Little Food Safety Progress
Leads Media To Look Closer
At Our Industry
With all the efforts the food industry is taking to enhance food safety, the overall national effort doesn’t seem to be having much effect. The latest assessment is leading to headlines such as CDC Says Not Much Progress in Fight Against Foodborne Illness: Significant declines in the incidence of foodborne illness were reported from 1996, […]
A Little Exercise
Goes A Long Way
To Better Health
Just recently we ran a letter from Tom Church, President of Church Brothers, LLC, as part of a piece entitled, FDA Status Quo Cannot Stand, which dealt with the FDA’s behavior in the Honduras cantaloupe incident. We had previously discussed the real life experience of a false positive and what it could do to a […]
French Vending Machine
Pilot Project
We always are seeking tools that can help the industry increase consumption while improving the health of the population. This interest is especially close to the heart when it comes to helping children to eat well. As such, we have paid some significant attention to efforts to sell via vending machine — a large market […]
Reading Tesco Between The Lines
As part of our extensive coverage of Tesco’s journey to America, we recently discussed comments about the performance of Fresh & Easy that Tesco released in the course of its recent earnings release. We entitled that piece, Tesco’s Earnings Report Comments Indicate Better Sales; $200 Million In Losses Expected. Tesco’s comments implied that sales at […]
Pundit’s Mailbag —
Fear Of Losing Market Share
We ran a piece entitled, Just Say No: The New Dynamic Of Producer/Buyer Relations, and followed it up with an extended discussion of transition at a large Salinas Valley based firm entitled, Tanimura & Antle Changes…A Sign Of The Times. There is a lot of pressure on the Salinas Valley, plenty of quiet layoffs. Yet […]
Produce Gets 60 Minutes Segment
CBS News correspondent Andy Rooney devoted one of his 60 Minutes commentaries to fresh produce. We wonder if Andy is reading the Pundit? His thesis: From the time you’re very young, someone is always telling us to eat more fruit. Well, I think we would eat more fruit if we knew for sure that it […]
Tesco’s Earnings Report
Comments Indicate Better Sales;
$200 Million In Losses Expected
Tesco has announced its earnings — without breaking out separate numbers for its new U.S. concept, Fresh & Easy. This was a change from its original commitment to provide complete data from the start on Fresh & Easy. We discussed the switch here. As we have mentioned many times, we would like nothing better than […]
Fix Suggested For FDA’s Vigilante System Of Banning Product
Through Import Alerts
The story of Agropecuaria Montelibano and the “import alert” the FDA imposed against its cantaloupes grown in Honduras still remains an issue of great concern — partly because the “import alert” is ongoing, partly because there are continuing issues with cantaloupes and partly because the conduct of the FDA poses troubling issues for the produce […]
More To Bear Stearns/JP Morgan
Deal Than Meets The Eye
Our piece, Lessons For Everyone From Bear Stearns, pointed out that in the collapse of that firm, there were lessons for all businesspeople regarding leverage — both the amount of leverage that can safely be accommodated and the importance of tying the term of the leverage to the assets you intend to hold. We happened […]
Despite Flawed FDA,
Cantaloupes Are Challenged
We’ve written quite a bit about Agropecuaria Montelibano and the “import alert” the FDA imposed against its cantaloupes grown in Honduras. We kicked off our coverage with FDA Fumbles Again On Cantaloupe ‘Alert’, and ran a special 14-article edition devoted solely to the issue, which we called We Are All Affected By Cantaloupe Issue and […]
