The management systems community
9th May 2008
Sweeteners and colourings in food aimed at children should be banned, while additives ought to be used in other products only if they provide an advantage to the consumer, said the EU Environment Committee.
9th May 2008
Unilever has pledged to use only palm oil certified as sustainable by 2015, while also supporting calls for a moratorium on further deforestation for palm oil in Indonesia.
9th May 2008
Products are increasingly being designed, manufactured and packaged with a new focus on the end of their life cycle – and beyond
6th May 2008
Scientists also warned that there will be other effects of global warming that could also have a serious impact on tropical regions, particularly on food crops.
30th Apr 2008 by Alex Briggs
This Associated Press exclusive report states that two of the US’ largest beef slaughterhouses have been cited by the Food Safety and Inspection Service for their treatment of cattle, which resulted in “noncompliances” being issued.
24th Apr 2008 by Alex Briggs
This article highlights the important role that standards and schemes are playing in assuring consumer trust in UK food companies. The Food Standards Agency (FSA) carried out research that is the basis of the article’s conclusions.
15th Apr 2008 by Alex Briggs
With the new Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO) coming into force today, oil companies are required oil companies to ensure all petrol and diesel they sell in the UK contains a minimum level of biofuel. This article in the Independent takes a closer look at the debate over the use of farm land as a transportation fuel source.
8th Apr 2008
The Minister will discuss how the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC), the new mandatory carbon cap-and-trade scheme, will impact businesses operating in the UK.
1st Apr 2008
Quality digest talks about ISO 22000, the global food saftey standard, and how it impacts on food processing and food-ingredient supply chains.
17th Mar 2008
The Maine lobster industry is seeking to have its lobster certified as sustainable by the London-based Marine Stewardship Council.
17th Mar 2008
Consultation on an addition to a draft EU-wide regulation relating to the use of plastic and other food contact materials has started in Northern Ireland.
13th Mar 2008
The IFOAM Trade Congress 2008 was held on the day before BioFach opened in Nuremberg and addressed important issues of worldwide product sourcing, transparency in trade and potential opportunities for fraud. In their contributions, several speakers from USA, Germany and the Netherlands examined the problems from different angles.
10th Mar 2008
Millions more of the world’s most vulnerable people are facing starvation as food shortages loom and crop prices spiral ever upwards.
5th Mar 2008
After a year of food scares, China tries to assure the world that food for Olympians will be safe. John Vause reports. See the video on CNN.
Event: 12th Mar 2008 – 13th Mar 2008
LRQA will be present at the event with a stand and Cor Groenveld will deliver a presentation on the subject “Food Standards: current situation and future developments”. This presentation will not only cover food safety and quality, but also sustainability, security and supply chain assurance.
27th Feb 2008
The UK’s Food Standards Agency (FSA) has begun consultation with food and beverage manufacturers over their progress in bringing plastic packaging contact materials in line with health and safety rules.
27th Feb 2008
Businessassurance.com subscribers are encouraged to take advantage of a 15% discount off Corporate Climate Response - London, which takes place May 20-21st at the CBI Conference Centre.
Event: 20th May 2008 – 21st May 2008
This event will cover the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC), the UK’s new mandatory carbon trading scheme and Climate Change and the Food Industry, by looking at the climate impact across the food supply chain from agriculture through to waste.
15th Feb 2008 by Alex Briggs
The UK FSA is set to discuss a report on food safety issues at their next meeting.
The report includes progress made in certain areas of food safety, while raising a red flag concerning foodbourne illnesses.
11th Feb 2008 by Alex Briggs
The Co-operative Group, have announced transparent, detailed plans on addressing stakeholder concerns. They will ban the sale of eggs from caged hens, convert its entire own-brand hot beverage range to Fairtrade, reduce the weight of its wine packaging and add a further 66 pesticides to its prohibited list.
6th Feb 2008 by Alex Briggs
Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, said GFSI standards provide real-time details on where suppliers fall short in food safety on a plant-by-plant basis, and go beyond the current audit process required by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration or U.S. Department of Agriculture.
29th Jan 2008
Food and Drink manufacturers, who currently account for 10% of global industrial water usage, have signed up to a voluntary agreement to slash their water usage by up to 20%.
Cadbury Schweppes, Premier Foods, Tate & Lyle and Nestlé UK, among others, have signed up to a Food and Drink Federation initiative to reduce their impact on the environment.
25th Jan 2008 by Alex Briggs
CHR Hanson has published their environmental report, with the focus being around sustainable business.
We need to improve our monitoring capacity further to ensure that our baseline measurements are correct and comparable,” the company stated.
25th Jan 2008 by Alex Briggs
The UK government is announing plans on simplifying food labelling. This article examines the plans to tackle obesity through a new labelling system.
21st Jan 2008 by Alex Briggs
A Food and Drink Europe article states that simple front-of-pack nutritional labelling and endorsement by health organisations are most efficient in informing consumers, according to a new Unilever study.
The article concluded:
It says: “The current challenge is therefore to come up with a harmonised European or even global front-of-pack labelling format across all foods.”
18th Jan 2008 by Alex Briggs
Alcoa is the latest organisation to sign up for the California Climate Registry (CCR), making their carbon emissions available to the public.
The CCR is awarding founding reporter status to companies that sign up to the scheme before May 2008, as an incentive for early membership.
Companies that sign up commit to voluntarily measure, independently verify and publicly report their industrial gas emissions.
The CCR’s Gary Gero is interviewed in this Voluntary Carbon Standard podcast.
15th Jan 2008
Britain’s latest “Metric Martyr” - under EU directives compelling Britain to use only the metric system of weights and measures.
14th Jan 2008
Product recalls in the UK hit a new high as problems with goods from China increased, new research says.
14th Jan 2008 by Alex Briggs
Organic or fairtrade? Sustainable or certified? With so many labels on food, clothes and white goods, it’s a miracle that we make it to the checkout before closing time. This article in the Observer takes a look at some of the labels out there. Which ones live up to their eco credentials?
9th Jan 2008
Aurora Organic Dairy will join forces with the University of Michigan to measure and reduce its carbon footprint across the lifecycle of its product line.
21st Dec 2007
Significant lessons have been learned from recent food scares like foot and mouth this year, but more works needs to be done on communication, says the British Frozen Foods Federation (BFFF).
20th Dec 2007
Brazilian cattle ranchers seeking to export beef to the European Union will face tighter rules from next month, the European Commission said on Wednesday, responding to the concerns of European farmers, a Reuters article reports.
19th Dec 2007
The Soil Association’s organic fish farming standards scored 90% and took top place in a World Wildlife Fund (WWF) study of 24 international aquaculture certification schemes.
17th Dec 2007
Last autumn, Sainsbury’s announced it was trying something new with the way it sourced its milk.
7th Dec 2007
Environmental campaigners urged the UK Food Standards Agency (FSA) to improve its emergency system at yesterday’s review meeting on the unauthorised GM rice incident, reveals a recent article on foodnavigator.com.
3rd Dec 2007
GC Hahn has opened the doors to its modernised production site in Lubeck, which aims to cater to the increasing demand for the very highest standards in food safety and traceability, so a recent artcile on Foodqualitynews.com reports.
3rd Dec 2007
East Anglian grain co-op Camgrain has signed a multi-million pound deal with Sainsbury’s to become the sole supplier of wheat used in the supermarket group’s bread.
26th Nov 2007 by Alex Briggs
The GRI announced today that several high profile global food processors have joined their sustainability reporting programme.
Nestlé, Bunge, Danisco, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, and Tyson Foods are the first food processors to join a programme to develop global reporting standards on sustainability projects in the sector.
30th Oct 2007 by Alex Briggs
Anheuser Busch has denied serious allegations by Greenpeace that their Budweiser beer contains traces of a genetically engineered strain of rice known as “Liberty Link”.
Liberty Link is a series of strains of GM rice from Bayer CropScience. Some of the strains are banned in a number of markets around the world for human consumption, but not in the US.
Due to Anheuser Busch’s position as the largest single purchaser of American rice, Greenpeace claims that the group had a responsibility to ensure it was fully aware of how it is sourcing ingredients.
2nd Oct 2007 by Cor Groenveld
An article in the Sydney Morning Herald addresses the food safety concerns in China. The Chinese Government revoked the production licenses of hundreds of companies. It is known that food safety is very high on the agenda of China’s government. Reasons for that are the coming Olympics and the negative publicity from several food scandals. […]
2nd Oct 2007 by Cor Groenveld
Small and medium food companies often struggle with food safety requirements. The USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) has created a website to help small and medium size firms better manage their food safety.
2nd Oct 2007
A CNN article has taken a holistic look at the causes and effects of global food waste:
According to the UN Food Programme, US food waste could:
satisfy “every empty stomach” in Africa
Some other key facts from the article:
The US and Japan waste up to 50% of all their food
the entire food supply chain in the […]
24th Sep 2007 by Alex Briggs
This Times article has raised a difficult topic for organic farmers.
The article reveals that Helen Browning, the director of food and farming at the Soil Association, sends pig shoulders from Wiltshire, England to Germany for processing into sausages and imports pork loins from Sweden to make bacon.
24th Sep 2007 by Alex Briggs
The Vegetarian Society has launched a new ad campaign on climate change. The ads are aimed at educating the public as to the carbon emitted by livestock.
This often overlooked issue was addressed by Rowland Hill, the Sustainability Manager at Marks and Spencer, in one of our podcasts as he talked about measuring the carbon footprint of their top selling ready meal, Beef Lasagne:
20th Sep 2007 by Alex Briggs
Successful consumer led campaigns against companies using cheap labour may be the blueprint for upcoming campaigns aimed at brands not paying enough attention to the “greenness” of their global supply chain.
This Supply Chain Digest article once again shows that brands cannot afford to get their supply chain wrong.
It is no longer enough for a brand […]
18th Sep 2007
The food safety dispute between the US and China has now taken on a further political dimension, with Chinese authorities inspecting all incoming food from the US.
17th Sep 2007
Sainsbury’s announced they are withdrawing certain packs of breakfast cereals due to small insects in the packages.
14th Sep 2007 by Alex Briggs
The Arizona Republic ran a story on a recent Associated Press study indicating that the anticipated wave of government and industry regulation following last year’s E Coli outbreak has not materialised.
AP’s review of data obtained through the Freedom of Information Act found that federal officials inspect companies growing and processing salad greens an average of just once […]
11th Sep 2007
A Food-Navigator.com article explains the results of a US government panel that was set up by President Bush to evaluate the current US food import policy.
4th Sep 2007
New label regulation is under way in the US which requires all beef, lamb, pork, produce and peanuts to be labeled indicating what country of origin the products were grown or produced in, starting in September 2008.
3rd Sep 2007
According to an article from Associated Press 90 brands were caught up in the recent recall of canned chili, stew, spinach, petfood and frozen meat.
30th Aug 2007
An article in the Sunday Telegraph, Britain’s supermarkets are keeping prices low and suppliers are suffering.
30th Jul 2007
Authors of a new study in an NewScientist Environment article have said, switching to organic farming would not reduce the world’s food supply and could also increase food security in developing countries.
12th Jul 2007
Ethical Corporation seems to think so. In the editorial for the July issue, Tobias Webb argues that the combination of cost savings and product differentiation will benefit Walkers considerably.
3rd Apr 2007
Under current legislation in the UK, producers of compostable waste may need to apply for a license before they can spread it on land.
According to an article on the IEMA website, he new Quality Protocol proposed by the Environment Agency in England and Wales will mean that compostable products will be easier to dispose.
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