31-Jul-2012 - Sir,The Britvic Fruit Shoot recall is a lesson to other British food and drink manufacturers to ensure that they get their supply chains in better working order.
31-Jul-2012 - Dairy farmers have been taking to the streets. They have been protesting outside parliament and at the premises of milk processors about the poor prices they are being paid for milk - sometimes 5p a litre below the costs of production.
30-May-2012 - Sir, I have worked in the food industry for 20 years and now approach my final year of an MBA at Manchester Business School.
05-May-2012 - Is food manufacturing doing as well as anecdotal comments suggest?
01-May-2012 - Sir,Your story on the use of microwave pasteurisation at S&R Foods (Food Manufacture, May 2011) said products placed near the walls of retorts tend to be overcooked to ensure those nearer the centre are cooked. This is simply not the case with retorts, even if the technology between equipment is different.
01-May-2012 - Sir,As a 60+ executive, who spent his life serving retailers in the fast- moving consumer goods sector, including the food industry, I felt it imperative to respond to the editor's view in the March issue of Food Manufacture on the imbalance between the retailers and their suppliers. A level playing field is indeed what is required.
01-Apr-2012 - If there is one single piece of advice that the food and drink industry, and indeed the wider global community, needs to hear at this particular juncture it would be this: accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative.
01-Apr-2012 - Is marketing compatible with good food science? I ask this having recently attended two conferences on the new European Nutrition and Health Claims regulation at which the two appeared to be pulling in opposite directions.
27-Feb-2012 - Sir,I suspect some of your editorial comments regarding the Public Health Responsibility Deal (PHRD) need to be taken with a pinch of salt! (See Editor's view, p3 Food Manufacture February 2012.)
01-Aug-2011 - You would not imagine that there would be a link between the News of The World (NoTW, now deceased) and nutrition health claims.
22-Jun-2011 - Racing driver, Spitfire pilot, concert pianist, prima ballerina. Let’s face it, food factory manager or food technologist are not up there with the traditional dream professions for children destined to be the ‘brightest and best’ of tomorrow.
01-May-2011 - I recently visited Danisco’s Health & Nutrition Research Centre in Finland and I was seriously impressed with its scientists, facilities and research initiatives.
01-May-2011 - Does the Responsibility Deal match the challenges ahead? Strong and enduring partnerships, including enhanced engagement of smaller businesses, will be key to maintained momentum with salt and trans fat reduction.
01-May-2011 - March saw the launch of the grandiose-sounding Public Health Responsibility Deal (PHRD) and the end of the Sustainable Development Commission (SDC).
05-Apr-2011 - We live in uncertain times. I am sure I’m not alone in being concerned by recent global events that are the backdrop to other worries closer to home, such as the fragile state of our economy and the impact of swingeing public sector cuts.
01-Apr-2011 - In February 2010, Nature magazine presented to the world the first glimpse of the human genome: a garland of approximately 3bn nucleotides. Genomic analysis has revealed that, at the DNA level, humans are 99.9% identical. This implies that much of the biological and nutritional variability between individuals is due to the remaining 1% of the genome.
01-Apr-2011 - As an industry we spend a great deal of time and money developing ‘healthy’ food solutions and menus for schools and support the ‘food’ education of children in school. However, once a child leaves the school gate there is very little support and, in many cases, that education stops when he or she gets home.
01-Apr-2011 - With the ‘responsibility deal’ on salt reduction in food supported by major retailers and manufacturers, others should be asked to sign up to responsibility deals of a different kind.
01-Mar-2011 - I recently presented a paper on reformulation at a food and health debate run by The Grocer. I described Leatherhead research to cut salt, fat and sugar in foods but still maintain taste and texture. The research showed how micro-particulate salt could be used on crisps to fool the tongue into overestimating the salt present and how water-in-oil-in-water emulsions could cut the fat in mayonnaise. Those in industry also shared their reformulation successes.
01-Mar-2011 - The queen marched on, confident of her move. The bishop stayed near her, knowing that his position was vulnerable to attack. If the enemy struck, he would be the victim. Yet it would be an honour to die protecting his queen. The moment was tense. Then, out of nowhere, came the black knight. A weakness in my strategy had left my queen exposed after all. In a flash, her majestic figure came crashing down. Her fall signalled the end of our game.
01-Mar-2011 - It’s going to be another challenging year for industry. With VAT increases, soaring fuel costs and extreme weather conditions influencing ingredients, it hasn’t begun well.
01-Mar-2011 - Responsibility for food labelling in England moved to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) from the Food Standards Agency (FSA) last year. Since then, there has been a deafening silence on the fate of the draft Date Marking Guidance and decision tree.
03-Feb-2011 - The media described the recent incident concerning dioxin in pork and egg products from animals fed with dioxin-contaminated feed as ‘a scandal’. But this is compounded by the needless and wasteful slaughter of expensively reared animals and the destruction of food that would not have hurt any consumer.
28-Jan-2011 - The Foresight report, Global Food and Farming Futures, is expected to shape the agenda. It looks to 2050 and takes a global view of the food system, considering demand, production and supply, as well as broader environmental issues.
28-Jan-2011 - At a recent Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council workshop, I was discussing food security and world hunger. I won’t rehearse the well-known ‘perfect storm’ paradigm, but suffice to say that food might run short.