-October 22,2019-
Organic chips on fire
Sales of tortilla chips rose about 3.1% in the U.S. snack market in the 52 weeks ended June 16, 2019, to reach $4.4 billion, according to I.R.I. Clean label and organic offerings drove the category.
Frito-Lay, Plano, Texas, a subsidiary of PepsiCo, Inc., saw its Simply Organic Doritos sales increase 71%. Camden, N.J.-based Campbell Soup’s Late July brand of organic tortilla chips sales increased 13.9%.
Avocado harvest exceeds expectations
Despite a damaging heat wave as the fruit developed, California avocado farmers will produce a larger-than-expected crop. The avocado season officially ends at the end of October, and marketers say the California harvest could be as much as 30% higher than preseason estimates. Even so, the harvest was relatively small. The California Avocado Commission says the upcoming crop could be much larger, if weather remains favorable.
Russians importing dairy cows
Source: Bloomberg
President Vladimir Putin is on a mission to wean Russia off foreign food and modernize the dairy industry, where milking is still often done by hand. To do that, he’s getting help from Europe.
Five years after the food embargo banning Dutch gouda and Italian parmesan, Russian companies are trucking in thousands of black-and-white holsteins from across the border to state-of-the-art milking parlors built with German and Swedish engineering. Russia is now the biggest importer of cows from the European Union and its flagship milk company is German owned.
It’s part of an ambitious government plan to transform Russia from a major milk importer to self sufficiency within eight years. In the longer term, Russia has set its sights on selling milk to the biggest market of all: China.
Chlorpyrifos out
Politico
California will prohibit sales of chlorpyrifos by February under a deal between state regulators and pesticide makers. The agreement reached by the state’s Department of Pesticide Registration with Dow AgroSciences and other businesses will ban the sale of chlorpyrifos-based products by Feb. 6, and growers will no longer be allowed to use or possess the pesticide starting in 2021.
Humane Society blasts meat lawsuit
The Humane Society of the U.S. blasted a new lawsuit by the meat industry against California’s Prop 12 law, which prohibits the sale of farm goods that weren’t produced according to the state’s animal confinement standards for pigs, veal calves and egg-laying hens. The North American Meat Institute is suing to block the law on the grounds that the burden on out-of-state producers is unconstitutional. HSUS called the suit a “desperate attempt by those who profit off animal abuse to maintain the status quo and repeal the will of the California people”.