Food News
Farm Babe: Vandana Shiva is coming to my hometown to lie
Ag Daily | Posted on March 30, 2018Vandana Shiva is coming to my hometown to lie. Not cool.For those unaware, Shiva is one of the world’s most famous anti-GMO activists, hailing from India. She’s giving a speech on Monday, April 16, at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, where I did a year of my undergrad. I found out that the university got a “good deal” since they had flexible scheduling for her, and Shiva is being paid just under $20,000 to speak.How would you feel if someone was paid tens of thousands of dollars to lie about your occupation? As farmers, she has not been speaking the truth about what we do and claims that GMOs are poison, we are drenching our fields in chemicals, Monsanto has control over us in ag, and GMOs are killing the bees and causing farmers to commit suicide.
Egg industry challenges are a cautionary tale for the meat industry
Meatingplace (free registration required) | Posted on March 30, 2018“To end animal agriculture the movement has to drive down demand and raise the costs and people will stop purchasing so much meat, thus bringing an end to the industry.” One example of this tactic was the push in 2016 by several activist groups to pressure food companies to commit to only sourcing cage-free eggs within the next few years. A total of over 230 restaurants, retailers, hospitality companies, foodservice companies and food manufacturers ended up making such commitments. In order to meet that demand, 228 million laying hens (more than 75 percent of the U.S. flock) will need to be cage-free. Today, 16 percent of the U.S. flock (around 52 million layers, this includes both organic and non-organic) is cage-free, and that number has risen dramatically (by more than 20 million) over the past two years. That rapid pace isn’t going to be enough, though – according to the Egg Industry Center, the rate of conversion will need to be 21.5 million layers per year for the next eight consecutive years to meet the pledges (double the pace of the past two years). That conversion isn’t cheap, either – it comes at a cost of around $10 billion. All of this is made even more complicated by the fact that consumers aren’t flocking to cage-free eggs the way brands thought they would (which further illustrates that these pledges were driven by a small but vocal minority of activists). It’s a tough pill to swallow for the egg industry to invest the needed funds to make this transition (to a higher-cost production model) when consumers are still opting to buy the lowest-cost, conventionally-produced product.
A new Monsanto-backed company is on the verge of producing the first fruit made with CRISPR
Business Insider | Posted on March 30, 2018In a move aimed at securing its future, Monsanto has invested $125 million in a gene-editing startup called Pairwise. The alliance could tee up Monsanto, long known for its controversial dealings with farmers and its role in popularizing genetically modified organisms, to introduce some of the first produce made using the blockbuster gene-editing tool Crispr.In a call with Business Insider, the company hinted that strawberries or another type of fruit would be among the first Crispr produce to hit grocery-store shelves — a development it expects within five to 10 year
What Matters to Consumers - The Chicken or the Egg?
FFAR | Posted on March 29, 2018In November 2017, a series of two national surveys were conducted to evaluate market potential and consumer willingness-to-pay for poultry and eggs with various labels. The study, led by Jayson L. Lusk from Purdue University, gathered responses from more than 2,000 participants to determine if consumers are willing to pay more for particular product attributes in a retail environment. Willingness-to-pay for slow growth chicken, and importance of the attribute in consumer choice, is sensitive to the information provided and is generally lower in importance than other labels, except when consumers are provided pro slow growth information. Brand labels significantly lowered the demand for additional production-centered labels, such as organic, non-GMO, and no antibiotics, with the exception of the slow growth label.There is a high degree of diversity in consumer willingness-to-pay when it comes to the cage free label.Almost 60% of consumers are willing to pay a premium for cage free eggs if that premium is less than $0.40/dozen. However, approximately one in three respondents will pay a premium greater than $1.00/dozen.
Nestle launches a new chocolate bar using sugar-reduction technology
CNBC | Posted on March 29, 2018Nestle's structured sugar is claimed to help reduce sugar by up to 40% in confectionery. The sugar is said to dissolve faster in the mouth, the same as in cotton candy. The Swiss firm has released its first chocolate bar using the new technology.
Activists pressure McDonald's on supplier chicken breeding, housing practices
Meat + Poultry | Posted on March 28, 2018A full-page ad in the New York Times, purchased by six animal activist groups, is calling for McDonald’s Corp. to source its chicken from suppliers who follow specific breeding practices. The coalition of activists includes Mercy for Animals, Animal Equality, Compassion in World Farming, Compassion Over Killing, The Humane League and World Animal Protection. The ad reads: “Nearly 90 other food companies, including Burger King, Subway, Jack in the Box Inc., Dunkin’ Donuts, and SONIC have established specific and meaningful reforms for their suppliers – reforms that address these concerns. It’s time for McDonald’s to do the right thing.”
Food stamps cuts will hit rural America the hardest
Daily Yonder | Posted on March 28, 2018n Owsley County, a 200-square-mile patch of eastern Kentucky, Trump’s victory was propelled by a full 80 percent of the vote—an unsurprising outcome, perhaps, for a county seated in a congressional district that has elected and re-elected Republican representative Hal Rogers by similar margins since 1980. And it might have been equally unsurprising that, when President Trump unveiled his proposed budget for 2019, Rogers was silent on its 10-year $213 billion cut to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, or food stamps), if not for one thing: nearly half of Owsley County households, and well over a quarter of those in Rogers’ district at large, rely on SNAP to make ends meet. But we still don’t understand some basic facts about the people and the places that make up rural America. This is partially attributable to the destructive cultural and political narratives that tell us programs like SNAP are not a rural issue. The roots of the racist Reagan-era rhetoric on inner city “welfare queens” run deep, and despite being long debunked, one needs to look no further than President Trump’s welfare reform proposals or Speaker Paul Ryan’s comment about the tailspin of “inner-city culture” to know that its legacy lives on. This explains how someone like Hal Rogers can so casually and routinely dismiss the basic needs of such a large segment of his constituency without fear of political blowback or consequence: prevailing perceptions of who relies on America’s social safety net and why have rendered these needs largely invisible. Sixteen percent of households in small towns and rural areas are using SNAP, compared to only thirteen percent of households in urban areas. Though striking, these averages don’t fully convey the critical role that SNAP plays in many rural communities across the country. Our analysis shows that of the 50 counties with the highest household SNAP usage, all but two of them are rural. When we looked at the 150 counties with the highest household SNAP usage, we found that a full 136 are rural.
Grass-fed and organic beef packer closes in Oregon
Meatingplace (free registration required) | Posted on March 22, 2018Bartels Packing, a processor of grass-fed and organic beef in Eugene, Ore., has closed its doors, putting more than 130 employees out of work. he result of this abrupt decision is that 139 employees and their families are without jobs and benefits and this reality is very heartbreaking for us, as we owe our success to these hardworking employees whose work ethic, skill set and commitment brought us the growth and success we’ve experienced the past 18 years. We will be forever grateful for their contribution. Over the past 3 years, we have had 3 unsolicited buyers interested in purchasing our business. With health issues to deal with and neither of us getting any younger; succession planning was an important goal for us that would allow the business to carry on. Just this past week; the most recent buyer withdrew and we could no longer financially sustain the working capital necessary to keep operating. With the current economic volatility of the meat industry and many retailers competing with ‘front door delivery’ in a world of convenience, as our customers began to struggle, we too began to lose our footing.
Foster Farms responsible in Salmonella case
Meat + Poultry | Posted on March 22, 2018An Arizona federal court jury returned a verdict in the amount of $6.5 million in favor of a 5-and-a-half-year-old child who suffered a brain injury because of a Salmonella Heidelberg infection from chicken produced by Foster Poultry Farms. The jury concluded that Foster Farms was negligent in producing Salmonella Heidelberg-contaminated chicken and that, based on epidemiological and microbiological evidence alone, it caused the boy’s illness. The jury attributed 30 percent of the fault to Foster Farms and 70 percent to family members for their preparation of the chicken. The net verdict for the family was $1.95 million.
Cargill says certified sustainable beef model works
Meatingplace (free registration required) | Posted on March 22, 2018Cargill said the first three months of its Canadian beef sustainability pilot project produced encouraging results, proving the model works and showing significant potential to scale the program to bring a greater volume of certified sustainable beef to Canadian consumers.