Inside food & drink manufacturing
Six-out-of-10 food manufacturers are planning to pump more cash into improving the quality of product data exchanged with customers this year, according to Food Manufacture’s annual state of the nation survey.
Dairy Crest has sold the bulk of its stake in Irish milk, cheese and cream maker Wexford Creamery to help pay off debts and reduce its exposure to “volatile commodity markets”.
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Consumers, observed Mintel’s David Jago at a Leatherhead Food Research conference on natural trends last week, want foods that are ‘wholesome’, ‘authentic’, and above all ‘natural’, although few of them can articulate what this actually means.
Plants native to the British Isles from wild raspberries and elderflowers to seaweed could prove just as exciting to food developers as the exotic flora and fauna of South America and Africa, according to experts at Kew Gardens.