Food

State alcohol regulators suspended enforcement of new rules for New Jersey's craft breweries after top lawmakers vowed to roll them back in a flurry of critical statements.The state Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control, or ABC, said in a statement that the pause would allow it to further consult with the competing factions — craft breweries on one side and bars and restaurants on the other — and potentially work with lawmakers to write new legislation.“We want to make sure that we get this right,” said ABC Director David Rible. [node:read-more:link]

Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. customers in Maryland, California, and New York head for trial in a class suit alleging the fast-casual restaurant chain deceptively markets food as GMO-free. A ruling by the U.S. [node:read-more:link]

The Texas city of Austin implemented a new ordinance this week preventing restaurants from disposing of food waste in landfills.Restaurants may donate unconsumed food, send scraps to farms or compost it under the law that took effect Oct. 1. The measure also stipulates that employees receive training about handling the waste. [node:read-more:link]

Growth in the number of farmers’ markets is slowing. As of August 2017, there were 8,687 markets, double the number from 10 years ago but only a 0.2% growth from the previous year (U.S. Department of Agriculture, 2018), indicating that growth in the number of markets has leveled off. Many parts of the country, particularly in urban areas, are witnessing a saturation of farmers’ markets. Producers complain that maintaining a presence at multiple markets has increased costs more than it has added revenues (Zepeda and Reznickova, 2018). [node:read-more:link]

As household incomes fell during the Great Recession, total food spending by U.S. households declined by 7 percent between 2007 and 2010, as many households cut back on eating out. Food spending by households in the middle-income quintile remained below pre-recession levels in 2016, and these households continued to allocate more of their food budgets to food at home rather than eating out. [node:read-more:link]

Walmart and its unit Sam’s Club said on Monday leafy greens suppliers will be asked to implement real-time, farm-to-store tracking using blockchain technology by next September, as the retailer tackles food-safety incidents. [node:read-more:link]

A new team of food safety experts has been created to help speed up the licensing process for Minnesota food businesses. The goal of the Food Innovation Team (FIT), a subcommittee of Minnesota’s Food Safety and Defense Task Force, is to help state regulators accommodate new and innovative food business models while maintaining high food safety standards. “Obtaining a food license can be a daunting process,” said Jim Roettger, Licensing Liaison for the Minnesota Department of Agriculture. [node:read-more:link]

Whether they want to or not, many Portland-area restaurants will soon be turning food scraps into energy. A mandatory food scrap recycling program is set to start in less than two years.Beginning in 2020 Metro will require any business that generates more than 250 pounds of food waste a week to separate out those food scraps for recycling.Currently, area food waste makes up about one-fifth of the garbage that goes to the landfill.According to Metro, that's about 5,000 semi-trucks full of food scraps every year that end up in our landfills. [node:read-more:link]

80 Acres Farms plans to build a large, fully automated indoor farm in Hamilton, Ohio, which will produce specialty greens to supply Jungle Jim’s International Market and Whole Foods as well as other retailers and foodservice distributors. [node:read-more:link]

On a recent trip to Europe I had the opportunity to visit some free-range layer houses. The barns look much like the other layer houses that I saw on my visit, they just had the “dog doors” on the side of the house. Just like “pasture-raised” hen farms in the U.S., there are no barriers to exposure to rodents, birds or insects for hens outside the house. I couldn’t help but think of the lengths that U.S. egg producers go to, whether in houses equipped with cages or aviaries, to keep rodents and flies out of their houses. [node:read-more:link]