Food

The rise in popularity of wild vegetation like fiddleheads, mushrooms and seaweed is causing friction between foragers and landowners; ‘fry it up and eat it.’ Such tensions are becoming more common in Maine, where the rise in popularity of wild vegetation like fiddleheads, ramps, mushrooms and seaweed for uses from gourmet cooking to nutritional supplements is causing friction between foragers and landowners. It is also threatening the state’s unusual and centuries-old tradition of allowing public access to private property. [node:read-more:link]

Label Insight surveyed more than 1,000 consumers about their dietary preferences and how they use labels to make informed purchasing decisions, according to Label Insight. Of those, 67% said it was challenging to learn whether a food product meets their needs by simply reviewing the package label, and nearly half said they were "not informed at all" about a product even after reading the label. [node:read-more:link]

French yogurt maker Danone will sell its Stonyfield Farms business to gain approval from U.S. regulators for a $12.5 billion buyout of Denver's WhiteWave Foods. The Justice Department made the deal, first announced last summer, contingent on the sale, citing the potential for reduced competition in the organic milk market if Stonyfield were owned by Danone. [node:read-more:link]

JBS SA, the world’s largest meatpacker, has been named in a new federal investigation into purchases of cattle that were grazed on illegally deforested land. JBS has denied any wrongdoing.  IBAMA, the Brazilian environmental protection agency, released the results of Operation “Carne Fria” which is a three-year probe of more than a dozen meat packers and at least 20 farms that sold cattle raised in Para, which occupies a large swath of the Amazon Rainforest. The state capital is Belem, which is located near the mouth of the Amazon River. [node:read-more:link]

I’ve grown accustomed to paying close attention to the exact phrasing in press releases whenever a restaurant company announces a change regarding things such as antibiotic use, cages in egg production and slower-growing broiler chickens. [node:read-more:link]

Food banks across the country have been noticing a trend since President Donald Trump was inaugurated in January. [node:read-more:link]

92-year-old company Elmhurst Dairy has not only closed down its dairy operation, but has opted for a full rebranding in order to focus on plant-based milks. According to Rise of the Vegan, the decision is based on a lack of customer demand, with CEO Henry Schwartz stating that "there isn't much room for our kind of business." As a result, Elmhurst Dairy has now become just Elmhurst and debuted its new line called "Milked" during the Natural Foods Expo West in Anaheim last weekend. [node:read-more:link]

To examine progress in the use of locally produced foods in school meals and to help identify school districts for technical assistance, this report uses data from the 2013 Farm to School Census to measure the prevalence of school districts that serve local food daily and the characteristics of those districts. [node:read-more:link]

Even amid Brazil’s pungent stew of recent big corporate scandals, the latest is particularly stomach-turning. On Friday March 17th, in time for a traditional weekend churrasco, or barbecue, the federal police accused some of the country’s biggest meat producers of bribing health inspectors to turn a blind eye to grubby practices. These include repackaging beef past its sell-by date, making turkey ham out of soyabeans rather than actual birds and overuse of potentially harmful additives. [node:read-more:link]

As agriculture enters a new era, farmers on Kauai’s North Shore want to weave technology and food hubs into their daily routines. And Kilauea Ag Park has applied for a grant from the United States Department of Agriculture to try and make it happen. “Why food hubs? Because the only thing that will drive the success of farming is demand,” said Yoshito L’Hote, director of Kauai’s non-profit ‘Aina Ho’okupu O Kilauea. USDA food hubs are a business model where various ag producers team up for things like distribution and marketing, and work together to access larger-volume markets. [node:read-more:link]