Search Results for: food

BY ALAN OSBORN
A SURVEY conducted by the Food and Veterinary Office of the European Commission on pesticide residues has found that maximum safety limits were exceeded in 4.5 per cent of 45,000 samples of fruit, vegetable and cereals analysed in the year 2000.…

BY MARK ROWE
DISPUTES over who owns an idea and the right to stop others from stealing it probably date back to the cavemen who invented the wheel. It was most likely resolved by the application of a large club to the head.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
FOR years, the US government has played Mary Poppins on agricultural subsidies, claiming that its handouts do not encourage farmers to overproduce when prices are low. Now it is not really trying to pretend.

The mask has not just slipped, it has been casually pulled off and tossed aside.…

BY MARK ROWE
HONG Kong’s pork industry has been struck by a cut-throat price war. The row was sparked after two major supermarkets slashed their prices by 30 per cent, prompting retailers to blockade a slaughterhouse accused of offering preferential prices to supermarkets.…

BY PHILIP FINE

AN AMERICAN inspections system has substantially decreased the incidences of salmonella in raw meat and poultry, according to data released last month (April, 2002) by the US Department of Agriculture.
The Pathogen Reduction/Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (PR/HACCP) is a science-based system that since 1998 has required establishments to develop a plan to prevent hazards and reduce pathogens in products.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Union has lifted a ban on the imports of certain fish, (including farmed fish), and fish products from China following the presentation of new information by the Chinese authorities and the favourable results of tests carried out by the EU Food and Veterinary Office.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
ASK most people what they do with maple syrup and the majority will reply they use it to drizzle over pancakes in the morning. Maple syrup producers in Quebec, the world’s leading producer of the sweet treat, are trying to change that.…

Keith Nuthall
THE DRINKS industry is being asked by the European Commission whether it would like the EU rules governing the size of bottles for wines and spirits to be liberalised. At present, wines may only be sold in the EU in 25, 37.5, 50, 75 cl bottles and a few more units of one litre or more.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
Delegates to the annual meeting of the Institution for Occupational Safety and Health in Manchester this week were told of “serious setbacks” in the struggle to make Britain’s workplaces less dangerous. “Not only has a plateau effect in national accident trends been noticed but in some sectors things have actually worsened,” said Mr David Eves, who was deputy director of the Health and Safety Executive between 1989 and 2002 and is now IOSH Hon vice president.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
IN an interesting recent analysis of the problems facing livestock and other food producers in Europe, the European Union agriculture commissioner Franz Fischler suggested that one way forward could be through contract farming.

Instead of producing in the traditional way for the open market, he said, producers might consider linking with retail groups or the meat processing industry and delivering precisely what was needed in terms of both quality and quantity.…