Search Results for: food

BY ALAN OSBORN
FRANCE has been stingingly rebuffed by a judge of the European Court of Justice over her refusal to let British beef back in after the export ban was lifted by the European Commission in 1999. An Advocate General of the Court – or adviser – says France was in the wrong.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
IN the years of the Cultural Revolution, when the bamboo curtain separated the world’s most populous country from the rest of the globe, the idea of sending bulk agricultural exports to China would have seemed laughable. Even today, Chinese export markets buy up a fraction of British farming produce, but in the future, this could change.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKE
A JAPANESE company has developed a system for manufacturing clean seawater ice, which is softer than freshwater ice and so can be used to transport fish products to market in cool temperatures without the scarring or bruising that often occurs.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
MOST governments are keenly concerned about the quality of food their people eat, and quite rightly so. They pass laws to ensure food purity and safety and that’s all very commendable – but it can be overdone.

Regulations can, sometimes deliberately, be drawn up so tightly that they effectively bar the sale of food produced in other countries, thus constituting an impediment to free trade.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
IMPORTANT reforms in air safety have been approved by the European Parliament in its first reading of legislation to create a new European Aviation Safety Agency. In particular MEP’s want to set up a new independent authority, on the lines of the US National Transportation Safety Board and separate from the EASA, to investigate aircraft accidents and make recommendations.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
SIX European producers of plastic film are being investigated for possible price-fixing, the European Commission announced today Friday. “Dawn raids” on companies in Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands, Italy, Sweden and the UK, were carried out by competition officials from Brussels, and the national governments on August 22nd announced a spokesman for Mario Monti, EU competition commissioner.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
BRITISH beef producers may be able to claim damages from France if an opinion released today Thursday by an Advocate General of the European Court of Justice over the French ban on imports of UK beef is upheld by the full court.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
ADVICE on creating integrated pollution control policies within meat plants has been included in a new EU report. It highlighted self-monitoring, strategic planning with deadlines, and the introduction of best practice plans for improving “hygiene, water minimisation, energy efficiency and the minimisation of disinfectants.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has approved the spending of Euro 119.2 million, (Pounds 74.71 million), of EU grants on rural development programmes in England from 2001 to 2006. Money is to be funnelled from the EU’s Leader Plus initiative via 23 Local Action Groups, which are to be selected by the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE TIMING of concessions that can be achieved at the World Trade Organisation’s agricultural round, sweeping away the high tariffs, import quotas, production subsidies and export credits that make the working lives of every agricultural exporter more of a struggle, are likely to be set in the next three months.…