Search Results for: food

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A EUROPEAN Union (EU) research project is to spend Euro 3.7 million in EU money investigating processes that cause food to lose nutrition from the point it is harvested, through processing and transport to retail. The Scottish Crop Research Institute (SCRI), in Dundee, will assess the variation in healthy compounds and nutrients within potatoes, wheat and tomatoes.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
A NEW French law has started requiring all advertisements in France for processed and/or sweetened food products contain one of four health warnings. The rule applies to ads on television, radio, posters and the Internet. An example of one a mandated slogan is: “For your health, avoid eating too much fat, too much sugar, too much salt.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE AUSTRALIAN government has agreed to lighten health import controls on certain European Union (EU) food exports including those from pig and chicken meat, while speeding up import permit procedures for EU exported tomatoes and citrus fruit. The deal with the European Commission should end a World Trade Organisation dispute between the two countries.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
FOOD quality assurance schemes (QAS) need to be well-promoted and free from red tape to thrive, a European Union (EU) study has concluded. An EU Joint Research Centre Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (IPTS) report said: “Successful schemes have significant budgets for promotion which effectively create a brand in the market.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
FURTHER tests are needed examining sheep developing ‘mad cow disease’ to provide data on how the disease can jump species, maybe even to humans, a European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) panel has concluded. EFSA’s Scientific Panel on Biological Hazards has said “there is no intrinsic species barrier for sheep BSE transmission to humans”, however, because of lack of data, it “cannot quantify a species barrier effect”.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
SHRIMP and prawn farmers may benefit from research by Chinese scientists into helping consumers suffering from seafood allergies eat prawns without the fear of an adverse allergic reaction. Li Zhenxing, research leader at the Ocean University of China, Qingdao, found that treating prawns with a combination of heat and irradiation significantly reduced the level of reactive allergen proteins found in the food.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE BRITISH government is being threatened with legal action at the European Court of Justice (ECJ) over claims it has failed to ensure the correct implementation of the European Union’s (EU) landfill directive throughout the United Kingdom.

The directive imposes environmental and health standards on the operation and closure of landfills.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
NEW European Union (EU) member state Bulgaria is at the centre of two food and drink fraud allegations. The Distilled Spirits Council of the United States wants further action over counterfeit spirits from Bulgaria. It has welcomed increased seizures – 1,296 cases of fake US whiskeys in 2006, compared with 284 in 2005, for instance.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
SMALLER food companies selling direct to the public may be exempted from European Union (EU) rules insisting on hazard analysis and critical control points (HACCP) procedures. Under the EU’s Better Regulation strategy of reducing burdensome red-tape, the European Commission has asked proposed exempting smaller food businesses from the HACCP element of regulation EC/852/2004 on foodstuff hygiene.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Court of Justice (ECJ) has rejected arguments by the European Commission that when a member state receives funding to reduce the size of its fishing fleet, it should not re-issue licences left unused when boats are transferred to a non-European Union (EU) register.…