Health campaigners call for ‘honest’ labelling on so-called healthy snacks Researchers at Action on Salt are demanding a restriction on the use of what it calls misleading nutrition claims on HFSS products after its new data revealed seemingly ‘healthy’ snacks contain often higher salt levels than crisps and flavoured nuts.
The group analysed 118 snacks including dried/roasted pulses and processed pulse snacks such as lentil curls, chickpea chips and puffs,
which are often perceived as healthy alternatives to the usual snacking options such as crisps and flavoured nuts.
Despite these products being on average lower in fat, saturated fat and calories, and higher in fibre compared to standard crisps and nuts, over one in three (43%) contained more than 1.5g/100g of salt – often more than that in crisps and nuts. KP salted peanuts contain 1.3g/100g salt, while Walkers Ready Salted crisps contain 0.35g of salt in a 25g bag.
Cultivating animal fat for plant-based meat: ‘Nobody wants a burger that tastes of coconut’ London-based start-up Hoxton Farms is cultivating animal fat for plant-based meat alternatives. What is the secret to the duo’s competitive edge? Computational biology, the founders tell FoodNavigator.
The global meat market is worth some $1.3trn. The newer, plant-based meat alternative market is valued around the $4.3bn mark.
Yet despite their sizeable values, entrepreneurs Ed Steele and Dr Max Jamilly say both industries have serious flaws.
“The global meat market is broken. It’s killing us, it’s killing the planet,” said Dr Jamilly.
“2020 was a great example of how global food security is at an all-time low. Food supply is fragile and traditional intensive agriculture has a big role in the spread of animal-borne disease, antibiotic resistance, and its enormous impact on climate.”
Earth Island (Follow Your Heart) co-founder and CEO Bob Goldberg has always had an independent streak, telling reporters over the years he’s happy dancing to his own tune despite periodic overtures from big CPG suitors. Last month, however, he inked a deal to sell the company he co-founded in the 1970’s to Danone. So what changed?
“
To be completely transparent about it,
I’ve always been in the ‘stay independent’ camp” said Goldberg, a pioneer in the plant-based foods arena who was waxing lyrical about vegan mayo and cheese decades before many investors, big CPG companies, or mainstream consumers, started paying much attention.
Forager Project has entered the burgeoning plant-based cheese category with a new line of organic products made from a base of cashews, starch, and coconut cream and oil, which it claims delivers the “cheesiest vegan cheese with the best melt and stretch.”
The
cheeses (SRP $5.99) will be available at retailers including Fresh Thyme, Sprouts, Central Markets, and Stop & Shop in the spring, said co-founder and CEO Stephen Williamson, who launched the first
Forager Project products (HPP veg-forward cold-pressed juices), in January 2013, and has since branched out into nut milks, smoothies, cashew-based yogurts, and ‘pressed vegetable’ chips made with pulp left over from juice pressing.
Sustainable sourcing: food producers seeing the bigger picture in 2021 Sustainable sourcing of food packaging and ingredients has climbed its way to the top of the agenda for many companies in 2021, including some of the industry’s big players.
In February, for example, Greencore announced a range of measures, committing to 100% recyclable or reusable packaging by 2025 and the sustainable sourcing of all raw materials by 2030. Earlier in the month global bakery ingredients business Zeelandia made a pledge to make its use of palm oil 100% sustainable.
Initiatives such as these are well timed, according to Saskia Nuijten, head of public engagement at European innovation initiative EIT Food.