Vote in border city of Mexicali is unlikely win for farmers and activists over wealthy maker of Corona, Modelo and Pacifico
Voters in a Mexican border city have rejected the construction of a massive, US-owned brewery in an arid region rife with water shortages – an improbable victory for a collective of farmers and activists over a deep-pocketed company backed by state and local officials.
Related: Fate of US brewery in drought-hit Mexico goes to Amlo poll
Continue reading...Possible slaughterhouse shutdowns and staffing issues put pressure on ‘vulnerable’ supply chains, as campaigners call for restriction of live exports
Campaigners have called for the suspension of all live animal shipments out of Europe, and a restriction to the shortest possible journeys within Europe, over welfare and animal diseases concerns – as meat supply chains face potentially debilitating strain.
Last week queues of up to 60km (37 miles) formed at the Polish/German border on Wednesday after Poland announced that it was shutting to foreigners. Although the closure was supposed to apply solely to people, cargo experienced a knock-on effect, with some trucks reportedly taking as long as 18 hours to get through border controls. More queues formed at the Bulgarian/Turkish border.
Sabine Fisher of German animal welfare group Animal Angels said: “One driver told us that it had taken him three hours to travel 300 metres. There were trucks of sheep, bulls, cows. I’ve never seen a queue like it.”
Growing demand for cuy meat, which has long been a national delicacy in Peru, is providing rural women with livelihoods
The growing popularity of guinea pig meat in high-end restaurants in Peru is helping to usher in the return of a traditional, and environmentally friendly, industry led by women.
Top chefs in Peru, Ecuador and Colombia have brought traditional cuy meat back in popularity with roasted, curried and even sweetened versions appearing on menus.
Continue reading...Tributes paid to ‘humble genius’ whose restaurant was first in UK to win three Michelin stars
Michel Roux Sr, the French chef and restaurateur whose work profoundly reshaped British cooking, has died aged 78.
His family, who were at his side when he passed away at home in Bray, Berkshire, on Wednesday evening, described him as a “humble genius” who had an “insatiable appetite” for life. He died from a longstanding lung condition, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.
Continue reading...Environmental groups fear link between huge ships and spikes in dolphin deaths
Brexit offers the perfect opportunity to ban industrial supertrawler fishing boats from UK waters, according to campaigners.
The factory-sized ships can be hundreds of feet long and have been criticised for indiscriminate fishing as they catch hundreds of thousands of fish in relatively short periods. Environmentalists fear their presence correlates with spikes in numbers of dolphins washing up dead.
Continue reading...Investigation traces meat sold to JBS and rival Marfrig to farm owned by man implicated in Mato Grosso killings
A new investigation has linked the world’s biggest meat company JBS, and its rival Marfrig, to a farm whose owner is implicated in one of the most brutal Amazonian massacres in recent memory.
The report by Repórter Brasil comes as JBS faces growing pressure over transparency failings in its Amazon cattle supply chain.
Continue reading...High street coffee shop giant Starbucks has been caught up in a child labour row after an investigation revealed that children under 13 were working on farms in Guatemala that supply the chain with its beans.
Channel 4’s Dispatches filmed the children working 40-hour weeks in gruelling conditions, picking coffee for a daily wage little more than the price of a latte. The beans are also supplied to Nespresso, owned by Nestlé. Last week, actor George Clooney, the advertising face of Nespresso, praised the investigation and said he was saddened by its findings.
Continue reading...Brand ambassador pledges ‘work will be done’ after children are filmed toiling on Guatemalan farms believed to supply company
George Clooney has said he is “surprised and saddened” by the alleged discovery of child labour on farms used by coffee giant Nespresso, the brand for which he has long served as ambassador.
The Oscar-winning actor and director, who during school holidays worked on his own family’s tobacco farm in Kentucky, vowed that “work will be done” to improve conditions after a Channel 4 Dispatches documentary, due to air next week, filmed children picking coffee beans and hauling sacks on six Guatemalan farms believed to supply Nespresso.
Continue reading...The groundbreaking model, restaurateur and lifestyle guru Barbara B Smith, known to many as “the black Martha Stewart”, has died, her family announced on Sunday. She was 70.
Smith died on Saturday evening after suffering from early onset Alzheimer’s disease, which she was found to have in 2013. Following her diagnosis, Smith and her husband, Dan Gasby, raised awareness of the disease and particularly its impacts on the African American community.
Continue reading...After a week on a high fat, high added sugar diet, volunteers scored worse on memory tests
Consuming a western diet for as little as one week can subtly impair brain function and encourage slim and otherwise healthy young people to overeat, scientists claim.
Researchers found that after seven days on a high fat, high added sugar diet, volunteers in their 20s scored worse on memory tests and found junk food more desirable immediately after they had finished a meal.
Continue reading...The Cuban dancer talks about food rationing, what he ate at ballet school and his father’s terrible cooking
I always lived with rationing in Cuba – I was born in 1973. We used the term “the three musketeers” to mean rice, chicharos [split peas] and eggs, although at one point eggs disappeared completely.
I had two rabbits as pets and I arrived home from school one day and there was that smell I’d almost forgotten, of meat. Then I realised that Mamá had roasted my pets and I cried a lot. My mother pressed us to eat them and we all did. The rabbits tasted very good, obviously – I was a kid and I sort of got distracted. I was very sad, but I ate.
Continue reading...Smaller steak advertised as ‘one for the ladies!’ at Manhattan Bar and Grill
A restaurant in Liverpool has attracted online ridicule for selling an 8oz “ladies fillet” steak, which is smaller than the other cuts on its menu.
The entry for the £18.95 dish on the Manhattan Bar and Grill menu reads: “One for the ladies! A beautiful 8oz cut, because we can!”
Continue reading...Region’s producers were angry that redrawn map would stop them using prestigious name
Furious French winemakers have forced officials to back down over controversial plans to ban a number of prestigious wines from calling themselves “burgundy”.
The region’s producers saw red over proposed changes relating to which bottles can be labelled as coming from the region.
Continue reading...Marc Veyrat, who lost court battle to guide, in defiant mood as he opens new Paris restaurant
Marc Veyrat, the French celebrity chef at the centre of the “Cheddargate” scandal, has declared he never wants a Michelin star for his new Paris restaurant.
The flamboyant cook who took the red guide to court last year after he lost his third Michelin star for his celebrated flagship restaurant in the French Alps, has taken over a historic Parisian dining room previously owned by the equally colourful French actor Gérard Depardieu.
Continue reading...Founders of firm making alcoholic sweets left puzzled by trademark infringement claim
Small, sweet bears with the capacity to inflict a very sore head have triggered an intellectual property dispute involving a multinational confectioner, a trio of enterprising Spanish students and a shot or two of alcohol.
A couple of years ago, three friends studying in the Basque country experienced an epiphany: what if they combined their childhood love of sweets with their adult taste for alcohol? And what if the delivery system were a small, chewy bear?
Continue reading...Downgrading of Auberge du Pont de Collonges to two-star establishment prompts fury
The world of French fine dining has become embroiled in yet another ratings row due to the removal of the three-star Michelin ranking from renowned chef Paul Bocuse’s restaurant, almost two years after his death.
The Auberge du Pont de Collonges, situated near the gastronomic capital of Lyon in south-east France, was the oldest three-starred restaurant in the world, having held the ranking without interruption since 1965.
Continue reading...The waiting staff in a restaurant can make or break a meal just as much as the people in the kitchen. Yet they are rarely celebrated – and quite often traduced
Name a successful chef. That wasn’t hard, was it? Now name a successful maitre d’, or waiter, or anyone else who works front of house in a restaurant and isn’t Fred Sirieix of First Dates.
If you’re struggling, you’re not alone. For all our celebrity chefs and food fetishisation, most Brits still consider any restaurant job that involves dealing with customers as at best stop-gap, and at worst a last resort.
Continue reading...Health and climate concerns are behind the growth of plant-based diets which were once prevalent on the continent
In the meat-loving capital of Burkina Faso, customers at a small roadside joint eat bean balls, grilled tofu skewers and peanut butter rice while a report about chickens unfit for consumption being dumped on the street airs on the midday news.
A sign above the door proudly welcomes customers: “Vegetarian restaurant Nasa. Food for the love of health.” In Ouagadougou’s first plant-based restaurant, there are no knives on the tables.
Continue reading...Star chef says he is ‘obsessed with selling wine’ and wants to diners to drink more, not less
French chef Alain Ducasse, an outspoken opponent of Dry January, has launched an initiative to entice patrons of his restaurants to drink more during the first month of the year, not less.
“I like swimming against the tide,” he told AFP on Tuesday, announcing plans to proffer top bottles of Burgundy and Bordeaux at knockdown prices to encourage diners to order wine by the bottle rather than by the glass.
Continue reading...It was five decades after crisps were invented that flavouring was applied: cheese and onion. Now you can buy varieties from bratwurst to spiced cola. But what inspired this explosion?
When she was a little girl in Essex in the 50s, Linda Miller would go over to her neighbour Barbara’s house every Friday night and together they would sit on the front step eating crisps. There was only one flavour widely available back then – Smith’s plain potato crisps, which came with a small blue sachet of salt that could be sprinkled over them. One Friday night, the two friends struck upon an idea. “We thought we’d invented a new crisp,” says 68-year-old Miller. Inspired by their weekly fish and chip takeaway, the pair “saturated” their plain crisps with a bottle of vinegar. “It was lovely, lovely – very tasty,” Miller says. “When salt and vinegar crisps came out, I remember thinking: ‘They’re not as good as what we do.’”
Crisps were first mass-produced in the early 20th century, but the first flavoured crisp was released only in the late 50s, after Joe “Spud” Murphy, the owner of the Irish company Tayto, developed a technique to add cheese and onion seasoning during production. Salt and vinegar crisps were launched throughout the UK a decade later, in 1967, when Miller was 16.
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