‘Children are drowning in a flood of unhealthy food’, says England’s outgoing chief medical officer Dame Professor Sally Davies, who is pushing for urgent regulation to tackle obesity.
The International Organization of the Flavor Industry (IOFI) is celebrating its 50th birthday this week. FoodNavigator caught up with IOFI executive director Sven Ballschmiede to learn about the challenges facing flavours manufacturers today and the trends...
Germany’s food minister Julia Klöckner has backed the controversial NutriScore system as Germany plans to establish a national voluntary food labelling scheme in the coming year.
Fraud is a big problem for rice brands. The commodity is susceptible to various scams, from passing off low-grade rice as premium to mixing it with bleached moldy rice, paper or even plastic. New research has developed a novel approach to detect food...
Food giant Nestlé has defended its recipes after Romania’s consumer watchdog raised concerns that ‘dual-quality’ food products were intentionally manufactured to contain unequal nutritional and compositional profiles for the Romanian market.
Bell Flavors & Fragrances is launching a range of natural hemp flavours and botanical hemp extracts in Europe. We spoke to the company about what is driving hemp, how the trend has developed and which categories are best-placed to capitalise.
Flavour and high costs remain two of the biggest challenges that the cell-based meat sector needs to overcome before production for everyday consumers can be realised, but its potential benefits for customisation are unrivalled, according to a recent...
Unilever is placing a new packaging label directly after the ‘best before’ text on certain food products: ‘often good after’. The initiative, developed in collaboration with Too Good To Go and industry players, aims to reduce food waste at the consumer...
The Seafood Alliance for Legality and Traceability (SALT) has launched a new initiative that aims to increase transparency and support collaboration in the global seafood sector.
Growing interest in sustainability has resulted in a proliferation of on-pack ethical claims from food makers. But how do we know what claims are true? The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) believes it has developed an answer.
Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands are the latest countries to adopt the International Palm Oil Free Certification Trademark (POFCAP), bringing the number of countries using the label to 20.
Researchers have developed a comprehensive index that measures the degree of naturalness in foods. The integrative tool could “significantly improve transparency, simplicity, and trust in the food marketplace,” Hero Group’s Luis Manuel Sánchez-Siles tells...
The European Union’s effort to take sole ownership of common cheese terms based on origin has ended in an agreement, protecting the fate of ‘mozzarella’ around the world.
The European Union (EU)’s recent demands that Australia remove food product names it claims are protected under the Geographical Indication (GI) scheme, such as feta or gruyere cheese, has angered the country’s F&B industry, but the government insists...
French business magazine Capital has published nine food products approved by a range of well-known rating methods, from nutritional composition-focused NutriScore to processing-driven NOVA.
An independent study has investigated how French smartphone app Yuka, which aims to help consumers choose products good for their health, works on the shop floor.
The German Sugar Industry Association has dismissed front-of-pack rating systems based on algorithms, arguing that NutriScore and traffic light labels mislead consumers.
French start-up Siga has developed a label that ranks food according to its degree of processing. The system aims to help consumers select the ‘most natural and healthy’ products on the shelf, CEO Aris Christodoulou tells FoodNavigator.
A gaming study investigating the effectiveness of front-of-pack labelling strategies on children has determined that colour – such as that used in traffic light labelling – is king.
Shifting consumer demand is shaping innovation in food flavours and colours. FoodNavigator speaks to experts in the field to bring you a rundown of the top six trends delivering disruptive innovation.
Baby foods often contain inappropriately high levels of sugar and are being incorrectly marketed as suitable for infants under the age of six months, according to the WHO Regional Office for Europe (WHO/Europe).
Food brands are profiting from ‘free-from’ fake news, claims an Italian consumer rights organisation, after its study found ‘palm oil free’ products were higher in saturates and less sustainable than their palm oil counterparts.
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) publishes pesticide residue looking at 12 food products across the bloc, Nestlé adopts Nutri-Score labels, and a comparison study identifies similarly branded food products with differing compositions.
Solveiga Pakštaitė, creator of the Mimica Touch, tells FoodNavigator how her award-winning innovation that could eliminate the problem of best before dates and food waste was inspired by working with people experiencing the challenge of visual impairment.
New legislation named after allergy victim Natasha Ednan-Laperouse requires food businesses to include full ingredients labelling on pre-packaged foods.
A European comparison study investigating ‘dual quality’ across the bloc has found that one-third of products tested have an identical or similar front-of-pack appearance, yet differing compositions.
Quality issues or product recalls always have short-term financial implications, but in today’s social media age the longer-term consequences of a loss of brand reputation and consumer confidence can be even more detrimental, warns food packing machinery...
The world's largest olive oil company, Deoleo, has aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals to “transform the industry”, chief commercial officer Miguel de Jaime tells FoodNavigator.
An Advocate General has questioned whether the absence of the indication of the origin or place of provenance of a foodstuff originating in a territory occupied by Israel could mislead the consumer. This last fortnight also saw EFSA raise concerns regarding...
A new opinion published by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has concluded that some population groups – particularly infants, children and adolescents – have too many phosphates in their diets. The opinion calls for a maximum level of phosphates...
Transitioning from conventional to organic farming methods is an expensive and time-consuming process. In an effort to better support farmers as they transition, French cooperative D’Aucy has developed a front-of-pack label that adds value and raises...
Updated gluten labelling guidance has been published in the UK by the Food & Drink Federation, which aims to “achieve greater consistency in how the presence of cereals containing gluten and gluten-free claims are labelled on pre-packed foods”.
Campaigners in the UK are calling for a government ban on cartoon animations on packets that market unhealthy products to children and compulsory ‘traffic light’ nutrition labelling after a survey discovered that half of over 500 food and drink products...
The EU Council has adopted a total ban on single-use plastics by 2021, farmers are angry as the Mercosur deal inches closer, while environmentalists have warned about a failure to tackle agriculture’s contribution to climate breakdown. FoodNavigator brings...
The Dutch advertising standards watchdog has reaffirmed its ruling that the labelling of FrieslandCampina’s Optimel Vanille Vla is misleading for consumers because it does not communicate the use of artificial flavours clearly enough on pack. According...
The Romanian government has cut VAT rates on healthy and traditional foods, a ‘Pro-NutriScore’ consumer group is urging the Commission to simplify nutritional labels, and an EU project has identified an olive tree disease in southern Italy. FoodNavigator...
Ingredion has added a new corn-based starch to its portfolio, which the ingredients supplier claims can replace fat and oil in dairy products without compromising texture.
The International Food & Beverage Alliance (IFBA), which includes Nestlé and Unilever as well as fast-food giant McDonald's, have set a goal of phasing out industrially produced trans fats (iTFAs) from the global food supply by 2023.
An EU-wide front-of-pack nutritional labelling scheme with colour coding could help reduce obesity levels and tackle rising non-communicable disease rates, argues the BEUC.
Exposure to light has a detrimental impact on the nutrient profile of dairy products. Awareness of the issue is currently low – but this is something Dr Catherine Birch, co-author of two white papers on the subject, believes needs to change.
The debate over front-of-pack nutritional labelling is intensifying in Germany after the country’s consumer watchdog slammed an industry-backed labelling scheme and the Hamburg Regional Court ordered Iglo to remove NutriScore from its products.
The Nutri-Score nutritional labelling system has officially launched in Belgium, France has announced plans to ban the use of additive titanium dioxide from 2020, and Iceland Foods lost its trademark dispute at the EUIPO. FoodNavigator brings you the...
The number of cases reported to the EU Food Fraud Network rose significantly last year. Requests from one European country to cooperate with others on food fraud cases rose to 234 in 2018, compared to 178 in 2017 and 157 in 2016, according to its annual...
French biomarine group Algaia say it is “benefitting from a pool of investors” having announced AgTech firm Sapec will take a 31% stake in the business.
Ingredients supplier Tate & Lyle takes us behind the scenes at its application centre in Lübeck, Germany, to try a number of vegan, reduced-sugar and clean label prototypes.
