Freak storms have ravaged France's Languedoc-Roussillon region,
threatening to damage the new wine crop by leaving some vineyards
under water at the crucial harvesting stage.
Opportunities await for Europe's beer industry to tap into growing
consumer health trends as Belgian brewing scientists offer newly
developed testing to assess the nutritional quality of beers.
Opportunities in the mature enzyme market lie in developments,
driven by biotechnology, that provide food and beverage makers with
the right tools to meet consumer trends, claims a new report.
Untreated juices are still causing serious outbreaks of foodborne
illness across America, according to the US Food and Drug
Administration, warning consumers to be extra careful.
Praise where praise is due. And it is certainly due for one
small-time drinks firm in southern Britain, which is spear-heading
answers to global water shortages that threaten to wreak havoc on
food producers everywhere.
Soft drinks, particularly fruit juices, are set to make a greater
contribution to Britons' heart health, as both innovative small
businesses and major players roll out new, heart healthy drinks.
To beat the high capital costs of converting to aseptic packaging
food processors must first decide how to quickly capitalise on the
technology's benefits.
Pomegranate juice is set to become one of Britain's most popular
fruit juices after recent coverage of the fruit's health benefits
prompt consumers to seek out the product.
The UK's food processors will come under greater pressure to ship
their products in environmentally-friendly materials after
government announced a plan to increase minimum recycling targets
for glass and plastics packaging.
Henry Ford's famous aphorism that if he had asked people what they
wanted, they would have said faster horses, provides food makers
with a lesson they must learn.
Although the EU's member states were due to impose tougher laws on
recycling packaging waste, only five countries have completed the
task, the European Commission said yesterday.
Consumer health trends and political pressure have pushed America's
soft drinks industry to ban fizzy sodas from elementary schools,
and radically reduce their presence in others, in favour of juice,
water and energy products.
In among the hollers about obesity and the concerns over nutrition,
food companies now need to work hard to ensure they clinch public
trust, as a matter of insurance. This means more than compliance on
traceability and labeling. This...
A link between consumption of coffee and caffeine and a risk of
type-2 diabetes has been bandied about for some time, but a new
research suggests that the relationship may be age- and weight-loss
related.
Food processors can expect the higher raw material costs hitting
packagers to be passed on soon depending on their contracts. This
means that, depending on contractural obligations, cosmetics and
toiletry producers can expect the...
Cott Corporation, the world's biggest supplier of private label
soft drinks, will join the growing club of aseptic producers after
buying Britain's Macaw group - offering new opportunities for
health products and better...
Energy drinks will account for £1 of every £5 spent by Britons on
soft drinks this year, according to a new survey by Mintel that
reveals the phenomenal growth of this sector.
More than 700 food brands in the UK are using the government's
'5-a-day' logo on packaging or marketing material to promote the
health benefits of their fruit or vegetable-based products.
The Corn Refiners Association has claimed that a recent study
linking fructose in soft drinks with added body fat
"mischaracterizes high fructose corn syrup".
A team of UK scientists will analyse and demonstrate how
bioinformatics could help food companies improve their products,
from pin-pointing allergy-causing proteins to identifying the cause
of batch spoilage.
Australia's food regulator, one of the toughest on fortification,
looks set to open up the market for calcium and vitamin-enriched
cereal beverages, and is also looking at sterols in juices,
writes Dominique Patton.
Drinking large amounts of beverages containing fructose adds body
fat, and might explain why sweetening with fructose could be even
worse than using other sweeteners, according to a new report.
Energising ingredients and more spending on research and
development has turned around the fortunes of flavoured alcoholic
beverages in Russia, bringing better opportunities and growth
forecasts, writes Chris Mercer.
Coca-Cola, Pepsi and the rest of the soft drinks industry are
considering a voluntary ban on carbonated soft drinks in elementary
and middle schools following heavy lobbying from health
campaigners.
Novis seeks a bright, driven food scientist for a reporter's post
in southern France. The main mission is to deepen coverage of
scientific breakthroughs in food techniques and nutritional
understanding on flagship websites, FoodNavigator.com...
The heart health benefits of grape polyphenols have come under the
spotlight again, with a new study indicating that they can reduce
certain key risk factors for coronary heart disease in women,
writes Jess Halliday.
Britain and France are leading launches of functional, bottled
water in Europe, yet the trend remains in the grip of niche sectors
and still below flavour in the R&D priority list of the big
players, reports Chris Mercer.
Beverage fortification solutions on display at the IFT show suggest
that manufacturers do not need to sacrifice clarity or taste in
order to meet growing consumer demand for functional products,
writes Anthony Fletcher.
Bottled water sales are booming in Britain thanks to a new
generation of consumers who see the sector as more than glorified
tap water and better for their health and well-being than fizzy
drinks, reports Chris Mercer.
The first wrangling over EU sugar reform proposals by agriculture
ministers saw protests and a passionate debate in Brussels
yesterday, but the opposition looks increasingly isolated,
reports Chris Mercer.
As Chinese producers move in on western markets, the first response
by many established players is to protect and defend their previous
market positions. It's a doomed strategy.
Crisis in the French wine industry is spurring producers'
acceptance of aggressive marketing strategies that, whilst perhaps
long-overlooked, could be worrying for foreign producers on an
increasingly competitive world market,...
Grasping the booming opportunities in the Chinese food and beverage
market, Japanese food conglomerate Kagome has linked up with
Chinese firm to bring vegetable and fruit juices to the market.
Proposals to put cigarette-style health warnings on soft drinks to
highlight the harmful effects of too many sugary beverages has been
called patronizing by the American Beverage Association, writes
Anthony Fletcher.
Whiskey and beer producers across the UK may benefit from a £1.8m
research project aiming to identify, and improve, the genetic
make-up of barley, one of their most commonly used raw materials,
reports Chris Mercer.
A society that views food as taste-bud entertainment rather than a
basic of well-being was always bound to run into health problems.
But with obesity now afflicting 300m people, and diabetes set to
reach similar numbers within two...
Russian firm Sanserite will import new, Spanish wines aimed solely
at Russia as demand for foreign wine increases thanks to rising
consumption, higher disposable incomes and a declining domestic
wine industry, reports Angela Drujinina.
The FDA has urged the soft drink industry to review the ingredient
statements on their soft drink labels following the withdrawal of a
proposed "and/or" ruling on sweeteners.
The lack of food science recruits in the UK is unsustainable if the
country wants to remain a centre for innovation and avoid becoming
the food industry's global admin office, says the head of Britain's
most prestigious...
Weight and health concerns continue to propel the market for
low-calorie sweeteners, with a host of recent global product
launches showing the popularity of sugar replacer aspartame in new
sugar and sweetener formulations, reports...
Drinking green tea is highly unlikely to help prevent breast,
prostate or any other type of cancer, the US Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) said last week, after reviewing the evidence
to support a health claim, reports Dominique...
It is time to draw on science to establish once and for all whether
food intolerance is just a source of succour for hypochondriacs, or
whether it is genuinely a modern scourge.
Consumers are rapidly falling in love with bona fide, 100 per cent
juice across developed markets, yet it is private labels that are
reaping the benefits in Western Europe, says new research,
writes Chris Mercer.
While the Western European market for plastic caps and closures may
be growing, cosmetics and personal care companies will have to be
less choosy when picking their supplier, report Ahmed ElAmin and
Simon Pitman.
