Search Results for: food

BY KEITH NUTHALL

TV dinners should be quick to prepare, and now a European research project has developed software speeding-up the design of ready-meals. Computer programmes created by Swedish and Polish scientists in the Eureka network, will help instant meal manufacturers assess how their products defrost and cook in microwaves.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE WORLD Trade Organisation (WTO) will now miss its December deadline for wrapping up a Doha Development Round that would have slashed food production subsides and protective tariffs, the WTO director general Pascal Lamy has admitted. Speaking after a meeting of the organisation’s trade negotiations committee, Lamy said: "We will certainly not conclude the round this year."…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE NUMBER of cases of detected fraud and irregularities involving European Union (EU) import duty payments of more than Euro 10,000 increased by 55% in 2005, compared to 2004, the latest European Commission report on EU fraud has admitted.…

BY MONICA DOBIE

FOOD manufacturers and retailers may sell more if they price ranges of similar products the same, American researchers show. A Northwestern University study in the US Journal of Consumer Research compared parity pricing and differential pricing, studying people ordering restaurant desserts.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

EU research network Eureka has developed a software tool called an ‘uncertainty manager’, which allows food manufacturers to manage unpredictable results when testing food for additive concentration, drug residues and other microbiological issues.

*www.uncertaintymanager.com

ENDS…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Food Safety Authority (EFSA) is reviewing how it discovers and combats emerging food health risks, to hasten effective responses. In an assessment paper, EFSA had admitted it "will need to devote new internal resources for the work with emerging risks".…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

AN ALARMING 20.3% of European Union (EU) laying hen poultry flocks are infected with salmonella, a European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) report has warned. The Czech Republic (62.5%), Poland (55.9%), Spain (51.6%), Lithuania (50%) and Portugal (47.7%) have the most serious problems.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

WTO trade ministers have been trying in Geneva to forge approval on an overall agreement on the Doha Development Round agricultural talks – called modalities – covering food tariff and subsidy cuts, after a draft was issued by officials.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE HIGH number of investigations into customs frauds involving meat has sparked the European Union’s (EU) anti-fraud agency OLAF into warning such crimes could engineer illicit imports carrying foot-and-mouth disease. In its latest annual report, OLAF noted that of its 108 active customs fraud cases, meat was involved in 20 cases, more than any other food sector, barring sugar.…

BY MONICA DOBIE

MUNICIPAL legislation banning trans fats in restaurants, cafes and diners is emerging within the USA. This latest anti-trans fats move has now hit a major American city – Chicago – where the city council is considering a proposed ban on trans fat oils in all commercial eating outlets.…