PRESS RELEASE -
Charlotte, NC, March 13, 2015 - Sealed Air Corporation (NYSE: SEE) participated in the recent Global Food Safety Initiative’s (GFSI) conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, March 3-5. The 2015 conference, which welcomed experts and food service, retail, food and beverage manufacturers from more than 60 countries worldwide, chose the theme “Food Safety: A Shared Responsibility.”
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
JetBlue Airways recently launched its first business mentoring program, called BlueBud (buddies + budding new companies), which will offer small and startup responsible food companies an opportunity to get their businesses off the ground (pun intended) and their products onboard commercial aircraft.BlueBud offers mentorship to small food companies that are creating unique and novel concepts, helping them to connect with a diverse group of customers and maintain responsible practices. Participants will get special access to JetBlue's business leaders, who will offer participants access to the airline's unique product development culture, as well as valuable industry insights.
WASTE NOT -
WastED, a pop-up restaurant dedicated to food waste, opens today in Greenwich Village. Starting tonight, chef Dan Barber has suspended dinner service at his farm-to-table Blue Hill Restaurant to host this pop-up, where all-star chefs including Grant Achatz, Danny Bowien, Mario Batali, Dominique Crenn and Alain Ducasse will create menus with ingredients that are usually thrown away. WastED will run through the end of the month, with a menu of dishes devised from leftovers such as stems, peelings, rinds and bones.
SUPPLY CHAIN -
Just in time for Easter, Nestlé USA has announced an expansion of its commitment to sourcing sustainable cocoa through its global Nestlé Cocoa Plan. This year Nestlé, in partnership with UTZ Certified, has purchased enough certified cocoa to produce its entire Easter chocolate collection, marking a first for a major U.S. candy manufacturer.According to the National Confectioners Association, Easter is the second-largest candy-buying holiday behind Halloween. Additionally, in a recent survey1, nearly 80 percent of consumers said that they would prefer to purchase chocolate products made with sustainable cocoa if they were easy to find and didn’t cost more.
CHEMISTRY, MATERIALS & PACKAGING -
A growing number of companies large and small are finding they can save substantial amounts of money by optimizing various aspects of their operations, thereby proving the previously elusive business case for sustainability. The latest example: ConAgra Foods.
PRESS RELEASE -
SAN FRANCISCO, CA – March 2, 2015 – Across fresh food supply chains, businesses are advancing environmental, social and economic values. Balancing production with continually improving conservation stewardship demands an aligned approach to measure and communicate on-farm sustainability in specialty crops (all fruits, nuts, and vegetables). The Stewardship Index for Specialty Crops (SISC) and The Sustainability Consortium® (TSC) are proud to announce a partnership that creates significant progress toward these goals. TSC and SISC have agreed to work toward harmonization of on-farm performance metrics and collaborate together on implementation and innovation projects to encourage stewardship across specialty crop supply chains.
PRESS RELEASE -
HERSHEY, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Hershey Company (NYSE: HSY) announced today that it has been recognized as a 2015 World’s Most Ethical Company® by the Ethisphere Institute.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
Is your favorite beer helping to fight climate change? The chances just improved as, in the lead-up to Saint Patrick's Day — one of America's favorite excuses to drink beer — New Belgium Brewery, Guinness, Smuttynose Brewing Company and Deschutes Brewery join dozens of brewers in announcing today they’ve signed the Climate Declaration, a business call to action that urges policymakers to seize the economic opportunity of tackling climate change.
CHEMISTRY, MATERIALS & PACKAGING -
Dunkin’ Brands, Dunkin’ Donuts’ parent company, has agreed to remove titanium dioxide, a whitening agent that is a common source of nanomaterials, from all powdered sugar used to make the company’s donuts. As a result of this progress, the advocacy group As You Sow has withdrawn a shareholder proposal asking Dunkin’ to assess and reduce the risks of using nanomaterials in its food products.
SUPPLY CHAIN -
Heineken last week announced plans to team up with The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) as part of a new sustainability initiative to support environmental and social growth movements in the developing world.
COLLABORATION -
Three leading natural products brands — organic baby food company Plum Organics, nut butter and organic confections brand Justin’s, and organic, cold-pressured juice brand Suja Juice — are proud to announce a new initiative with Conscious Alliance (CA), a national nonprofit committed to supporting communities in crisis through hunger relief and youth empowerment. The coalition has banded together to launch one of the nation’s first Backpack Programs featuring only natural and healthy products.
BEHAVIOR CHANGE -
McDonald’s announced on Wednesday that it is committing to serving chicken raised without antibiotics used in human medicine in all of its U.S. restaurants within two years.The company isn’t going completely antibiotic-free — but will cut the use of antibiotics that contribute to “superbugs” or drug-resistant bacteria that can also harm humans. Often, these human antibiotics are fed to livestock to maximize growth, rather than to treat illness.
WASTE NOT -
In a report published this week, Waste Resources Action Programme (WRAP) estimates that an increase on product life of just one day across a range of foods could prevent roughly 250,000 tons of food waste each year — in households and in the supply chain — by giving consumers longer to eat the food that they buy.The “life” of a product is the time period over which food remains safe to eat, or over which the quality does not deteriorate to unacceptable levels, usually designated on-pack by companies through “Sell by” or “Best before” dates.
BEHAVIOR CHANGE -
U.S. chocolate giant Hershey has announced that it “will transition some of its most popular chocolate brands, including Hershey's Kisses Milk Chocolates and Hershey's Milk Chocolate Bars to simpler ingredients." The shift comes in response to tens of thousands of Facebook posts, emails and telephone calls from consumers who took part in a recent campaign spearheaded by GMO Inside, calling on Hershey's to move to non-GMO ingredients.Hershey's confirmed that as part of its commitment to simpler ingredients, its two iconic products, Hershey's Kisses and Hershey's Milk Chocolate Bars, will be non-GMO by the end of the year.In their recent statement, Hershey’s outlines three key principles for moving forward:
STAKEHOLDER TRENDS AND INSIGHTS -
Alternative food start-up Back to the Roots has launched its first U.S.-grown, 100 percent stoneground breakfast cereal, which is made with just 3 ingredients.
The cereal product, called Stoneground Flakes, is made from 100 percent stoneground whole wheat (grown and milled in California), a pinch of sea salt from the San Francisco Bay and organic cane sugar grown in Florida. Unlike refined or even whole wheat flour, 100 percent stoneground whole wheat has more nutrients and more taste, the company says.
CHEMISTRY, MATERIALS & PACKAGING -
Waste2Watergy, a Corvallis startup formed at Oregon State University, has secured a $225,000 federal grant to advance technology that cleans organics from brewery wastewater while producing electricity. The company says the technology could revolutionize wastewater treatment for the entire food and beverage industry.Developers have created a microbial fuel cell (MFC) system that generates energy from treating wastewater. Tiny microbes were designed to consume organic material; as an added bonus, the electrochemical energy created from microbial reactions in the fuel cell produce electricity.
BEHAVIOR CHANGE -
A draft of the official new U.S. recommendations for Americans’ diets is out, and for the first time the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee has advocated for strong consideration of environmental sustainability in our consumption patterns. Not surprisingly, the “green” aspects of their recommendations are controversial.The committee’s guidance will weigh heavily in the final guidelines issued later this year, after public comment, by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which will use them to guide spending on government food programs and to educate the American public on the latest thinking about nutrition.
SUPPLY CHAIN -
Last week, Safeway and Fair Trade USA announced a partnership to launch Fair Trade Certified™ seafood into the North American market. The program addresses both social and environmental responsibility in fishing communities across the globe. In March, Safeway will debut the world’s first Fair Trade fish – wild-capture tuna from small-scale fishermen in Indonesia – in its Northern California, Portland and Seattle Division stores.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
The term “super food” has become trite in today’s health-crazed dietary marketplace — used to describe everything from kale to blueberries. The word is rarely used by dietitians or nutrition scientists because few foods pack enough of a nutritional punch to merit “super” status.But there still are a few deserving of the title — and a plant called moringa is one of them. The moringa tree is a plant native to parts of Africa and Asia renowned for its nutritional value — each leaf contains seven times the vitamin C of oranges, four times the vitamin A of carrots, four times the calcium of milk, three times the potassium of bananas and twice the protein of yogurt.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
This week, Nestlé USA boldly committed to removing all artificial flavors and FDA-certified colors from all of its chocolate candy products by the end of 2015. The change will affect the food giant’s current portfolio of more than 10 chocolate brands and 250 products, including Nestlé Crunch, Butterfinger, Baby Ruth, Skinny Cow, Raisinets, Goobers, Sno Caps, 100 Grand, Oh Henry and Chunky. New versions of the products will begin appearing on store shelves by mid-2015, and will be identified by a “No Artificial Flavors or Colors” claim featured on-pack.