Dr Pepper Snapple is hunkering down, concentrating on cost-cutting and building its brands to maintain or increase market share, and has no plans to buy or sell any businesses for the time being, its CEO, Larry Young, said Monday. With sales flat or down for carbonated soft drinks – both industrywide and for Dr Pepper – the company is putting most of its effort behind Snapple, one of the...
Food Industry Archive
December 2008
Coke to launch stevia drinks — Coca-Cola will start selling drinks containing stevia in the U.S., even though the FDA has not yet declared that the new zero-calorie sweetener is safe. PepsiCo said it will wait for official approval before marketing its own stevia products. [Source: AP] FDA says mercury in fish OK — A Food and Drug Administration report says children and mothers...
Dunkin’ Replaces CEO Luther with Papa John’s Chief The Associated Press says that the resume of Dunkin’ Brands’ new CEO Nigel Travis “reads like a list of diet don’ts – pizza, ice cream and doughnuts.” Travis, 58, will replace Jon Luther, the man credited with turning Dunkin’ Brands around, in the new year. Papa John’s is looking for a...
Pilgrim’s Pride Lost Nearly $1 Billion in 2008 — The chicken producer filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last week. Its annual report had been held up because of ongoing talks with lenders. [Source: AP] World’s Largest Pork Plant is Unionized — Meat cutters at Smithfield Foods’ Tar Heel, N.C. plant voted to join the United Food and Commercial Workers. The...
The Food and Drug Administration has quietly withdrawn its order banning extralabel use of the antibiotic cephalosporin, so that it can “fully consider the comments” it has received on the issue. When the agency announced the order on July 3, drug companies and agriculture groups were outraged. So many comments poured in that the FDA delayed implementation and extended the public...
Grupo Bimbo, Latin America’s largest baker, is intent on owning a big chunk of the U.S. baked-goods market. And even in this anemic debt market, it is willing to borrow its way in. In 2002, it paid $610 million for part of George Weston Ltd. of Canada. On Wednesday, it announced it was buying the rest of Weston’s U.S. operations for $2.38 billion – all of it financed with debt....
Sara Lee to outsource 700 jobs — Sara Lee announced plans to outsource certain transaction-processing activities, resulting in the elimination of 700 company jobs. This is the latest step in Sara Lee’s “Accelerate” cost-saving initiative. [Source: Chicago Tribune] DineEquity suspends dividend — The Applebee’s and IHOP owner has indefinitely suspended common...
Restaurant Industry Loses Jobs — The business has been a net job loser for five straight months. Poor sales and high costs are to blame. [Source: Wall Street Journal] Yum Brands CFO: We’re Big in China — The parent of KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut says it will easily glide to profit growth of 15 to 20 percent in China in 2009. The company opened 550 stores in China this year...
The McDonald’s latte has come to Chicago — the biggest U.S. market yet for the McCafe phenomenon. New TV ads are luring Chicagoans to the chain’s newly-equipped restaurants, using promises of free sample drinks every Monday. And supposedly, the majority of McDonald’s restaurants across the country will be espresso-and-froth-capable by the middle of next year. It’s...
Pepsico’s Tropicana recently redesigned its bottles, with an on-package advertisement touting the new “fresh snap cap.” What it didn’t tout was that there were seven fewer ounces of orange juice in the bottle — 89, down from 96 — though the price remained unchanged. This, according to Tropicana, had nothing to do with boosting the per-ounce price of the...
- QuikTrip Campaign Gets Honest and Scoffs at Obesity Concerns
- No Action from New Cadbury Contestants, But Plenty of Talk
- Anticlimactic End to High Profile Agriprocessors Immigration Raid
- Industry Should Find Alternatives to BPA
- KFC Winning Chicken War Over El Pollo Loco
- Hershey and Ferrero's Cadbury Interest Unlikely to Push Up Kraft Bid
- FDA Accused of Caving to Industry in Oyster Row
- Agriprocessors Verdict, Pending Immigration Charges, and a Bizarre Response
- Burger King Goes Too Far in Price War
- More on Starbucks Barista Discontent over Pushing Via
- Food Companies Cut Down on Ingredients, If Not Sugar or Fat
- Assault on Salt Inspires New Products and Strategies
- Dairy Industry Attacks Sodas to Defend Chocolate Milk
- Dean Foods Accused of Silk Soy Milk 'Bait and Switch'
- Kraft Battle for Cadbury Takeover Just Beginning
- Glenn Beck More Popular Than Ever Despite Boycott
- Meat Industry: Meatless Monday Threatens Our Way of Life
- Food, Soda and Candy Bar Companies Unite to Fight Obesity
- Despite Industry Efforts, 'H1N1' Will Never Replace 'Swine Flu'
- New York City Attacks Sugary Soft Drinks with Ad Campaign
- Industry Should Find Alternatives to BPA
- New 90 Calorie Coke Can is Good Business Strategy, If Nothing Else
- No Industry Enthusiasm for PETA's Vegan Proposal
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- New Strategy Against Bottled Water: Satire
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