Food Industry Archive

Companies are doing their best to cash in on the excitement over Obama’s historic election, selling everything from Obama hot sauce to Obama toilet paper, and even Obama sex toys (h/t Salon.com). Within the food industry, PepsiCo has been the most brazen. Its new advertising theme is “refresh everything,” and it has a website inviting users to upload messages to the new...

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Kraft and P&G settle — Kraft and Proctor & Gamble announced that they have settled their ongoing series of patent infringement lawsuits and counter-lawsuits. The battle started when P&G accused Kraft’s Maxwell House of copying its Folgers coffee containers. The details of the settlement were not made public. [Source: AP] New farm worker visa rules take effect Saturday...

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Burger King sacrifices Facebook application — Citing “philosophical differences” with Facebook, Burger King has discontinued its Whopper Sacrifice campaign (which BNET covered last week). Burger King was giving free Whoppers to those willing to de-friend 10 of their Facebook contacts using the Whopper Sacrifice application. More than 230,000 friends were sacrificed, but...

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Kellogg Issues Salmonella ‘Precaution’ Kellogg is recommending that consumers avoid its Austin and Keebler brands of peanut-butter crackers. While the company says that its “investigation has not indicated any concerns,” it is taking “precautionary measures” because of an outbreak of salmonella that has sickened more than 400 people in 43 states. The tainted...

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Whole Foods Says Rivals Won’t Help It in FTC Fight — It’s a real pain when your competitors just won’t come across with their private financial data. Whole Foods has been asking for just that from 93 rivals as the troubled natural-foods grocer fights the Federal Trade Commission’s attempts to undo its 2007 acquisition of Wild Oats Market. Some of those rivals –...

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FTC Wants to ‘Halt’ Whole Foods-Wild Oats Merger Incredibly, the Federal Trade Commission is pressing ahead with its move to “halt” the merger between the two natural-foods grocers, despite the fact that the deal was made last year and the companies have been pretty much fully integrated. The FTC on Monday asked a federal judge to stop any merger activity as the...

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People around the world have taken to the streets to protest recent Israeli actions against the Gaza Strip, but many are also protesting through boycotts — often targeting U.S. food corporations that are perceived to be symbols of American interests, if not outright supporters of Israel. Thousands of restaurants in Malaysia have stopped serving Coca-Cola products. Muslim groups there are...

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Merisant files for bankruptcy — The maker of Equal and other low-cal sweeteners filed for chapter 11 protection today. Competing products like Splenda have been chipping away at Merisant’s market share, and the company has accumulated a lot of debt. But the company said it will continue with its recent launch of PureVia, a stevia-based sweetener, in partnership with PepsiCo....

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Burger King’s latest advertising stunt has gotten even more attention than its $3.99 burger-scented body spray. If you delete 10 of your Facebook friends using the “Whopper Sacrifice” application, you get a coupon for a free Whopper — and your ex-friends get notifications letting them know what you’ve done and why. I’m going to have to respectfully disagree...

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Forget polar bears and Greenland ice caps — global warming is threatening our food supply, and could bake the grain growing in the U.S. heartland before farmers ever get a chance to harvest it, warn climate scientists at the University of Washington. Today’s report in the Seattle Times – the Seattle newspaper that’s not up for sale — warns that crop yields in traditional...

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