Search Results for: food

BY KEITH NUTHALL
IRELAND is being threatened with legal action by the European Commission over its alleged failure to extend the EU product liability directive to primary agricultural foodstuffs, such as meat and game. Ireland had until last December to changes its law, to allow Irish food manufacturers, processors and caterers to pass on liability for defective products to farmers, where the blame is clear.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EU consumer affairs and health Commissioner David Byrne has revealed details of a planned new European directive on food and drink labelling, which could lead to a dramatic expansion of the ingredient information that must be printed. If it is approved by the European Parliament and the EU Council of Ministers, the directive would order the listing of all ingredients of foodstuffs and potential allergens.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union is pressing for the ongoing World Trade Organisation round in agricultural goods to lead to a reduction in export credits for food products, that are currently unregulated by world trade rules.

EU chief negotiator David Roberts has offered to maybe trim Europe’s export subsidies under a new WTO Agreement on Agriculture, if other countries – notably the USA – consider reducing loans such as export credits.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has proposed that strict dioxin contamination limits are introduced from January 2002, covering foodstuffs including fish and fish feed.

Products with dioxin contaminants exceeding these levels would be considered “unsuitable for consumption.”

The following maximum levels for fish dioxins have been tabled:

*Fish oil: 6 nanogram/kg;

*Fish meal: 1.25 nanogram/kg;

*Fish feed: 2.25 nanogram/kg;

*Fish meat (farmed and wild): 4 nanogram/kg.…

BY KATE REW
MANAGERS at Los Angeles International Airport, (LAX), are testing an unusual way of generating electricity – recycling food left over by its hungry, but distracted passengers. Their discarded burgers, chicken-bits, salads and tacos are taken to a waste-to-energy plant and electricity is fed in to the local power grid.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
INTERNATIONAL guidelines to prevent the future spread of BSE around the world have been agreed by a joint meeting of the World Health Organisation, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation and the Office International des Epizooties, the world’s animal health organisation.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A LACK of coordination amongst EU Member States’ research teams regarding the study of BSE has been revealed by a new European inventory of previous work and that in progress, collated by the European Commission.

It has highlighted areas where better links between national research programmes is required.…

BY KATE REW
AMERICAN consumers continue to pay high prices for sugar products despite the fact that prices of sugar beet have hit devastatingly low levels at the farm gate, according to the President of the American Sugarbeet Association, Ray Van Driessche.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
MINISTERS from the 15 EU member governments have cut back the proposed representation of the European Commission on the management board that will run the new European Food Authority. Instead of four members on the 16-member panel, the Commission is to have only one.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE PROTECTION of the public from accidental contamination created by nuclear radiation does not just involve nuclear energy or defence installations, a European Commission report on radiation protection has pointed out. Other industries also use what are known as “elevated contents of naturally occurring radionuclides, (NORMs),” and these sites often require special radioactive clean-ups.…