The iconic Australian chocolate and confectionery brand Darrell Lea has been placed into voluntary administration by its directors. The company, started 85 years ago by the same family from a small factory under the first arch of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, now has 69 stores owned or licensed across Australia, whilst its well-known products are sold in more than 1,800 retail outlets in Australia, New Zealand and the United States. The business employs about 700 people. Insolvency specialists PPB Advisory... ...Read more »

There are several dairy products on the Australian market that are supplemented by phytosterols and marketed as cholesterol-lowering. Phytosterol esters are essentially fatty acids derived from plants, and are said to reduce cholesterol when consumed. Packaging restrictions on products containing phytosterol esters exist because of long-standing concerns regarding the safety of such supplementation. Two nearly identical applications have been made to Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ),... ...Read more »

An international group of public health academics has collaborated in research finding that provocatively describes the role of big companies in low- to middle-income (LMIC) countries as a “manufacturing epidemic”. The article, commissioned by peer-reviewed online publisher Public Library of Science (PLoS) for their ‘Big Food’ series, was published yesterday in the PLoS Medicine Journal. The research suggests that low and middle-income countries are being “targeted” by large processed-food... ...Read more »

Australian Food News has surveyed a number of new marketing campaigns being launched by different Australian food groups to coincide with the forthcoming London Olympic Games. The Opening Ceremony of the XXXth Olympiad of the modern era will be held on Friday 27 July, 2012 at the new Olympic Stadium, built during the past three years in London’s Docklands. The Opening Ceremony alone is expected to have an international viewing audience of four billion people, creating one of the world’s greatest... ...Read more »

As part of a pilot program to test the new vending technology, Kraft Foods has rolled out a new vending solution in Melbourne with touch screens that allows consumers to choose products and view product information. In place of a traditional glass panel, an LCD touch screen fronts the vending unit. The units can also host digital advertising, creating a new revenue stream for vending. Kraft Foods’ Neil Low said that the units were an innovation that engaged and informed consumers at the purchase... ...Read more »

Global snacks company Kraft Foods has reported a 4.1 per cent increase in revenue for the first quarter of the 2012/13 financial year. The company, which owns iconic brands including Cadbury, Jacobs, Kraft, Oreo, Maxwell House, Milka, Philadelphia and Trident, reported profits of US$813 in the first three months of the financial year. Kraft’s Chairman and CEO, Irene Rosenfeld said the results were driven by new product innovation and effective cost management. A rise in product prices accounted... ...Read more »

Some of the UK’s biggest supermarkets, food manufacturers, caterers and food outlets have agreed to voluntarily cut the number of calories in their products under a new UK Government health initiative to tackle obesity. Coca-Cola Great Britain, Kraft, Mars, Nestle, PepsiCo, Premier Foods, Unilever, Subway, and all the UK’s leading supermarkets are amongst those already signed up to the UK Government’s ‘Responsibility Deal’ calorie reduction pledge initiative. The initiative aims to reduce... ...Read more »

Kraft has announced plans to change the name of its global snacks business’s corporate name to Mondelez International. Kraft said that ‘Mondelez’ (pronounced ‘mohn-dah-leez’) is a newly coined word that “evokes the idea of ‘delicious world’”. ‘Monde’ derives from the Latin word for ‘world’, and ‘delez’ is a fanciful expression of ‘delicious’. As previously announced, Kraft Foods is dividing to create two public companies before the end of 2012: a high-growth global... ...Read more »

More than half of Australians are regularly skipping breakfast, according to a new study by Kraft Foods Australia, released today. The Kraft Foods ‘Aussie Breakfast Report’ researched the breakfast eating habits of Australians. The study found that despite 42 per cent of Australians acknowledging that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, more than half (56 per cent) are missing out on their morning meal at least once a week, and almost a third are skipping as many as three times per... ...Read more »

Coinciding with the release of a report on a study of Australian breakfast habits, Kraft has launched belVita Breakfast – a new range of biscuits specially designed for breakfast hitting Australian supermarket shelves this week . Made with five wholegrains, belVita Breakfast Biscuits are rich in cereals, a source of fibre and low in Glycemic Index. The belVita Breakfast range is available in three flavours – Milk & Cereals, Fruit & Fibre and Crunchy Oats, and can be found in the... ...Read more »