Research from the International Food Information Council shows that labels proposed by the USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service to disclose “bioengineered” (BE) foods “dramatically increase a wide variety of consumer concerns.” The IFIC Foundation tested reactions to the three BE labeling symbols and two variations of text disclosures. Consumers were shown bottles of canola oil without any BE logo or text, with symbols (like a “plant”), with a symbol plus “bioengineered” in text, and with a symbol plus “may be bioengineered” in text. Half of the consumers had “human health concerns” when shown the BE “plant” symbol. The number rose to 51 percent when text was added to indicate that the product was “bioengineered,” and to 57 percent when “may be bioengineered” was added to the “plant” symbol. [Image Credit: © IFIC]

Chipotle is using technology to recover from a sales slump caused by an E. coli outbreak. One of the restaurant chain’s locations in New York City has functioned as a test site for many of the innovations Chipotle has implemented. According to the company, one of the biggest changes involved the company’s mobile ordering. Previously, customers have complained that its mobile ordering was confusing and came with wait times that could be as long as 45 minutes. Chipotle is using bold signs to help lead customers to mobile pick-up shelves and has reduced wait time to 12 minutes. Mobile orders account for 8.8 percent of sales, an increase of 40 percent from 2016 to 2017.[Image Credit: © Chipotle Mexican Grill ]

UK’s Food Standard Agency has completed a trial program involving the use of blockchain technology as a regulatory tool in a cattle slaughterhouse. Aimed at improving transparency in the food supply chain, the pilot allowed both FSA staff and the slaughterhouse to access data. According to the FSA, the agency will implement the same program in other food production plants.[Image Credit: © FOOD.GOV.UK]

Responding to what it calls “surging demand for its meat-free burgers,” California’s Beyond Meat, which produces Beyond Burger and Beyond Sausage, is opening a second factory in Columbia, Mo., that will add 250 jobs to its operations in the state. The new plant will expand production capacity from 30,000 sq. ft. to 100,000. Beyond Burger, launched in 2016, is made entirely from plants without GMOs, soy, or gluten. The Beyond Sausage line was launched late in 2017. The company has customers in Europe, Canada, Australia, Mexico, Chile, Israel, UAE, South Korea, Taiwan, and South Africa.  [Image Credit: © Beyond Meat]

Restaurant companies are trying blockchain applications to manage their various operations, including customer loyalty programs and supply chains. For example, Chanticleer Holdings uses blockchain, which is a digital, peer-to-peer technology designed to store encrypted data and protect it from fraud, to manage its loyalty program. With blockchain, the company is letting customers earn points and rewards across its restaurant brands. Closely linked to the cryptocurrency bitcoin, blockchain lets users share and access data through a decentralized system that is both open and anonymous. However, developers can add safeguards and safety parameters to the technology. 

Blockchain technology has some positive impact on farming and the food industry. By integrating blockchain into the food industry’s supply chain, food safety scares can be easily detected, and their origin determined. Blockchain can also help prevent food fraud by making it easier to identify ingredients of finished products. Also, by removing paper-based processes and middlemen from the process, bitcoin can help lower food prices while improving farmers’ income.

Multinational corporations, including Amazon and H&M, are reportedly urging the state of Maharashtra in India to relax its recently approved ban on single-use plastic. Coming after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s campaign for an end to the use of single-use plastic in the country by 2022, the state’s move is expected to raise operating costs for companies. Retailers and beverage manufactures are among companies that use plastic packaging. Business groups, including the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, have called on the government to soften its anti-plastic policies.[Image Credit: © Hans Braxmeier]

A recent podcast sponsored by the American Farm Bureau Federation presented ideas for recycling inedible products from dairy farms. One farmer in Pennsylvania, for example, who is participating in the No Taste for Waste campaign uses an anaerobic digester – the original purpose was to reduce odor –  to recycle food waste into enough electric power and methane to supply the farm and roughly 100 other homes. It’s a better way to deal with waste than sending it to a landfill. But another solution is to, whenever possible, channel surplus food “to those that are less fortunate” and to animal feed processors. [Image Credit: © Univ. of Minnesota Extension]

Reporter Paul R. La Monica says the trend toward “Frankenfoods” – “gimmicky culinary concoctions” – began eight years ago (“arguably”) with KFC’s calorie-packed Double Down sandwich comprising bacon, cheese, and sauce held together by two pieces of fried chicken instead of bread. The trend continues today, the latest example being the Dunkin' Donuts contrivance known as donut fries: crispy pieces of doughnut dough dusted with cinnamon sugar and served in a French fries-style box. Other examples include Burger King's Whopperito, Mac and Cheetos, Nacho Fries, Doritos Locos Tacos, bacon shakes, and chicken rings. More are on the way. The idea, La Monica notes, is “to generate buzz with creations that often combine things people already like.”[Image Credit: © Dunkin’ Donuts]

Two twenty-something friends who attended rival colleges in Iowa launched a start-up (in Colorado) that makes bake-your-own nutrition bar dough packaged in eco-friendly recyclable tubs. The tubs are meant to help reduce waste associated with protein and nutrition bar wrappers often made from plastic foil or plastic-infused paper. Customers of Unwrapp’d will eventually be able to return the jars to the company to be refilled instead of recycled. The dough comes in four flavors – cookie dough, peanut butter chocolate chip, mint chocolate, and banana nut muffin – enough in each refrigerated tub for 20 1/2-ounce portions or seven bars for $9.99. Ingredients include dates and nuts like cashews, almonds, walnuts, peanuts, pumpkin seeds, and coconut flour. The tubs stay fresh for five months in the fridge, but founders Reed McIntyre and Tom Miner say eating it at room temperature is just fine. Register][Image Credit: © Unwrapp'd | Des Moines (Iowa]

A technology that allows distribution – but not copying – of digital information, blockchain was originally devised for the digital currency Bitcoin. Now a food waste management company in the Atlanta, Ga., area is using a blockchain-based app to connect businesses with local charities to ease deliveries of leftover food. The idea behind the Goodr app is to reduce food waste by providing data about what types of surplus food app users are producing. The Goodr app keeps a data ledger for clients showing how much food is wasted, and where they might be losing money. Data indicate what food gets wasted the most, what the community connections are, and how the environment is affected. Goodr hopes to expand to Seattle, Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington D.C., Miami, Dallas, Houston and San Francisco by the end of 2019.

As You Sow, a nonprofit group representing 25 investment companies managing more than $1 trillion in assets, has called on Nestle SA, PepsiCo Inc., Procter & Gamble Co., and Unilever NV, to reduce their use of plastic in packaging of their products. Signed by investment managers, including Hermes Investment Management and Impax Asset Management, the initiative calls plastic packaging damaging to the environment. Companies should reveal their annual use of plastic packaging, establish goals for reducing plastic packaging, and exert efforts to recycle plastic packaging, the group said.[Image Credit: © Emilian Robert Vicol]

A British company whose mission three years ago was to create a “nutritionally complete, convenient, affordable food” with minimum environmental impact, says its plant-based powdered meals are succeeding in the U.S. because they are clean label, healthful, and help eliminate food waste and hunger. Huel claims to have sold more than 17 million meals – $10 million in sales – since its debut here last summer. The company says its product is not a supplement like other powders, but a complete food that contains all the proteins, carbs and fats needed in addition to 100 percent of the FDA's "Daily Values" of all 27 essential vitamins and minerals. Huel blends oats, pea protein, flaxseed, brown rice protein, medium-chain triglycerides (MCTs) from coconut, and other ingredients. The powder sells for $66 for two bags (28 meals total, 14 per bag, only $2.36/meal). [Image Credit: © Huel]

Silicon Valley-based Chefling, Inc., has created a smartphone app that helps consumers minimize daily food waste. Available now on the App Store and Google Play, the app includes food inventory organization, intuitive recipe suggestion, and shopping list management. According to the company, consumers using the app can track and make the most out of recently purchased and existing ingredients in the pantry. The app monitors the freshness of added foods, notifies the consumer when foods are about to expire, and suggests recipes for the foods already purchased. The app also features integration with voice assistant devices like Amazon Echo and Google Home: it will add foods to a shopping list and provide step-by-step cooking instructions. [Image Credit: © Chefling, Inc.]

Surplus food cannot be categorized as food waste when it is used as animal feed, according to revised European Union rules known as the Waste Framework Directive. Substances already covered by feed legislation would not be unnecessarily included in the scope of waste legislation, a clarification advocated by the trade group European Former Foodstuff Processors Association (EFFPA), which represents companies that turn foodstuffs into animal feed. According to an EFFPA representative, under the old rules Europe-wide processors of surplus food occasionally would have had their operations interrupted by environmental control authorities who incorrectly interpreted former foodstuffs as a waste. [Image Credit: © Europa.eu]

Two new California bakeries are offering smaller, single-serve Mexican-American desserts along with their usual wedding and birthday cakes. Fresno’s Callejas Cakes specializes in cakes of all kinds – tres leches, German chocolate, red velvet, champagne, etc. – but also tiramisu, cheesecake slices, Danishes with all kinds of fillings, cannoli, and many different cookies: butter, crunchy pink strawberry, Mexican wedding cookies and rugelach: triangular rolls of cream cheese dough filled with apple or raspberry. Also in Fresno is Mi Panaderia La Michoacana, which sells a variety of Mexican foods and pastries, as well as gelatinas: cakes with multiple layers of gelatine with green and pink Jello-o cubes suspended with fruit. [Image Credit: © The Fresno Bee | Bethany Clough]

At the Consumer Goods Forum in Singapore recently Coca-Cola CEO James Quincey emphasized his company’s commitment to a digital and ecommerce future when he noted that digital will put Coke products “within a click’s reach of desire.” He cited as evidence what’s happening in China, where there are four times as many mobile users as in the U.S., and “rapid and exponential growth” in digital technologies is driving change in Asia’s beverage industry. Quincey said the strategy of creating a consumer-centric product portfolio is based on making Coke products a part of peoples’ lives by offering the brands they want in the package sizes they prefer. Digital tools will make that happen.

As the FDA continues to review health claims related to added fiber, and continues to approve ingredients that boost fiber content, critics wonder whether food companies are distorting notions of what’s really healthful. The founder of the candy company Smart Sweets said its fiber-laden gummy bears are a way for people to "feel good about enjoying candy." The trend got started when the agency ruled in 2016 rule that added fibers need to provide a health benefit beyond just adding a non-digestible carbohydrate. Though the FDA recently rejected two fiber ingredient petitions, it approved eight that can be counted as fiber. The consumer advocacy group Center for Science in the Public Interest says added fiber creates situations where, for example, a consumer might choose a brownie over a peach because the brownie might have more fiber. [Image Credit: © ESHA.com]

McDonald’s in the UK will start using recyclable paper straws later this year, with plastic straws withdrawn completely next year. The company in the UK uses some 1.8 million straws each day, and the move follows a two-month trial at certain UK restaurants. It also follows a similar announcement by UK supermarket chain Waitrose. McDonald’s in other countries, including France, Norway, Sweden and the US, are expected to run trials later this year in their own efforts to find schemes to eliminate plastic straws.[Image Credit: © Manfred Richter ]

Bimbo Bakeries USA has introduced organic varieties of its top commercial bread brands – Arnold, Brownberry, and Orowheat – that fulfill emerging clean label standards. The breads are USDA-certified organic and Non-GMO Project Verified, and contain no artificial preservatives, colors or flavors, no high fructose corn syrup and zero trans fat. Available nationwide in 27-oz packages, each loaf contains a blend of flaxseed, chia and ancient grains. According to an Organic Trade Association survey, organic bread ranks as the sixth largest organic category; consumer demand for organic options is at an all-time high. [Image Credit: © Bimbo Bakeries USA]

Dominique Ansel, N.Y.-based inventor of the croissant-doughnut hybrid known as the cronut, has come up with a new treat that may rival the popularity of that durable dessert. The cookie shot requires two hands: one to pour in the Tahitian vanilla milk and one to hold the palm-size chocolate chip cookie shaped like a shot glass. The milk is cold-infused with vanilla beans for 24 hours; the “shot glass” cookie comes cold, making it easy to eat. A London bakery says it is selling “hundreds” of the treats. It is, according to food writer Morwenna Ferrier, “the cuteification of an adult thing, the shot glass” and “a power move” to make something "bad" into something good. [Image Credit: © Nan Palmero | Flickr]

Snack industry research finds that younger generations are driving robust sales and innovation in snacking. Big confectionery brands are feeling the impact as consumer tastes shift from conventional snacks toward other newer options, including organic. The big brands are also feeling the heat from private label (store) brands. But a key force operating against Big Confectionery is Amazon – “the endless shelf,” as one industry expert calls it – which caters to the demands of Millennials and Gen Z consumers through its Wickedly Prime and Whole Foods 365 Everyday brands. The online retailer sold $518 million worth of snacks in 2017. Meanwhile, younger consumers are expected to keep up their snacking habits as they age, with per capita snacking at meal times expected to rise by 12 percent. ]

Trends in pizza making are following trends in ethnic cooking inspired by the increasing popularity of global cuisines. The new varieties inevitably ignite arguments between purists and innovators about what toppings are appropriate. Especially popular among the new experiments – at least in the Fresno, Calif. area –are pizzas inspired by Indian and Mexican cooking, such as carne asada and carnitas pizza drenched in hot sauce. Indian style pies include tandoori chicken masala, curry veggie pies, and butter chicken. The pizzas avoid traditional red sauces, opting instead for curry sauce, butter chicken sauce, pesto sauce and other varieties. Among national pizza chains dabbling in ethnic offerings is Chicago’s Pizza With A Twist with more than 30 locations nationwide. On the menu are 16 traditional pizzas and 18 Indian-style pizzas, including chicken tikka masala and butter chicken, both topped with ginger, garlic, green chillies, and fresh cilantro. ][Image Credit: © Javence Pizza (Fresno, Calif.]

British supermarket chain Tesco has relaxed its rules on the color quality of lemons it sells to prevent food waste at home. The company is selling lemons that are slightly green to extend the shelf like by an extra couple of days. According to the company, the lemons are as crisp and zesty as the fully yellow versions. Tesco imports most of its lemons from South Africa, whose lemon harvesting season begins in late June. The company will now take the greener South African lemons earlier than usual to keep supplies going. [Image Credit: © Tesco]

Sales reps at many companies see e-commerce as a threat to their sales and commissions But Coca-Cola’s system of training and customer segmentation makes e-commerce an asset to sales reps, according to Marta Dalton. For low-volume customers, online buying makes good sense because it only costs $3 to acquire a customer (compared to $50 to $80 to bring in a new customer through a sales call). The real value of e-commerce to a sales rep is the reduction in time wasted on grunt work, freeing the rep to focus on selling, rather than paperwork. E-commerce helps sales reps in areas such as: scheduling appointments; accessing support before, during and after sales calls; and tapping into communication channels that provide B2B services like print, e-mail, search, and social.

Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle and both houses of Congress asked FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb urging an exemption for pure maple syrup and honey from new “added sugars” disclosure requirements in any rewrite of the Nutrition Facts box on food labels. The FDA has proposed changes that would require an added sugar disclosure for most products. An added sugars declaration on pure maple syrup or honey products, the lawmakers wrote in their letter, “may signal to consumers that these pure products … actually contain added sweeteners such as table sugar or high-fructose corn syrup. This is patently false." The FDA's March 2, 2018, Draft Guidance allows manufacturers to add a symbol after the added sugars daily value pointing consumers to clearer language on the label, but that “seems unlikely to reduce consumer confusion.” ][Image Credit: ©  Wikimedia Commons (GearedBull]

Australian vegetable farmers routinely leave 10 to 20 percent of their crop in the field as unsaleable surplus to be ploughed back into the soil. The country’s scientific research agency (CSIRO), however, has been working on ways to transform surplus produce from waste into nutritious, edible vegetable powders to fortify beverages, including coffee. Its latest coffee additive project – it has already tried beetroot, coconut, turmeric, and blue algae – is broccoli, a nutrient-rich vegetable with plenty of fiber, vitamins A, B1 and B6, potassium, zinc, magnesium, and other healthful ingredients. For coffee, the broccoli powder is added to a shot of espresso before the steamed milk is added, then also sprinkled on top. According to one CSIRO scientist, two tablespoons of broccoli powder is equivalent to one serving of vegetables. [Image Credit: © CSIRO]

Alibaba Cloud has developed ET Agricultural Brain, an artificial intelligence-enabled platform for helping agricultural enterprises, including hog farmers, in China. Proprietary in design, the system is aimed at helping farmers to improve their livestock raising and crop production through innovations. With a special focus on hog farming, ET Agricultural Brain uses algorithm-based models to develop an “exercise regimen” for pigs to improve their health, as well as their piglet yields. China is the world’s largest producer of pork, according to data from the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service. It also accounts for half of the world’s pork consumption, data from Singapore-based DBS showed.[Image Credit: © Alibaba]

N.Y.-based clean label muffin bakery start-up Soozy’s has snagged $2.5 million in seed funding from two VC companies. The company's products are certified gluten-free, certified paleo, Non-GMO Project Verified, and contain no gums, fillers, refined sugars, grains, dairy, peanuts, soy or additives. Soozy's products can be purchased online or in 500 retail outlets in Texas, the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, including H-E-B and Wegmans. Investors include BIGR Ventures, a growth equity fund, and AccelFoods, an investment fund that focuses on innovative, high-growth packaged food and beverage companies. [Image Credit: © Soozy’s]

Although federal judge Rosanna Malouf Peterson agreed with domestic livestock producers that the lack of country-of-origin labelling on beef and pork products sold here was harmful to business, she ultimately sided with the USDA and dismissed their lawsuit asking that such labeling be required. Meat producers filed suit in Spokane in June 2017 after U.S. legislation called for the USDA to remove the country-of-origin labeling requirements following sanctions imposed by the World Trade Organization. Peterson said that unfortunately the legal clock had run out for any challenge to the underlying 1989 federal law, and that the U.S. Congress had clearly intended to have the labeling end. The livestock producers vowed to continue the fight.[Image Credit: © Specialty Food Association] 

Eight Republican and Democratic congressmen joined to introduce a bill that would provide American consumers with “clear, accurate, meaningful” nutrition information on food products and prevent inaccurate and misleading labels that drive up prices. According to lead sponsor of the bill Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), the Accurate Labels Act (H.R. 6022) would establish science-based criteria for labeling requirements and ensure that “legitimate risks” are taken seriously. The bill would allow state-mandated product information to be provided through smartphone-enabled "smart labels" and on websites and ensure that covered product information is risk-based. It has the support of the American Chemistry Council, the Grocery Manufacturers Association, the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives, and others.[Image Credit: ©  USFDA]

The USDA’s long-awaited proposed rule providing a national standard for disclosure of bioengineered food ingredients was released in May with a public comment period extending to July 3. The proposed rule implements the 2016 National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Standard Act, which pre-empts state GMO labeling schemes, including Vermont’s. The final rule is supposed to take effect on July 29. However, Chicago law firm Seyfarth Shaw LLP says it is likely that deadline will be missed because there are several unanswered questions: for example, how will the presence of "bioengineered" ingredients be disclosed?  Which foods and food manufacturers will be exempted from the labeling requirements. These open questions mean food manufacturers, retailers, consumers, industry groups, and other interested parties can shape the final rule, the firm notes. ]

Technology is playing an increasingly important role in dealing with America’s $218 billion annual food waste problem. It is being gradually implemented upstream to track food as it moves from farm to processor to distributor to store. At the other end of the line, where disposal happens, innovations such as digesters (Waste 2-0 left) provide alternatives to landfill and “waste-to-energy.” A key to wasting less food is understanding how much food is being wasted and what percentage of the available food that represents. Farmers, processors, restaurants, bakeries and others can use this information to better understand the financial costs and implement solutions. Older technology also plays a role: refrigeration, freezing, and drying all extend the shelf life of food to prevent waste. [Image Credit: © Mechline]

India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, announced that the country plans to scrap single-use plastic by 2022, as part of World Environment Day, which India is hosting this year. Modi also announced a scheme to address marine plastic, and agreed to join Clean Seas, a UN campaign.[Image Credit: © United Nations Environment Programme]

With no plans by the Trump administration to interfere, FDA menu nutrition labeling took effect last month over the objections of major grocers and retailers. Meanwhile, the House passed legislation (H.R. 772) that would ease compliance, but the Senate hasn’t yet acted on the bill. The new FDA rules apply to all restaurants and similar retail food establishments nationwide with 20 or more locations; do business under the same name; and offer substantially the same menu items. Among other requirements, all menu boards must conspicuously mention that nutrition information is based on a 2,000 calories-a-day diet, and that more written information is available. Menu boards are defined as all primary writings – in-store, Internet, and take-home – from which the consumer orders food. Calorie information must be conspicuously displayed next to the name or price of "standard menu items."[Image Credit: © CSPI]

Ireland’s Ocean Harvest Technology Ltd. announced it is introducing in the U.S. pork products from swine raised on its Oceanfeed Swine seaweed-based feed ingredient formulated for pork. Farmers supplying poultry and livestock producer Heritage Foods are feeding their pigs with the feed made from a proprietary blend of red, brown, and green seaweed species. Brooklyn-based Heritage Farms is committed to providing heritage breed poultry and livestock raised on pasture without antibiotic growth promoters to American consumers. Customers who have tried Oceanfeed, a natural prebiotic, see enhanced animal health, more efficient nutrient uptake, and reduced mortality rates.[Image Credit: © Ocean Harvest]

Family-owned California bakery Sugar Bowl Bakery has launched a line of clean label miniature “Button Cakes” in four flavors. The minicakes are made with butter and eggs, contain real fruit and vanilla bean seeds, but no artificial flavors, colors or preservatives. The Button Cakes – available in tropical mango, wild blueberry, lemon zest and madagascar vanilla flavors – will be sold in eight- and 16-count packages in retail stores throughout the U.S.  They were introduced at the recent International Dairy Deli Bakery Association Show in New Orleans, La. [Image Credit: © Sugar Bowl Bakery]

A New Zealand supermarket is testing an unusual solution to waste management: customers may bring their own reusable containers to the store to package fresh meat purchases. For the time being, the test is limited to the butcher and seafood counters, but if successful could be extended to bakery, deli and bulk foods. Other stores, however, are casting a skeptical eye at the initiative, mainly because of concerns about food safety, hygiene and correct measurement of weight. The store says there are restrictions: containers must have lids and be suitable for weighing and handling; price labels must be placed on containers for security; and customers must provide clean containers and accept the safety risk. ]

Freedom Foods North America, a unit of the Australian company, is introducing a line of healthful, affordable snacks for kids who are “picky eaters.” Messy Monkeys are baked whole grain non-GMO sorghum and quinoa bites available in kid-friendly flavors, including pizza, cheese, and apple. Each serving contains 14 percent protein, seven percent fiber, one gram of sugar, and less than 100 mg of salt. Messy Monkeys are sold in a 10-pack for $5.99 and are available for now only through Amazon. The company said distribution partnerships with multiple natural foods retailers will be announced soon, and the snacks will be selling nationwide by the end of the year.[Image Credit: © Freedom Foods North America]