Digital disruption, the process by which technological changes are forcing businesses worldwide to re-invent their operations and products, is also affecting the meat industry. Recent steps taken by industry leaders Cargill and Tyson Foods, Inc., are providing a clear insight on how digital innovations are upending the market. For example, Cargill has disposed of its 153-year-old business model to become a “modern, flexible, integrated food company.” For its part, Tyson launched its Tyson Ventures investment arm, which has invested in laboratory-grown meat startups Beyond Meat and Memphis Meats. Also, technology is transforming the industry’s supply chain into a “shortened, more transparent, completely disrupted” model. 

Leading brands, including Anheuser-Busch InBev, AT&T Inc., and Kellogg Co., are adopting blockchain technology to ensure that their online advertising is viewed by real people and not by computer-generated bots. Also, these major brands seek to use the technology to determine how much of their ad spending goes to middlemen. Designed as a “secure digital database” that can host a “record book” of transactions, blockchain lets business partners to maintain a record of their dealings and transactions. These data cannot be edited. 

Several companies have announced their plans to stop using plastic straws, while a number of towns and cities have revealed proposals to ban single-use plastics and fine firms and organizations that will not comply. Starbucks said it plans to remove all plastic straws from its stores by 2020 and replace them with recyclable plastic lids for cold beverages. Starting September 1, 2018, plastic straws would only be available by request at its hotels, Hyatt said. For its part, Hilton Hotels said it plans to remove plastic straws from 650 locations in 2018.[Image Credit: © PublicDomainPictures]

Carrefour is expanding its blockchain trial to include Filiere Qualite-branded Cauralina coer de boeuf tomatoes. According to the French retailer, the move is aimed at ensuring the transparency and traceability of its food supply chain. Carrefour has partnered with tomato supplier Les Paysans de Rougeline to support what it describes as “local, innovative and sustainable agriculture.” Blockchain technology allows the creation of a secure digital database, ensuring the integrity of information submitted or changed by users.[Image Credit: © Carrefour]

Specialty Breads, a company that supplies frozen bread and dough to restaurants, hotels, pubs, cafés and caterers, has announced its plan to reduce by 50 percent its use of single-use plastics by 2020. Also, the company said it aims to use recyclable or recycled packaging, use solar cooling to enhance efficiency of refrigerators, provide sales staff with low emission or hybrid cars, and achieve zero-landfill status for its bakery operations.[Image Credit: © Specialty Breads Ltd]

Coca-Cola Japan has introduced its third product in the “Fanta Double Plus” line of functional soft drinks that contain "vitamins and seasonal ingredients". Limited edition Fanta Yogurtropical, containing vitamin B and “lactic acid bacteria” debuted in July at $1.26 per 16-ounce bottle, and 49 calories per 3.4-ounce serving. The range also includes Fanta Pineapple GABA, containing gamma-aminobutyric acid and vitamin B.

Ashville, N.C.-based start-up No Evil Foods hopes to differentiate itself from makers of “mock-meats” that use highly-processed ingredients and protein isolates. The company has applied clean label principles to the production of plant-based meat products that are small batch and sustainable. Instead of isolated proteins, the company uses a chickpea and European wheat flour base that is texturized and seasoned to make four products. The portfolio includes Comrade Cluck vegan chicken, a chorizo sausage, an Italian sausage that comes in links, and smoked pulled pork barbeque. The mock-meats are very low fat – they contain no added fats or oils – are cholesterol free, and protein-rich. [Image Credit: © No Evil Foods]

Coffeeshop chain Starbucks has announced plans to stop using plastic straws at its more than 28,000 locations worldwide by 2020. Part of the company’s efforts to reduce waste and protect the environment, the move will also see Starbucks replacing plastic straws with the recyclable lid developed by Emily Alexander, an engineer at the chain’s Global Research and Development. At present, the recyclable lids are used for some drinks, including Draft Nitro and Cold Foam in more than 8,000 locations in the US and Canada. These lids will be used for all iced drinks, the company said, except Frappuccino, which will have a straw made from paper or compostable plastic made from fermented plant starch or other environment-friendly material.[Image Credit: © Starbucks Corporation]

Foodservice distributor US Foods Holding Corp. has reformulated its entire line of Metro Deli, Rykoff Sexton, Chef's Line, and Stock Yards Exclusive Brand products to create “clean label” profiles for its restaurant and foodservice customers. The move, a part of its “Unpronounceable List” initiative, was designed to offer products with simple recognizable ingredients by avoiding, removing or replacing more than 80 listed ingredients from 1,000 Exclusive Brand products. These ingredients include artificial flavors, artificial (FD&C) colors, high-fructose corn syrup, disodium guanylate, sodium benzoate, and monosodium glutamate. According to the company’s data, 46 percent of Millennials would be more likely to buy a product with no artificial ingredients. [Image Credit: © US Foods]

In India, the state of Kerala is planning to use a combination of blockchain technology and the Internet of Things to improve its food supply, including milk, vegetable, and fish. Being implemented through the state’s Kerala Development and Innovation Strategic Council, the program aims to use separate ID tags for each food shipment to keep track of food products across the supply chain. To ensure fast and reliable delivery and prevent food waste, each part of the supply chain will include radio frequency identification or RFID tags integrated with mobile apps. 

The SPINS data service for the organic products industry finds that natural food and beverage sales growth is outpacing growth for conventional foods nationally. Some of the differences in sales growth are “striking,” the company said. For the year ending May 20, sales growth was nine percent, compared to 0.6 percent for the food industry overall. In the Mid-South, overall food product growth was only 1.7 percent, but nine percent for natural food and beverages. Market penetration of natural foods and beverages varies by region: 13.1 percent of the market in California, but only 5.5 percent in the four-state South Central region (Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Arkansas). SPINS said the fast-rising consumer demand is prompting major conventional grocery chains to “raise their good food game,” and is putting pressure on other competitors. [Image Credit: © Whole Foods Market]

Israeli food company Salt of the Earth has replaced flavoring ingredient monosodium glutamate (MSG) in its ranch dressing with an all-natural sodium-reduction ingredient based on vegetable extracts and sea salt. Mediterranean Umami was tested in many ranch dressing formulations. The tests resulted in a compound that maintained the true flavor of Ranch dressing, but with 30 percent less sodium, and no MSG or yeast extracts. According to the company, MSG leads to “Chinese restaurant syndrome,” a group of symptoms now known as MSG Symptom Complex. They can include headache, skin flushing, and sweating. Mediterranean Umami does not trigger side-effects and is a clean-label product evoking no negative consumer health reactions, the company says. [Image Credit: © Salt of the Earth]

Singapore-based food company SMC Nutrition is using a distributed ledger, which is hosted on a blockchain-based service developed by security services provider Certis Group. Designed to provide business partners and consumers access to information about the company’s supply chain, the system lets consumers see the information by scanning QR codes found on the food company’s products. According to Fuji Foo, VP for business digitization, the system is fraud-proof because only suppliers and distributors are granted control and access to the information.

Commodities company Olam’s Olam Farmer Information System is helping farmers innovate and increase their production. For example, Olam’s technology puts farmers, such as Ghana cocoa farmer Muhammed Adams, in touch with agricultural experts. From them, Adams learned that he did not have to use pesticides when he had an outbreak of disease. To make customized recommendations to farmers, the OFIS app gathers farm data and uses algorithms. Also, Olam apps let farmers monitor products when leaving the farm and enable them to check product prices and trade online. [Image Credit: © Olam International]

An alumnus chef from Milwaukee’s Ardent restaurant has built a business by building a better doughnut to please his – at the time – eight-months pregnant wife. Former chef de cuisine at Ardent, Jackie Lee Woods applies his knowledge, experience and good taste to his doughnut business, dubbed Donut Monster. Woods looks for ingredients (many of them organic) that meet his standards, then tests and retests recipes. The business sells three basic styles of doughnut: old-fashioned, cake, and yeast, with a richer brioche-like dough. The rest of the product line is built on those basics. Current flavors include cherry cheesecake, lemon-butter glaze, and peanut butter and jelly with a Concord grape glaze and peanut butter buttercream filling. ][Image Credit: © Donut Monster (Milwaukee]

National pizza chain Blaze Fast-Fire'd Pizza has introduced what it calls a “modern twist on traditional breadsticks.” Dough Knots are made-to-order and hand-stretched, filled with mozzarella, garlic, and pesto, baked and served with a red sauce. Available at the chain’s 270 locations in the U.S. and Canada, Dough Knots are offered in orders of two or four. They can also be purchased at $1.95 for 2 and $2.95 for 4. To promote the new item, the company is giving away more than two million Dough Knots. Customers enrolled in Blaze's loyalty mobile app or email programs will receive two free Dough Knots with the purchase of any pizza. [Image Credit: © Blaze Pizza LLC]

Doughnut-loving alumni of the University of Texas have launched a company whose mission is to market a delicious but low-sugar, gluten-free, keto-friendly, and protein-rich doughnut. Elite Sweets’ founders were either studying sports management or playing football, and all shared a passion for doughnuts – healthful ones if possible – and a dream of entrepreneurship. They developed the basic recipe in 2017, and since then have come up with four flavors that are sold online and in several Austin shops. All of their offerings are low in sugar: the cinnamon sugar version, said to be the most popular, contains two grams of sugar and 17 grams of protein.[Image Credit: © Elite Sweets]

Food co-op PCC Community Markets has promised to stop using plastics in its delis by 2022. At present, the company uses more than 5 million plastic packaging containers every year. According to PCC, it plans to replace plastic packaging with biodegradable compostable containers. In 2015, the company replaced plastic straws and utensils with compostable alternatives. [Image Credit: © Puget Consumers Co-op]

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]