Latest News in the food Industry

10 Oct 2014

2014 is a year of revived growth for the health and wellness (HW) industry, and attest to personal health and wellness goals being amongst the first to be met after a period of economic uncertainty. Global HW sales saw 6.5% growth over 2013-2014 to rea...

3 Oct 2014

The benefits of Vitamin C (not strictly a vitamin) were known as early as the eighteenth century when limes were used by the British Navy to ward off scurvy (hence the name ‘limeys’). But it wasn’t until 1912 that the term vitamin (vital amine: a nitro...

29 Sep 2014

One of the key challenges when considering any natural proposition is that it is difficult to actually define ‘natural’ and how it actually differs from other aspects such as ‘clean label’. The clean label proposition is generally considered to be seek...

23 Sep 2014

The South American beetle has been used as food colorant for centuries, giving bright red colouring to soup, ketchup, sauces, jams and canned fruits. You may have seen recent controversies with coffee outlets starbucking their Frappuccinos with crushed...

22 Sep 2014

Legislation, especially pharmaceutical legislation, can be pretty tough to work through. For example: according to Directive 2011/62/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council, commonly referred to as the ‘Falsified Medicine Directive’, the outer...

16 Sep 2014

Sustainability has become a key corporate goal, particularly for the fast-moving consumer goods industry with widespread implications for packaging. For example there is increasing demand for greater energy efficiency in packaging and for products and ...

15 Sep 2014

Wednesday, 10 September 2014 was an exciting day. Not just for me, but for the finalists and the jury of the Packaging Innovation Contest De Gouden Noot 2014. The ten finalists came to Gouda to try to convince the jury that their packaging is the most ...

15 Sep 2014

Isn’t it frustrating for you, dear reader, as an executive, an important cog in the food industry, to see between 20 and 75% of what you stand for being wasted? The purpose of the food and beverage industry is to meet the needs of the consumer. It is b...

8 Sep 2014

The flavours sector represents one of the largest within the global food additives market and the use of flavouring compounds is widespread as manufacturers continue to search for appealing new taste experiences. Sweet flavours, particularly those that...

4 Sep 2014

The ‘Southampton 6 report’ from McCann et al (2007) highlighted potential issues relating to hyperactivity in children and suggested correlation to the use of six artificial colours: sunset yellow (E 110), quinoline yellow (E 104), carmoisine (E 122), ...

1 Sep 2014

If we look at history, the aesthetic aspects of food were not a major consideration until relatively recently, and began to change fundamentally with the onset of the Industrial Revolution. (Today, for example, a Spanish paella rice dish would be unacc...

25 Aug 2014

It was a good month for omega-3s last month when the European Food Safety Authority published its “Scientific Opinion on health benefits of seafood (fish and shellfish) consumption in relation to health risks associated with exposure to methylmercury” ...