Search Results for: food

BY MARK ROWE, in London
NANOTECHNOLOGY has a range of significant implications for power generation, a series of leading UK and world experts have told a high-level conference at Britain’s Royal Society. From solar cells to battery storage and fuel cells, nanotechnology will change the way we produce energy, with some impacts already beginning to be rolled out and others expected to become mainstream and commercially viable within 10 years.…

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 environmental health experts to submit high quality data.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THERE can be fewer larger accountancy jobs than a complete overhaul of the accounting systems of all United Nations organisations, but such a project is underway, and – some would say true to form – the UN is now splashing cash on external accounting consultants.…

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
INTELLIGENT packaging is a buzz-concept in the plastics sector, deploying chemically sensitive polymers which can change colour when a food goes off, or is out of date, and other uses. 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, it is sour!”…maybe.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) expert committee on emerging risks has warned of a lack of knowledge about the environmental and health effects of using nano-sized particles in food products and packaging. The committee, assessing the suitability of existing risk assessment methods, has called for urgent research, especially regarding the potential environmental risk posed by nanotechnologies – being developed for many food uses, such as nano-particle coatings for chocolates and biscuits.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
BRITISH supermarket chain Sainsbury and Dublin-based packaging manufacturing multinational Smurfit-Kappa are working with European Union (EU) researchers to develop a new recyclable and biodegradeable biopolymer food packaging. The EU SUSTAINPACK project consortium is incorporating nano-clay particles within the packaging material, with the aim of replacing materials based on petrochemical polymers.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has announced heavy fines against the Polish government (Euro 7.7 million) and the Czech Republic (Euro 6.2 million) for the hoarding of excess meat stocks ahead of their countries joining the European Union (EU) in 2004.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) has launched a new research project called MONIQA (Monitoring and Quality Assurance in the food supply chain), aimed at harmonising European methods analysing food for safety and quality. Researchers in this Euro 12 million project will create a virtual laboratory examining food safety issues and various food testing and analysis methods used across Europe, investigating the implications of new processing technologies.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE MANAGING director of Unilever has warned of a looming clash over raw material supplies between a food industry serving a growing global population and a biofuel sector fighting global warming.

Guenther Buck told a European Parliament green group hearing: “Land availability for both food and fuel is very questionable.”…