Category: Issue 469
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Texas Legislator Calls for Beverage Tax
Rep. Joe Farias (D-San Antonio) has proposed a bill (H.B. 779) that would impose a statewide penny-per-ounce tax on soft drinks, particular sweetened beverages and the powders and syrups used to make them. The tax would increase each year by the same percentage as the “most recent annual revised Consumer Price Index for All Urban…
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German Antitrust Regulator Fines Chocolatiers over Illegal Price-Fixing Cartel
According to a news source, Germany’s Federal Cartel Office (BKA) has imposed €60 million (US$81.4 million) in fines against 11 chocolate and confectionary companies, including the German subsidiaries of Kraft Foods and Nestlé SA, for allegedly establishing a cartel in the late 2000s to fix prices. While Nestlé has reportedly indicated that it will challenge…
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UK Agency Rules Cereal Ad Does Not Promote “Excessive Consumption”
The U.K. Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has declined to uphold five complaints alleging that a TV commercial for Weetabix Ltd.’s Weetos breakfast cereal promoted “poor nutritional habits and an unhealthy lifestyle in children, because… it encouraged excessive consumption.” According to ASA, the ad in question showed a child eating Weetos for breakfast and later in…
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FSA Publishes Science Priorities for 2013
The U.K. Food Standards Agency (FSA) has published its “Forward Evidence Plan for 2013,” outlining its “priority science and evidence activities for the coming year.” Although subject to budgetary confirmation, the plan seeks to alert stakeholders to new and ongoing activities as well as identify additional research areas and sources of funding in support of…
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Upcoming Codex Meeting to Discuss Food Labeling
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have announced an April 17, 2013, public meeting in Washington, D.C., to provide information and receive public comments on agenda items and draft U.S. positions for discussion during the 41st Session of the Codex Committee on Food Labeling…
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FDA Announces Public Meeting to Discuss Proposed Food Safety Rules
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced a public meeting to discuss “the proposed rules to establish standards for the growing, harvesting, packing, and holding of produce for human consumption (the produce safety proposed rule) and for current good manufacturing practice and hazard analysis and risk-based preventative controls for human food (the preventative controls…
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CDC Issues Study on Foodborne Illnesses
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has issued a report titled “Attribution of Foodborne Illness, Hospitalizations, and Deaths to Food Commodities by using Outbreak Data, United States, 1998-2008,” based on data involving 17 food categories and the roughly 48 million people who “get sick from food eaten in the United States” each year.…
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DeLauro Challenges FSIS Inspection Protocols for Imported Meats, Poultry and Eggs
U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) has responded to a January 25, 2013, Federal Register notice describing a “new” Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) method of conducting “ongoing equivalence verifications of the regulatory systems of countries that export meat, poultry, or processed egg products to the United States.” According to DeLauro’s letter to U.S. Department of…