General News
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Original Beans Launches New Eco Packaging
05 August 2019Original Beans Launches New Eco Packaging ‘Planet-positive’ chocolate company Original Beans have announced their plans for new, colourful eco packaging launching in September. Each single origin bar displays the animal that lives there: and where the cocoa beans originate from. For example, A mountain gorilla from the Virunga National Park in eastern Congo or a mighty condor from the Chuncho Valley in Peru all feature on the colourful new packaging of the bars. The packaging communicates that biodiversity is protected by sustainable cultivation of cocoa and its contribution to afforestation of the rainforest, through the replanting of cocoa trees. The only exception being the variety Femmes de Virunga, which pays tribute on the new packaging to the strong women in the eastern Congo, who can lead an independent life from sustainable cocoa cultivation. The UK company also operate the One Bar: One Tree program – Original Beans’ plant a tree for every chocolate bar sold, ensuring heritage cacao trees will remain for future generations. To date, Original Beans has planted and preserved 2,000,000 trees in the cacao origins. The tree planting efforts are carefully coordinated with local conservation programs to help empower farmers and their families as well as protecting endangered wildlife. The new updated wrapper designs are printed on fine, sustainable paper made from FSC-certified wood cellulose, which was designed by Californian artist Kimberly Varella. Philipp Kauffman, Founder & CEOcomments, “We have worked hard to produce the most environmentally friendly paper in the world which has not been easy as it is so natural. We are proud that it is biodegradable and fully compostable.” For more information you can visit www.originalbeans.com Twitter & Instagram @original_beans
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Dina Foods has Dinalicious Dates Wrapped Up
31 July 2019Dina Foods has Dinalicious Dates Wrapped Up Authentic Mediterranean specialist Dina Foods says it is seeing growing demand for its boxed range of premium Medjoul dates, including its pioneering “half dip” dates in chocolate. The Medjool date, often called the King of Dates, has a rich, almost caramel-like taste and a soft, chewy texture and is larger than the standard Deglet Noor date. It is rich in fibre, potassium, manganese, copper, B vitamins, vitamin A, magnesium, and calcium, and said to offer many health benefits. Dina Foods’ “Dinalicious” branded boxed dates are sold in sealed trays. The range includes 180g pack of Plain Medjoul Dates with nine pieces per pack, sold in six boxes per case. The Chocolate Coated Medjoul Dates 180g version also includes nine pieces per pack, three dark, three milk and three white chocolate. Dina Foods also offers Filled Medjoul Dates in the range with three pieces each of walnut, marzipan and orange zest per pack. The plain natural Medjoul dates are available in a 200g pack with 12 packs per case and a 500g pack, with eightpacks per case. Dina Foods managing director Suheil Haddad comments: “For a healthy and delicious snack you cannot beat a Medjoul date, and we are seeing demand for our premium Dinalicious boxed dates growing across all markets.” Visit Dina Foods at www.dinafoods.com for more information.
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More ‘snacking’ expansion at Mondelez
24 July 2019More ‘snacking’ expansion at Mondelez Mondelez is taking a majority stake in Perfect Snacks, the owner of refrigerated protein bar Perfect Bar. It comes on the heels of its roughly USD500 million acquisition of premium cookie brand, Tate’s Bake Shop, in 2018 and the innovation hub it launched for new snacking brands, SnackFutures, the same year. Perfect Snacks has roughly USD70 million in sales and is posting double-digit growth year-over-year. For the Keith family, the deal is an achievement. Bill Keith, along with six of his 13 siblings, founded the company in 2005, when their father was diagnosed with cancer and they needed a way to support themselves. The Perfect Bar recipe is based on a treat their dad, who has since passed, made the family to try to get the kids to swallow their vitamin supplements. Since then, Perfect Snacks has expanded beyond their “Original Refrigerated Protein Bar,” an organic, non-GMO nut-butter-based protein bar into a kids’ line and bite-sized Perfect Bites.
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Turkey – Ferrero investment
24 July 2019Turkey – Ferrero investment Ferrero has won the Turkish Exporters Assembly's (TİM) Champions of Exports Awards for 2018 in its category, handed out by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Ferrero currently runs six production facilities in Turkey, three in Trabzon and one each in Düzce, İzmit and Manisa. It also runs eight warehouses, five collection centers and five Ferrero Farming Values offices, while employing some 1,500 people. Ferrero Turkey Chairman Aldo Kazlowski said Turkey is a country of opportunities compared to many other countries. "We see Turkey as our long-term strategic partner and in this context, we increase our investments here every year. Ferrero sets a high investment target of TL 150 million in 2019," he added. Kazlowski noted that Turkey would continue to be the leader in the hazelnut market in the coming years, adding investors did not flee from Turkey, which would attract more investments in the no-election period. He pointed out that they had not seen a market as lively as Turkey in Europe. "Europe is getting older, but half of the Turkish people are under 30, and Turkey is a country of high consumption,” he said. Dailysabah.com
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UK - Original Beans wins Soil Association Best of Organic Market Award 2019 with Zoque
22 July 2019UK - Original Beans wins Soil Association Best of Organic Market Award 2019 with Zoque For the second time, Original Beans chocolates have been voted best confectionary in UK's organic market. After a first place for Femmes 55% dark milk in 2017, this year's competition committee voted this season's new Original Beans chocolate, Zoque 88%, as the categories overall winner. Zoque 88% is chocolate from the inventors of chocolate. For over 4000 years Zoque farmers have cultivated cacao in their bio-diverse home gardens in the Selva Zoque, Mexico's largest rainforest. In fact, the ancient Zoque and their forefathers – the Olmecs – were minds as brilliant as the Greeks of Europe. They were stargazers and kept an advanced calendar, they invented the sauna and a ball game – and then they invented a powerful sacred drink from a forest fruit they called ‘kakaw’. That was the birth of chocolate. What we call Tabasqueño is the wild hybrid of an ancient criollo cacao from the time of the ancient Olmecs and Mayas and an amelonado cacao brought to the coast of Tabasco by a French family in the early 1900’s.
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UK – Orkla buys UK toffee maker
22 July 2019UK – Orkla buys UK toffee maker Orkla Food Ingredients subsidiary NIC Enterprises has agreed a deal to acquire UK-based fudge and toffee manufacturer Confection by Design. The company produces fudge and toffee for ice cream manufacturers, bakeries and confectioners, and approximately two-thirds of its product portfolio is distributed by Orkla’s UK subsidiary Orchard Valley Foods. 80% of Confection by Design’s sales are in the UK, and Orkla Food Ingredients claims that the acquisition will boost its presence in the market, in which it already holds a strong position through its NIC UK, Orchard Valley Foods and County Confectionery subsidiaries. Orkla has made a number of acquisitions over the course of 2019, the acquisition of Zeelandia in Sweden a bakery ingredients and vegetable oils supplier, a majority stake in Greek Confectionery and ingredients producer Stelios Kanakis Industrial, buying Swedish food producer Lecora, a minority stake in Portugal’s Captain Lmbucha and a 90% stake in Danish bakery manufacturer Easyfood.Foodbev.com
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UK - Ice cream maker Mackie’s of Scotland moves into confectionery market after landing a £100,000 a year listing
17 July 2019UK - Ice cream maker Mackie’s of Scotland moves into confectionery market after landing a £100,000 a year listing Four varieties of the family-run firm’s 120-gram chocolate bars will now be available to buy in 47 Asda stores across Scotland, following a successful trial last year. The new agreement adds to listings for Mackie’s ice cream and crisp products, for which it secured deals with Asda in 1993 and 2009, respectively. Chocolate is the Aberdeenshire company’s most recent diversification, created in a factory converted from an old tractor shed on its farm near Inverurie. It is also used in Mackie's chocolate ice cream recipe. TheScotsman.com
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M'sian chocolate products in high demand, healthy growth in exports in last four years
17 July 2019M'sian chocolate products in high demand, healthy growth in exports in last four years Malaysia’s chocolate products are in high demand from overseas markets with export value recording a healthy growth within the last four years since 2015, says Teresa Kok. The Primary Industries Minister said that in 2015, the export value was at RM470.9mil while in 2016, the value jumped to RM598.09mil. “Our chocolate export value keeps on increasing where in 2017, we recorded RM868.6mil and last year, it was RM1.03bil,” she added. Kok pointed out that Malaysia has about 51 chocolate producers whose products were exported to 128 countries around the world. She added that Singapore, Indonesia, the United States, Japan and China are among the major importers. Meanwhile, she also said that the local cocoa sector has contributed to RM5.55bil to the country’s export income in 2018. “Last year, Malaysia was the second largest cocoa processing country in Asia and the seventh in the world. “We controlled about 22% of cocoa-based products for the Asia and Oceania markets,” she added. Thestar.com
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UK – M&M chocolate bars are coming!
16 July 2019UK – M&M chocolate bars are coming! You may have seen rumours about the bars, and they’ve finally been confirmed. The new creations were released in America, causing chocolate fans across the pond to claim it was ‘the best chocolate they’d ever tried’. Confirming the news, M&M’s Senior Brand Manager Cordelia Linacre said: ‘We’ve been inundated with requests to bring M&M’s Bars to the UK – so we’re extremely excited to announce that the wait is over! ‘We invite existing fans and all chocolate lovers to get stuck in!’ Available flavours include milk chocolate and peanut, as well as mint, almond and crispy. They’re all made with milk chocolate and have mini M&M’s inside. The new bars are available from 17th July, from Tesco stores across the UK. They’ll then be available in other retailers from 17th August. Each bar will cost you £2.49, and features the iconic M&M’s characters that fans will instantly recognise from the adverts and original packaging.
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Global - Mondelez – making chocolate tastier with calcium salt
16 July 2019Global - Mondelez – making chocolate tastier with calcium salt Calcium salt could be the key to enhancing flavours in sweet and savoury products, according to Mondelez UK, which has patented a new method to use the ingredient. The confectionery giant’s scientists originally tested the discovery out on chocolate, but it can just as easily be applied to other sweet foods like caramel, toffee, fudge, marshmallows, nougat, sweets and gums, along with baked goods like cakes, biscuits, cookies and sweet pastries. More surprisingly, however, is the fact that savoury items like bread, pies, potato, cereal-based crisp products and seasoning could also be improved by calcium salt, which also allegedly enhances salty, spicy, bitter and fruity flavours. Making chocolate production cheaper It’s all a bit of a mind trick. Rather than improving the taste of a particular food product, Mondelez claims the addition of calcium salt alters the taste perception of its ingredients. The technique was developed to overcome disadvantages that arise in manufacturing, such as the conching process in chocolate making. Conching uses heat and machinery to break down and refine the cocoa to improve the smoothness and taste of chocolate. “Typically, the longer the conching period, the better the taste of the chocolate product. However, conching chocolate for a long time reduces the throughput of a chocolate making process and therefore increases the cost of producing a chocolate product,” Mondelez said in its patent application. Previous attempts to solve this problem using additional ingredients have resulted in powdery mouthfeel. Calcium salt, on the other hand, does not affect the texture of the food or make it grainy, nor is its taste detectable, according to Mondelez’s R&D team. Flavour fields Calcium salt’s reputed ability to supercharge flavour could be useful in other areas of reformulation as well, helping to save on ingredient costs, particularly those that are “expensive and/or difficult to handle or mix.” Tangy, herby, gingery, acidic, cocoa, nutty, minty, vanilla, earthy, mushroom, umami, sour, smoky and buttery were all cited as tastes that calcium salt could have a material effect on. It also has the potential to aid the reduction of sodium-based salt in products and lower the use of MSG. Last year, Mondelez launched a new Cadbury Dairy milk chocolate bar with 30% less sugar. It used fibre as an alternative to some of the sugar. Foodspark.com
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