Some very worrying research has come from the University of Liverpool and Imperial College London, which suggests that the shortage of fresh food which would certainly be caused by the disruption engendered by any no deal Brexit and also, importantly, a free-trading agreement with the EU and even with third-party countries. All scenarios would necessitate… Read more
Category:
Food
Vegan meat problem
A short pointer towards a suggested read – Joanna Blythman’s concise article here (in the food trade Bible – ‘The Grocer’) ‘Why we should resist the vegan putsch’ on the suggestion that we should eat very little meat from the Eat-Lancet Commission. Surprisingly and worryingly to me, it seems to have the chemical company, Monsanto,… Read more
Playing chicken in lots of different ways
There is a just published article in ‘The Grocer’ stating that food suppliers are running out of space to stockpile goods. the price of storage had risen by 15% per pallet per week in recent weeks, with inflation across the third quarter as a whole of 8%, but all of the chilled space in London… Read more
Sweet failure
According to the FT the amount raised so far by the sugar tax is ‘rather disappointing’. That is understandable. Because, to do the job properly, what the tax should have been targeted at is not sugar, but sweetness. Soft drink manufacturers have been congratulating themselves on how they have managed to reduce their sugar content… Read more
Why we shouldn’t tolerate Palm Oil
Iceland is the only grocer to have removed Palm Oil entirely from their own label products and they’ve managed it in less than a year. Not unreasonably they wanted to shout about this, but their Christmas advert has been banned for being ‘too political’. After all, there have been worries about private equity and other… Read more
Amazon Fresh thinking?
This week’s ‘Sunday Times’ business carried an article suggesting that Amazon are still anxious to improve their presence in the UK grocery market. ‘Retail Insider’ reckons: The UK and especially Tesco will also represent the real challenge for Amazon Fresh, if it wants to become internationally accepted. If Amazon can really challenge Tesco in its… Read more
US regulatory food incompetence
Just in case anyone was subdued into acceptance of the idea that the USA food system functions well – never mind even better than the UK or EU systems, we should just take on board, that here is the world’s largest meatpacker recalling 6.9 million pounds of beef linked to antibiotic-resistant Salmonella. So input antibiotics… Read more
Sugar tax own goal
We may now have the sugar tax, but of course what most of the soft drink suppliers have done is substitute other sweeteners for sugar (which we have consumed for about 500 years). I’m unaware of any trials that suggest the alternative sweeteners are in fact either any better or even good for us at… Read more
Ready to Eat – or not?
We should not forget that “Prêt à manger” actually means “Ready to eat”. Calling it PRET disguises the idea, though I’m sure those that work for them have rarely, if indeed ever, thought about their origins. So they completely lost the philosophy of the company name when a poor girl succumbed to her allergy. We… Read more
Government Healthy Eating advice is useless and Tom Watson MP proves it!
There is a particularly trenchant article in the ‘Grocer’, no less, for this is the Bible of the food trade (and for once this is actually free to view) – on Government Healthy Eating advice, and Tom Watson’s role in showing them up for the sham they are. We have to look after ourselves and not… Read more