Food Institute News
The Food Institute is offering a 12-part series detailing ALL crucial elements, rulings and guidances of FSMA. Four webinars have already explored newer rulings. You can purchase the 12-part series and have access-on-demand to recorded versions of the four earlier sessions, as well as access to all future FSMA webinars. Click Here for more information.
FI Members Only
The Food Institute's Article Index has been updated through Dec.
12, 2011! FI Members click
here to search for articles that have appeared in the weekly Food
Institute Report. Search by company or by subject.
If you're not a member, click here to sign up!
Our Mission Statement
The Food Institute:* Strives to be the best "single source" for current, timely and relevant information about the food industry from "farm to fork."
* Serves as a trusted source of information, providing balanced coverage of the issues.
* Delivers information through multiple media so that industry professionals worldwide can tap in when and how they choose.
Industry News
Redemption rates for free standing insert coupons increased 11.1% on average for grocery coupons in 2011. Overall, consumers saved $4.6 billion using coupons last year, $500 million more than 2010, according to Valassis. Some 80.6% of consumers report using coupons regularly, up 17 share points from pre-recession levels, according to the Annual Topline U.S. Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) Coupon Facts Report, released by NCH Marketing Services, Inc. In 2011, CPG marketers distributed 305 billion coupons, representing an 8.1% decrease from the prior year.
International News
Kraft Foods released a report from the World Economic Forum's New Vision for Agriculture initiative, which shares insights from the last year's work driving agricultural transformations in Vietnam, Indonesia, Mexico and Tanzania. Vietnamese farmers in pilot projects expect to boost fruit and vegetable yields 30% in 2012 and 100% by 2014. In another project, tea farmers achieved a 30% increase in the amount of Rainforest Alliance-certified tea, improving livelihoods and using resources more efficiently. The report was prepared in collaboration with McKinsey & Company.
Health News
About 89% of U.S. women ages 18 to 34 consume the caffeine equivalent of 1.5 to two cups of coffee a day, according to a study published in American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. The study also found that caffeine changes women's estrogen levels and has different effects in Asian and white women, reported HealthDay.
Washington News
Hostess Brands Inc. is pursuing initiatives such as upgrading its vehicle fleet, closing five bakeries that "operate at low baking capacity" and outsourcing the production of certain Hostess baked goods to third-party bakeries as it restructures. The company is also seeking court permission to reject the 296 collective-bargaining agreements that cover the majority of its 19,000 employees, claiming that it cannot survive in the marketplace without significant changes to its labor obligations, reported The Wall Street Journal.
Market News
USDA continues to reduce and eliminate some of its in-season fruit and vegetable reporting. Vegetables will be reduced to one in-season report; most fruits will have one forecast report issued; and banana revisions, guava, olive, papaya and prune reports will all be eliminated. The current changes affect the 2012 growing season. All programs will be reevaluated in the future.