Australia’s food standards regulator, Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ), has made a statement that it considers the risk of Australian consumers being exposed to radionuclides in food imported from Japan to be negligible. “Australia does not import fresh produce from Japan.  In fact Australia imports very little food from Japan. Imports are limited to a small range of specialty products, for example seaweed-based products, sauces etc,” said FSANZ in the statement. “Any... ...Read more »

French dairy group Lactalis has acquired an 11.42% stake in Italy-based rival Parmalat through an equity-swap deal. The French dairy now owns a 7.28% direct stake in Parmalat and has entered into an equity-swap agreement for a potential additional stake of up to 7%. Currently, under the equity swap agreement, Lactalis has taken 4.14% equity. Lactalis said on Thursday that it plans to develop a project that would allow the two groups to offer a full range of dairy products, adding that they both have... ...Read more »

Woolworths yesterday announced its new sustainable fish sourcing strategy, designed to allow customers to make more sustainable fish choices in both canned and fresh fish. The supermarket giant made the announcement to coincide with today’s Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) event, Sustainable Seafood Day. The Woolworths Select private label will now offer MSC-certified canned salmon, with MSC-certified Albacore tuna due to be introduced next month, and has removed the overfished Yellowfin Tuna... ...Read more »

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission announced today that it does not intend to oppose Cargill Incorporated’s proposed acquisition from Agrium of the commodity management businesses of AWB Limited. “The ACCC concluded that the proposed acquisition would be unlikely to substantially lessen competition as post-merger Cargill would continue to face competition from a number of significant sources,” ACCC chairman Graeme Samuel said. The ACCC conducted a full review of... ...Read more »

General Mills is reportedly set to buy the 50% stake held in dairy business Yoplait by private-equity firm PAI Partners. According to reports in Le Figaro, The Wall Street Journal and from the Bloomberg news agency, General Mills, which has held the US licence to Yoplait since 1977, is set to emerge as the winner in what had become a fiercely competitive race to buy PAI’s half of the French firm. The reports said a deal between General Mills and PAI values Yoplait at EUR1.6bn (US$2.24bn). Citing... ...Read more »

Cafe chain The Coffee Club has declared Sydneysiders Australia’s coffee consumption champions, with research revealing more than one in four of the city’s adult population visit cafes 4-7 times per week. The research was undertaken by Nielsen on behalf of The Coffee Club, and clearly shows Sydney is host to Australia’s highest rate of coffee consumption. Kevin El-Hassan from Hurstville, Sydney, enjoys up to four cups of coffee daily and visits coffee outlets at least ten times per week. “It’s... ...Read more »

The Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), The Hershey Company, and the World Cocoa Foundation (WCF) have announced a first-of-its kind program to use mobile technology to deliver practical information on agricultural and social programs to rural cocoa farmers, and enable the farmers to ask questions and provide feedback. The program, called “CocoaLink – Connecting Cocoa Communities,” will make use of Ghana’s rapidly developing mobile phone infrastructure and build on the existing successful... ...Read more »

Despite floods, locusts and heavy rain, Victoria’s food producers have broken production records for wheat, barley and canola, said Victorian Minister for Agriculture and Food Security Peter Walsh today. Walsh said the season’s results were an absolute credit to the state’s grains industry, which had faced extremely difficult conditions this year. “Although quality suffered because of the wet and results varied from paddock to paddock and farm to farm, the season still produced a big harvest,”... ...Read more »

Aquaculture company Clean Seas Tuna has reported a successful transfer of its young Southern Bluefin Tuna to offshore cages, marking a significant milestone in the company’s pioneering work breeding the fish in captivity. The young tuna, known as fingerlings, are now 8-10cm long, and have been weaned onto a specially-developed manufactured diet. 90 of the small fish were transferred to 25-metre offshore cages, with a similar number remaining in onshore nursery tanks. The transfer is a marked... ...Read more »

Mars Petcare has announced the introduction of a new line of sustainably-fished pet food products, endorsed by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), in the UK. Selected packs from Mars Petcare’s Sheba and Whiskas lines in the UK are now MSC-certified, offering consumers a choice of more sustainable pet food products for the very first time. In April last year, Mars Petcare – the world’s largest petcare business – committed to using only sustainably sourced fish by 2020. Working with... ...Read more »