Search Results for: food

BY MONICA DOBIE
THE FEDERAL Trade Commission (FTC), an independent agency of the US government charged with consumer protection, will subpoena 44 unnamed food, drink and fast food companies for information related to advertising practices that target children and adolescents.

These food companies must submit data about their traditional and online media targeting of children, including allotted budgets, plus product placement and word of mouth marketing activities.…

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 use computer links to create a virtual laboratory examining food safety issues and the various food testing and analysis methods used across Europe.…

BY GAVIN BLAIR, in Tokyo
As the world’s third biggest energy consumer after the United States and China, Japan has long been concerned with its lack of self-sufficiency in power generation. The low level of food self-sufficiency (40%), which has always been something of a national obsession, looks positively healthy when compared to the 16% level for energy.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A WIDE-RANGING debate on European Commission proposals to reform the European Union’s (EU) fruit and vegetable market organisation at the EU Council of Ministers has revealed overwhelming support for decoupling processing subsidies from production levels. Such a move towards flat rate payments is common within recent EU food market reforms.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
OBESE and overweight children increase their food intake by more than 100% after watching food advertisements on television according to a University of Liverpool study in Britain. Researchers monitored 60 children of varying weights, aged between nine and 11-years-old whilst watching a series of both food and toy television adverts followed by a cartoon.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Food Safety Authority (EFSA) is planning to launch an in depth inquiry into how much of Europe’s pigmeat production is contaminated with salmonella. The European Commission has asked the European Union (EU) agency to act, because it wants a clear picture of the “public health risks” caused by the disease.…

BY DAVID HAWORTH, in Brussels
FRONT of pack nutritional labelling not only should, but will become mandatory and standardised throughout the European Union (EU) in due time, predicts Jim Murray, director of the European Consumers’ Organisation (BEUC).

“I can’t believe the industry can produce a voluntary code which will allow consumers to see at a glance the most relevant nutritional characteristics of particular foods,” he added in an exclusive interview with just-food.com,…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A EURO 18 million European Union (EU) research project into organic foods is now developing practical processing methods. The QualityLowInputFood project is for instance developing an ecological alternative to washing fresh vegetables in chlorinated water, using ozonised water to clean lettuce, and possibly courgettes and tomatoes.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
The European Commission has implicitly recognised that the proposed take-over of the Polish food supermarket chain Ahold Polska by the French food retailing giant Carrefour could violate Polish competition laws. Carrefour operates internationally and has 42 hypermarkets and 83 supermarkets in Poland.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
SPECIAL training programmes are being launched by the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) to spread Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) procedures in Bangladesh’s food manufacturing sector. These formal food health check systems are not widespread in many developing countries, lessening the appeal of their food exports to high value rich county markets.…