Not offical Chill-On blog

Whole Foods Market Inc. is phasing out seafood considered over-fished or unsustainably-caught.
Austin-based Whole Foods (Nasdaq: WFMI) operates a store in Pittsburgh’s East Liberty neighborhood and plans to open its second in the region in the North Hills in 2011. The new seafood strategy is part of the grocer’s efforts to better inform customers about fish and shellfish sources. In partnership with the Blue Ocean Institute and Monterey Bay Aquarium, the company has adopted an in-store, color-coded sustainability rating system for wild-caught seafood. Whole Foods has also committed to phasing out all red-rated species by Earth Day 2013, including swordfish, Atlantic cod, sole and tuna, among others.
Seafood color-coded green, or “best choice,” indicates the fish is part of an abundant population and is fished in an environmentally-friendly way. A yellow-coded offering means a “good alternative,” or having some concerns about population or fishing methods. The red, “avoid” category signals the species is suffering from overfishing, or that current fishing methods harm other marine life or habitats.

Read more: Whole Foods to stop selling over-fished seafood – Pittsburgh Business Times

almon remains the most popular fish for French consumers, with smoked salmon swimming ahead of fresh and frozen product.

While 46 percent of French households buy fresh salmon and 25 percent buy frozen salmon, an impressive 72 percent will pluck smoked salmon from store shelves, according to recent figures from market trackers Kantar Worldpanel.

“Salmon is the No. 1 fish eaten by the French, ahead of cod [No. 2] and coley [No. 3],” said the firm.

In 2008, the European Union imported 600,000 metric tons of salmon valued at EUR 2.2 billion, with 75 percent hailing from Norway. The French consumed about 165,000 metric tons of salmon. Last year, shoppers paid on average EUR 22.41 per kilogram for smoked salmon, EUR 11.60 for fresh salmon and EUR 13.80 for frozen.

via seafoodsource.com

Global food traceability company Trace Register on Friday announced that it signed a deal with Norpac Fisheries Export to use the Trace Register system to verify the vessel and origin of several western Pacific species.

Honolulu-based Norpac will use the system to track bigeye tuna, opah, monchong and other species sold under it Hawaiian Select line.

Read more here

The Produce Traceability Initiative (PTI) is an industry-wide effort chartered by the Produce Marketing Association, United Fresh Produce Association, and the Canadian Produce Marketing Association, and is aimed at creating a traceability process that will enable the quick and efficient electronic tracking and tracing of produce cases between supply chain members.

TraceGains, Inc., the leader in affordable turnkey Produce Traceability Initiative compliance and traceability software solutions, is proud to announce that Barcode Graphics has joined its reseller and service provider partner program, to be able to implement and support PTI-compliant printing, labeling, and traceability solutions.

Read full article

Factory farms are feeding millions of people globally with unsustainable beef, pork and chickens. These large-scale producers of livestock in the United States and Canada have been jeopardizing the food supply for too long. According to a web-site devoted to changing the way we think about our food, the problems associated with factory farming include: excessive numbers of animals confined closely together, disregard for animal welfare, misuse of pharmaceuticals, mismanagement of animal waste, and socially irresponsible corporate ownership.
In the documentary film Food Inc, released in 2008, Robert Kenner takes the veil off North American factory food production and exposes the underlying and inherent problems associated with the disconnect between customers and the farmers and companies that increasingly supply their meat. The film and subsequent book make it very clear that the small group of companies that control the North American food production are unwilling to discuss their business with journalists and the media. These North American companies are beyond secretive, and have often resorted to lawsuits and thinly hidden threats if anyone associated with their business speaks publicly or cooperates in anyway with journalists or documentary film makers.

Read the full article

With the new year approaching I thought it would be good to explore some of the predicted food trends for 2010. I thought that I would use the “Top 10 Food Trends for 2010″ that www.foodchannel.com put out and add my own thoughts to their predictions in some future posts. So here we go, Food Channel’s Tops 10 Food Trends for 2010. You can use the link above to head to their site and get some more information about each of their predictions.

Full article

This new requirement is part of EU legislation that comes into force from 1 January 2010 and will apply to all animals, whether sent directly to a slaughterhouse or sold through a livestock market. The rules already apply to pigs and calves.

via meatinternational.com

Consumers have indicated they want to be more in touch with who grows their food.

“Local” has been a trend for a few years, and it seems to garner more attention each summer.

But how much effort will the value-driven consumer put into really finding out where his or her salads come from?

We’re about to find out thanks to a new program from Cincinnati-based The Kroger Co.

The major chain’s store brand of salads, Fresh Selections, this fall will carry a 16-digit code consumers can enter at HarvestMark.com to learn more about the salad’s origin, packing location, ingredients, and date and time the product was packed.

Redwood City, Calif.-based YottaMark Inc. owns the HarvestMark traceability program.

Read more here

Today at the IBM Information on Demand event, IBM will demo a new app that will bring the Internet of Things to the iPhone. The as yet unreleased iPhone app is called Breadcrumbs and it will give consumers access to information about grocery food items. The app will be able to scan barcodes and deliver a summary of the ingredients in a food item, along with when it was manufactured. That data is usually on the food label, but Breadcrumbs goes a step further – it can provide extra information such as product recall data. If a product has been recalled in the past, this app will tell the consumer all of the relevant details.

via readwriteweb.com

The Chill-on project has been mapping, among other at sea in Iceland. This is not video from the project but can give idea about how rough things can get.

Many companies are discovering their green conscience and making efforts to lower their CO2 emissions. Rail freight specialists are benefiting from the shift from road to rail-based transportation.

via sap.info

China, the world’s leading exporter of marine fish products, needs to adapt its fisheries if it is to meet new EU (European Union) regulations to combat illegal fishing. Under the legislation, which will take effect from January 2010, all fishy materials imported into the European Union will have to be accompanied by catch certificates validated by the nation under whose flag the fishing vessel sails, according to an AFP report from Beijing.

The move is aimed at combating illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) fishing, the Wildlife Trade Monitoring Network Traffic said in its report titled “Understanding China’s Fish Trade and Traceability.”

via fnbnews.com

About one year ago, a flood in Kauai caused runoff water from a cow pasture to contaminate lettuce growing in a field below. That lettuce, subsequently served in Hawaiian restaurants, sickened at least eight diners. Many of those affected were tourists from the mainland, who ate at number of different restaurants and didn’t show any symptoms until after leaving the islands, and it was several months before the state’s Department of Health was able to trace the contaminated produce back to a particular farm. By that time, all the affected lettuce had already been consumed, and there was little that could be done.

via rfidjournal.com

A new site aimed at chefs and retail buyers is attempting to connect those purchasers of sustainable seafood to supply. FishChoice.com says its Web-based tool, launched in early August, will make it a lot easier for buyers to connect with sustainable suppliers.

The site was developed because 90 percent of consumers say it is important for the food industry to be more proactive in addressing environmental concerns and retail buyers and chefs often don’t have the time to research all the options available to them, according to Richard Boot, the founder and president of nonprofit FishChoice.com.

via sustainableindustries.com

Supermarket giant Tesco has become the first UK retailer to display the full carbon footprint of milk — one of the top-selling products in its stores.

From today, all Tesco own-label full-fat, semi-skimmed and skimmed milk ranges will display the carbon footprint label as part of an on-going drive to help shoppers make “green” purchasing decisions. It has pledged to “footprint” 500 products by the end of the year. The new labelling will not apply to organic milk, where greenhouse gas emissions are generally much lower than for conventional milk.

via Guardian.co.uk

China, the world’s leading exporter of marine fish products, needs to adapt its fisheries if it is to meet new EU regulations to combat illegal fishing, according to a report released on Monday.
Under the legislation which comes into force in January 2010, all fish materials imported into the European Union will have to be accompanied by catch certificates validated by the nation under whose flag the fishing vessel sails.

via AFP

One of New Zealand’s largest apple growers has adopted Dunedin-designed traceability technology to ensure its fruit was not subjected to food fraud.

Taylor Corporation sells one million cases of apples a year and has employed Oritain Global to independently certify the origin of its fruit.

via odt.co.nz

hen RFID Journal and others write about using radio frequency identification to track clothing items in retail stores, we often say the technology can lead to an increase in sales of 5 percent to 10 percent. American Apparel, in fact, has reported a whopping 14 percent increase from RFID (see American Apparel RFID Project Featured in Video and American Apparel Expands RFID to Additional Stores). CEOs at retail chains seem to dismiss this as so much hype, but the reality is that not only can RFID can boost sales by 5 percent or more, most or all of that revenue increase flows to the bottom line.

Read more here

In the face of protest from the Swedish government, Greenpeace has announced its continued intention to drop boulders into two cod-fishing areas of the Kattegat sound to prevent bottom trawling in the waters separating the Swedish and Danish mainlands.

Much has been in the news lately about the safety of our nation’s food supply. A safe food supply involves three components — the growers, food processors and the consumer. The main emphasis for a safe food supply is on prevention and, as a consumer, you can contribute to your own food safety.

Read more here