is planning to use the services of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), which was established as a European Union (EU) agency. A meeting of the European Economic Area council has noted that “EFTA participation…was close to being finalised”, and “looked forward” to a final decision.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE CHAIRMAN of the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) Doha Development Round has said the USA will have to reduce its overall food production subsidies to secure agreement in the global commerce talks. In his first formal paper since the round was temporarily suspended last July, chairman Crawford Falconer said, quite bluntly: “It is frankly inconceivable that the US will come out of this negotiation with an entitlement to spend more on overall trade distorting domestic support than it had when it came in.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE CHAIRMAN of the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) Doha Development Round has said the USA will have to slash its food production subsidies to secure agreement in the global commerce talks. Crawford Falconer said: “It is frankly inconceivable that the US will come out of this negotiation with an entitlement to spend more…than when it came in.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE OILS and fats sector is becoming increasingly globalised and so as a result, the need for common standards and practices, relevant to the industry, its suppliers and its customers is becoming increasingly important.

The International Organisation for Standardization (ISO) (NOTE: ISO USES AMERICAN SPELLING FOR ITS NAME) is the global body coordinating and publishing this kind of professional advice.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
MANY international organisations have an impact on the seafood sector, although they tend to have quite a narrow remit, drawing up specialist health and environmental standards for the industry. However, the UN’s Food & Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has a broader role, with freedom to pursue a wide variety of imaginative schemes promoting the seafood industry.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Parliament has accepted pressure from European Union (EU) member states and has agreed to phase-out set pre-packaging sizes for milk, butter, coffee, dried pasta and rice over five years and white sugar over six years. The second reading vote is a retreat for MEPs, who had been pushing for the retention of pre-packaging sizes for these and other products, which will now just be retained for wines and spirits.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Parliament has accepted pressure from European Union (EU) member states and has agreed to phase-out set pre-packaging sizes for milk, butter, coffee, dried pasta and rice over five years and white sugar over six years. The second reading vote is a retreat for MEPs, who had been pushing for the retention of pre-packaging sizes for these and other products, which will now just be retained for wines and spirits.…