Food Industry Archive

Food companies aren’t faring so well when it comes to positive publicity for their nutrition efforts. A group of doctors just tore up their American Academy of Family Physicians membership cards in protest of the organization’s nutrition-promoting partnership with the Coca-Cola Company. San Francisco attorneys just sent Kellogg a warning over its large front-of-package claims that...

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Is McDonald’s really everywhere? Well, it’s no longer in Iceland. That story has attracted a ridiculous amount of media attention, but it looks like Lyst, the franchise owner there, made a pretty logical move. Apparently the three Iceland locations had “never been this busy before… but at the same time profits have never been lower.” Lyst had to import ingredients...

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KFC did its third grilled chicken giveaway on Monday. It was more successful than the first round — stores didn’t run out of supplies like they did in May, when a partnership with Oprah Winfrey wound up generating so much publicity that KFC couldn’t keep up and had to issue rain checks. But once again, El Pollo Loco was ready to use the KFC promotion for its own gain. The...

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The food industry has gotten a lot of ridicule for its support of dubious nutrition programs lately. Health experts have criticized the American Academy of Family Physicians for partnering with the Coca-Cola Company to teach kids about nutrition. The Smart Choices program, which puts a green check mark on supposedly healthier products, faced so much criticism for its endorsement of sugary...

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Smart Choices has wisely decided to put itself on hold. The front-of-label nutrition labeling scheme was supposed to help consumers quickly determine which products were better for them via a friendly green check mark on the front of the box, but the project attracted scrutiny from the media, the Food and Drug Administration and the state of Connecticut when it came out that endorsed Smart...

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After a week of controversy, PepsiCo has decided to do away with an iPhone application made by Amp energy drink. The application, called “Amp Up Before You Score” let players choose pick-up lines to use on a bunch of different types of women — i.e. “sorority girl,” “nerd,” “treehugger,” etc. — and then keep track of and brag about...

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Oh dear. Apparently the Baltimore public school system is forcing all of its students to go vegan and chant “meat is murder” before and after every class. No, wait, what was that? I’m sorry, I got that wrong. In fact, the schools have merely adopted Meatless Monday, meaning that one day a week, there is no meat on the menu in the school cafeteria, with the goal of cutting...

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Cadbury reported higher-than-expected revenues and upgraded its outlook yesterday, potentially raising the bar for any attempted takeover bid by Kraft Foods. Kraft made a $16.7 billion dollar offer for the British company in September, which Cadbury rejected. Cadbury then got the U.K. Panel on Takeovers and Mergers to set a November 9 deadline for an official bid, meaning that if Kraft...

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The Food and Drug Administration has put its foot down: the food industry must voluntarily adhere to a reasonable, standardized front-of-label system or risk having one imposed upon it by the government. “If voluntary action … does not result in a common, credible approach to front-of-package and shelf labelling, we will consider using our regulatory tools toward that end,”...

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The Coca-Cola Company is all about health lately, apparently. It’s part of the recently launched Healthy Weight Commitment Foundation, a food industry-led anti-obesity campaign; it’s working with the American Academy of Family Physicians on a nutritional education campaign; and now it’s releasing Coke in a smaller can to help consumers manage their calorie intake. Well,...

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