Food News
Examining Food Loss and Food Waste in the United States
Choices | Posted on March 7, 2019Food that is lost before it reaches the consumer, and food that is wasted by consumers, has been estimated to account for as much as 40% of the total food produced in the United States (Buzby, Wells, and Hyman, 2014; Hall et al., 2009). This represents losses of important resources—including water, chemical inputs, and labor—as well as unused nutrients for consumers. Stakeholders along the supply chain are increasingly interested in developing improved approaches to measuring food waste, understanding its determinants, and devising strategies to ultimately reduce it. To date, a majority of food waste studies have focused on household-level waste; fewer studies have examined waste in food distribution and retail settings, and very little work has been conducted to understand the economic causes and consequences of food loss at the farm level. This Choices theme presents a collection of articles that explore food loss and food waste in the context of the U.S. food supply chain. The behavior and incentives of a variety of food system stakeholders including producers, market intermediaries (including retailers), and consumers are considered. The articles are organized along the supply chain, beginning with upstream issues of food loss proceeding through downstream topics such as household decisions concerning when to discard food. Taken together, this collection offers intriguing insights into current frontiers of the myriad private and public efforts to better characterize, quantify, and reduce food waste.
Australian consumers accept immuno castration for pigs
Pig Health Today | Posted on March 7, 2019Australian consumer acceptance of a technology that offers an alternative to physical castration should give more pork producers the confidence to use it, says one of Australia’s leading pork suppliers. The technology, known as immunological castration or immunocastration, involves administering a protein compound that works like a vaccine to reduce the risk of boar taint, an unpleasant odor that can occur when cooking meat from sexually mature male pigs. As a result, the country’s top-five integrated producers — accounting for about 60% of the industry — all now use the vaccine.“In terms of [consumer] backlash around the technology, it’s just been proven to be a non-event in Australia,” he said.“Consumers deem it as safe and they have other things on their mind, such animal welfare, antibiotics use and GM (genetically modified) technology.”Now that Australia has proven success with the technology, there was no reason why other countries couldn’t learn from the country’s experiences, he added.
How to get fresh produce delivered to your door — while supporting local farms
Today | Posted on March 4, 2019Ashley Tyrner, founder and CEO of Farmbox Direct, is out to change how Americans eat. The service delivers fresh produce straight to your door, making healthy diets more accessible. "I had a really hard time having accessibility to fresh fruits and vegetablesthat were great, organic produce," Tyrner told TODAY's Jill Martin. "And it turns out, across the country, I'm not the only person with this problem."After a difficult period in her personal life, Tyrner was left in such severe financial distress that she went on government assistance, including food stamps — but the help only gave her $8 a day to live off of."I was thinking like, "What am I gonna do?'" said Tyrner. "And so when I think of, what lives within me that's pushed me to here is hustle."Eventually, Tyrner was able to save up enough to get off of government assistance. But now, she was still a single parent with a busy schedule, and found that she didn't have a lot of time to spend shopping for healthy foodfor her vegetarian daughter.Once again, she saved and hustled to do what she had to do. In 2014, Tyrner left her job and began to build her company from the ground up, even delivering items herself to people's home as she tried to get the business off the ground.
EUs common food name policy will cost U.S. dairy billions
Edairy News | Posted on March 4, 2019The U.S. dairy industry — and the U.S. economy — could be hit with anywhere from $9.5 billion to $20-billion in revenue losses if the European Union is successful in expanding restrictions on the use of generic cheese terms like parmesan, asiago, feta and others, according to a new study conducted by Informa Agribusiness Consulting, commissioned by the Consortium for Common Food Names (CCFN) and the U.S. Dairy Export Council (USDEC). The study, which provides timely information in light of U.S.-EU trade negotiations, examined the potential impact the EU’s aggressive geographical indications (GI) agenda would have if imposed on a broad variety of U.S. cheeses and markets. Seizing the common names that U.S. marketers have used for generations would confuse and alienate both domestic and international consumers, leading to a dramatic drop in demand for U.S. cheese. If the EU’s GI initiatives were to be enforced on U.S. cheeses, the study — conducted by Informa Agribusiness Consulting — predicts that the dairy industry could see a dramatic drop in demand for U.S. cheeses, with prices falling 14% and resulting revenue losses of between $9.5 billion and $20.2 billion, depending on consumers’ willingness to pay for recognizable cheese names.
Examining Food Loss and Food Waste in the United States
Choices Magazine | Posted on March 4, 2019Food that is lost before it reaches the consumer, and food that is wasted by consumers, has been estimated to account for as much as 40% of the total food produced in the United States (Buzby, Wells, and Hyman, 2014; Hall et al., 2009). This represents losses of important resources—including water, chemical inputs, and labor—as well as unused nutrients for consumers. Stakeholders along the supply chain are increasingly interested in developing improved approaches to measuring food waste, understanding its determinants, and devising strategies to ultimately reduce it.
To date, a majority of food waste studies have focused on household-level waste; fewer studies have examined waste in food distribution and retail settings, and very little work has been conducted to understand the economic causes and consequences of food loss at the farm level. This Choices theme presents a collection of articles that explore food loss and food waste in the context of the U.S. food supply chain. The behavior and incentives of a variety of food system stakeholders including producers, market intermediaries (including retailers), and consumers are considered. The articles are organized along the supply chain, beginning with upstream issues of food loss proceeding through downstream topics such as household decisions concerning when to discard food. Taken together, this collection offers intriguing insights into current frontiers of the myriad private and public efforts to better characterize, quantify, and reduce food waste. The contribution by Dunning, Johnson, and Boys provides a novel framework for assessing the value of food lost on farms. They focus on six vegetables grown in North Carolina and use farm-level data to estimate the potential profits associated with additional harvests of marketable and edible crop that would ultimately reduce field-level food loss. Their results indicate that, under some conditions, additional harvests and subsequent sales would lead to modest yet nontrivial increases in per acre profits (notably for cucumbers and sweet potatoes). The framework developed here allows us to better understand the economic tradeoffs associated with reducing food loss in the fields and nudges us toward thinking more carefully about potential markets for foods, notably vegetables, which currently are not harvested.
Arizona House OKs requiring labels that almond milk is 'fake or alternative milk'
Tucson.com | Posted on March 3, 2019Lawmakers voted Wednesday to prohibit sale of “almond milk” in Arizona for the reason that almonds do not lactate.Consumers could still buy that product. But under the terms of House Bill 2604 it would have to be labeled as “fake milk” or “alternative milk.” And there would have to be a “prominent statement” on the package that the product is made from plants, grown in a lab or other similar disclosure.The bill would impose a similar restriction on the word “meat,” saying it could be used on packages for sale only if what is inside came from what had once been a living, breathing animal.
Here's How Dairy Giant Dean Foods Curdled Its Own Milk
Forbes | Posted on February 28, 2019"I told you so" rings hollow when people stand to lose their jobs. But it’s worth noting that more than a few observers predicted in 2012, when Dallas-based Dean Foods shed its fast-growing organic and soy milk business, that turning the parent into largely a commodity player would hamper chances for growth. Now Dean, once hands down the nation’s largest dairy processor, is looking at “strategic alternatives,” including potentially putting itself on the auction block.Dean, which grew into a multibillion-dollar company largely through a series of acquisitions, said Monday it has “commenced a review to explore and evaluate potential strategic alternatives to enhance shareholder value. These alternatives could include, among others ... the disposition of certain assets, the formation of a joint venture, a strategic business combination, a transaction that results in private ownership or a sale of the company.”
The FDA sees gene-edited animals as drugs
Newsweek | Posted on February 28, 2019We eat mutations every day. All the vegetables, grains, fruits and meat humans consume as part of their diet is jam-packed with DNA speckled with mutations and beneficial variations.In 2017, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration proposed to regulate a specific subset of these variations as drugs: In particular, those introduced into animal genomes using modern molecular techniques like gene editing. A drug is “an article (other than food) intended to affect the structure or any function of the body of animals” according to the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, which was first signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1938.I am a geneticist who specializes in how genetics can be used to improve the efficiency of livestock production. While I agree that DNA variation undoubtedly affects “the structure and function of the body of animals,” it is unclear to me why intentional DNA alterations introduced via gene editing in food animals should uniquely be considered a drug. This seems inconsistent given that the United States Department of Agriculture has no plans to treat such alterations in gene-edited plants as drugs because genetic variations are part of conventionally bred varieties. Ultimately this ruling may hinder the use of gene editing to introduce useful attributes—like disease resistance—into U.S. livestock populations.
Amazon’s got milk
The Quartz | Posted on February 27, 2019Amazon is getting into the milk business through privately owned brand Happy Belly. The Happy Belly dairy items, spotted by brand tracker TJI, include various kinds of lactose-free milk (1%, 2%, whole, fat free), half and half, and whipping cream. “If you like Lactaid, we invite you to try Happy Belly,” reads a description on a product page, which also identifies Happy Belly as “an Amazon brand.”The prices compare favorably to Lactaid. A half gallon of Happy Belly 2% reduced fat milk, for example, is currently priced at $3.29. A half gallon of the comparable Lactaid product sells for $3.88 at Walmart.
Grain Free Pet Foods Disease Link Needs Research
Pet Food Industry | Posted on February 27, 2019The investigation into a possible link between some ingredients in grain-free pet foods and atypical cases of canine dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM), announced by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in July 2018, has caused no small amount of concern for pet food companies, pet owners, veterinarians and retailers. One of the main reasons, and a continuing source of confusion and frustration, is that so little is still known about why these cases of DCM have occurred and what role, if any, the foods the dogs were eating played. Perhaps the title of a new research paper coming out in the March 2019 issue of the Journal of Animal Science best sums up the situation: “The association between pulse ingredients and canine dilated cardiomyopathy: addressing the knowledge gaps before establishing causation.”