Rewe, Europe's fourth largest retailer, has revealed ambitious
plans to increase its market share and expand internationally using
its €1billion investment budget for 2006.
Ahold's acquisition of 56 stores in the Czech Republic is part of
the company's plans to expand its position in central Europe
following its complete withdrawal from the Spanish and Asian
markets.
An EU's law change and an exposé on fraud in the UK has led an
organic industry body to call on those storing ingredients for
processing to ensure their premises are inspected.
Europeans in 39 countries spent a combined total of €1,363bn on
food and groceries in 2004, with Germany as the largest market, to
be overtaken by Russia in 2020, according to IGD Services.
US ingredients player reaches deeper into Europe, clearing a deal
this week to buy industrial chocolate facility Schierstedter
Schokoladefabrik from existing customer, Ludwig Schokolade,
writes Lindsey Partos.
Europe's blossoming organic food production, already benefiting
from the world's biggest organic food research budget, is predicted
to grow fastest in the EU's new member states over the next few
years, presenting new...
PepsiCo has the potential to dominate the emerging snacks market in
Eastern Europe after buying out General Mills' 40.5 per cent share
in Snack Ventures Europe (SVE) for $750 million (€560 million),
writes Chris Mercer.
Switzerland's Barry Callebaut group has made no secret of its
desire to move into the added-value segment of the confectionery
market, reducing its reliance on the volatile commodity segment
through a number of acquisitions....
Leading German food retailer Aldi says that it is looking at
markets in central Europe, with a particular emphasis on the Czech
Republic and Poland. But is it too late to try and enter two of the
most developed discount food retail...
Givaudan, the Swiss flavour and fragrance producer, is to
consolidate its European flavour production business, moving
production from its Dutch site to two other facilities in Germany
and Switzerland.
European regulators have forced Germany to rethink its
controversial - and commercially damaging - deposit system for
one-way packaging, ruling that it contravened regulations on the
free movement of goods between EU member states....
Switzerland's sweet and savoury biscuit sector saw a return to
growth in 2003 due entirely to a strong upswing in export sales -
but domestic sales fell for the second year in succession as a
result of cheaper imports from the...
Germans munch their way through more organic foods than the French
and British put together, so finds a new report from Mintel, that
reveals in Germany alone the organic market tipped €3.2 billion.
Price remains a key barrier to growth...
Russian ice cream producer AlterVest has bought up two major
production facilities, one in Germany and one in Poland, in an
effort to spread its business reach and to reduce the costs
associated with exporting its products.
Almost one in four (23 per cent) German adults admits to often
skipping meals to keep their weight down - a massive 17.5 million
people. But according to a new survey of European dieting habits,
Germans are also the least likely to...
The US-based natural food group Hain Celestial is snapping up
German manufacturer of soy, oat and rice-based drinks Natumi,
expanding its operations in Europe and giving it access to a
non-dairy production facility in the region.
A wide range of organic or health food products on sale in the UK
contain traces of genetically modified (GM) ingredients, according
to a study due to be published in April, reports CORDIS.
As an army of chemists around the world continues the march towards
replicating in the laboratory the sweetest gifts from nature, a
small group in West Africa is determined to stake a claim in the
process.
A new gelatine replacer from Dutch company DMV International
carried off the gold award for the most innovative new ingredient
on the marketplace, rounding off the first day of the bustling Fi
Europe exhibition that opened its doors...
Food industry players in France are concerned that legislators
there will go down the same draconian route as their counterparts
in Germany when they come to update the country's packaging waste
legislation early in the new year.
Russia's largest brewer, Baltika Brewery, has said that it expects
beer exports to Germany this year to far exceed the 1.25 million
litres that it exported to the country in 2002.
Metro, the German retail group, has reported sales growth in the
first six months of the year and is predicting further gains for
the full-year. Signs, perhaps, that the German recovery may be on
the way?
Germany's biggest supermarket retailer, Edeka, is to tackle the
threat from discounters such as Aldi with a 500-strong line of
cut-price own label products.
The European Commission's Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health met last week to discuss again the avian influenza situation in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany.
Metro has shrugged off currency concerns and the tough German
economic conditions to post a rise in sales for the first quarter.
But most of the improvement came from non-food operations, and
there is still work to do to improve the...
Price discounting by retailers and the strength of the Swiss franc
severly reduced exports of biscuits from Switzerland to Germany, by
far the most important foreign market. The situation is no better
at home, with cheap imports reducing...
German retail group Metro is run a series of ads in the German
press to promote its new image as a vibrant, international business
- part of an ongoing process of streamlining the company and
generating growth.
Degussa Texturant Systems, a unit of German speciality chemicals
company, Degussa announced this week that its plant in Decatur,
USA, has been awarded Cert-ID non-GMO system certification for its
lecithin production system.
Stollwerck, the German confectionery group, is to close two ageing
production facilities and transfer production of its Gubor brand to
the Van Houten plant near Hamburg, according to parent company
Barry Callebaut.
Expanding its Plus discount supermarket fascia in Spain and
Portugal, and good performances from non-food subsidiaries KiK and
OBI, helped Germany's Tengelmann group to a solid increase in sales
for 2002, despite difficult economic...
Sales of organic juices in Europe are projected to reach €90
million in 2002, according to a study by Organic Monitor which
states that the rise in popularity is a result of consumer demand
for healthy foods.
Germany tries to reassure its trading partners of the safety of its
organic foodstuffs amid fears that the European Commission is
planning to ban them because of the nitrofen contamination scare.
Poultry meat in Denmark, the Netherlands and Austria is being
tested for traces of a dangerous herbicide which entered the
European food chain via a pesticide store in former East Germany.
German chocolate manufacturer Stollwerck AG is working at about
half its production capacity, new parent, Switzerland's Barry
Callebaut, said on Monday
German chemical company Degussa is to sell its SKW Piesteritz-Group
as part of the company's aim to focus on specialty chemicals. A
Memorandum of Understanding has been signed with Swiss wheat and
fertiliser trading company Ameropa...
Leading Norwegian food company the Rieber & Søn Group has
entered into an agreement with Danish ingredients company Danisco
to take over the Danisco's crispy onions activities in Holland,
with a sales office in Germany.
The latest "mad cow disease" scare in Germany got a boost over the
weekend after reports that the McDonald's fast food restaurant
chain in Germany had pulled beef from circulation, Reuters Health
reports.
A consignment of fishmeal feed produced in Germany using some
ingredients contaminated with an antibiotic presents no danger to
public health, the Lower Saxony state agriculture ministry in
Germany said yesterday.
German authorities are searching for a consignment of imported veal
contaminated with an antibiotic which can halt production of human
blood cells, the federal Ministry of Agriculture and Consumer
Protection said.
US natural and organic food company Hain Celestial Group, announced
this week that it has completed its acquisition of Lima NV, a
Belgian natural and organic foods manufacturer and marketer.
The global organic banana market is growing rapidly and could
account for three per cent of sales in the next three years, the
United Nations food body said on Wednesday.
As the food industry takes a look at itself this week during the
massive Anuga Food show in Cologne, Germany, our compatriots in the
Southern Hemisphere launch Austrade, a round of Global Food
Seminars.
US consumer products group Sara Lee Corporation announced today
that the company's subsidiary headquartered in The Netherlands has
signed an agreement for the acquisition of the Polish coffee
business, Prima S.A.
An economic downturn may not hurt the U.K. market for organic food
products, Robert Duxbury, technical manager for organic products at
J Sainsbury PLC told Dow Jones Newswires Monday.
The British spirits and wine group Allied Domecq PLC announced on
September 4 that it has acquired Kümmerling GmbH for Euro20.35m in
cash on a debt free basis.
