Category Archives: Food

Greggs scoffs at reports of snub by its Christmas ad star Nigella Lawson

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TV chef, who has signed up for bakery chain’s first ever festive advert, says she is a fan of its sausage rolls

Nigella Lawson has issued an impassioned paean to the Greggs sausage roll, amid reports of a banger-based dust-up that threatened to cast a shadow over her appearance in the bakery chain’s first ever Christmas advert.

Greggs confirmed on Sunday that the celebrity chef and cookbook author had agreed to star in its inaugural Christmas promotion, in which Lawson will purr over such delicacies as vegan festive bakes.

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More than meatballs: Ikea opens its first UK standalone restaurant in London

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Diners hail ‘great price’ of dishes at Swedish furniture chain’s food outlet next door to its Hammersmith store

Its meatballs are as famous as its flatpack furniture, with a meal in one of its restaurants often the highlight of an Ikea trip.

Now shoppers can enjoy an Ikea meal without lugging around their kitchen sink – literally – as the furniture company has opened its first standalone restaurant on the UK high street in King Street in Hammersmith. Located next door to its west London city store, the space seats 75 people and serves a range of Swedish dishes.

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Almost two dozen countries at high risk of acute hunger, UN report reveals

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Sudan, South Sudan, Mali, Palestine and Haiti rated at level of highest concern in latest six-monthly analysis

Acute food insecurity is expected to worsen in war-stricken Sudan and nearly two dozen other countries and territories in the next six months, largely as a result of conflict and violence, an analysis by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization and World Food Programme has found.

The latest edition of the twice-yearly Hunger Hotspots report, published on Thursday, provides early warnings on food crises and situations around the world where food insecurity is likely to worsen, with a focus on the most severe and deteriorating situations of acute hunger.

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Jamie Oliver asks cheese lovers to help catch thieves behind £300,000 cheddar scam

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London’s Neal’s Yard Dairy swindled out of 950 wheels of award-winning cheddars delivered to alleged fraudster

The celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has encouraged cheese lovers to help police catch scammers who defrauded a London dairy out of more than £300,000 worth of English and Welsh cheddar.

Neal’s Yard Dairy, a distributor and retailer of British artisan cheese, delivered 22 tonnes of award-winning clothbound cheddar to the alleged fraudster posing as a wholesale distributor for a large French retailer before realising it had been duped.

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Pizza accidentally laced with THC sickens dozens at Wisconsin restaurant

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Famous Yeti’s Pizza picked up wrong jug of oil from commercial kitchen and called it ‘alarming’ for customers

Pizza inadvertently laced with THC – the principal psychoactive ingredient in marijuana – has apparently sickened dozens of people in Wisconsin.

Health officials in Dane county say Famous Yeti’s Pizza in Stoughton, about 20 miles (32km) south-east of Madison, served pizza contaminated with THC, from Monday through Thursday.

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Schools in Mexico have six months to ban junk food sales or face heavy fines

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Rules targeting fruit drinks, chips and artificial pork rinds come as UN calls child obesity in country an emergency

Schools in Mexico have six months to implement a government-sponsored ban on junk food or face heavy fines, officials said on Monday, as authorities confront what they call the worst childhood obesity problem in the world.

The new rules target products that have become staples for two or three generations of Mexican school kids: sugary fruit drinks, chips, artificial pork rinds and soy-encased, salty peanuts with chili.

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‘It’s desperation’: Ireland’s restaurant industry facing crisis with daily closures

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Rise in VAT, inflation and people working from home has led small business owners to demand government support

Blazing Salads, Dillingers, Assassination Custard and Brasserie Sixty Six in Dublin, Church Lane and Sage in County Cork, and Barnacles in Galway.

These are just some of the most recent additions to the list of more than 600 restaurants that have been forced to close in Ireland in the last year in what is being seen as a growing crisis for the country’s high street and tourist offering.

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UK toddlers get nearly half their calories from ultra-processed food, study finds

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Review also finds by the time children are seven, 59% of calories come from UPFs

Toddlers in the UK obtain almost half of their calories from ultra-processed foods, rising to 59% by the age of seven, according to the largest study of its kind.

The first comprehensive review of dietary intake at such an early age comes amid rapidly rising global consumption of UPF such as cereals, protein bars, fizzy drinks, ready meals and fast food. The findings were published in the European Journal of Nutrition.

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Europe’s exhausted oyster reefs ‘once covered area size of Northern Ireland’

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Study uncovers vivid and poignant accounts of reefs as high as houses off countries including UK, France and Ireland

Only a handful of natural oyster reefs measuring at most a few square metres cling on precariously along European coasts after being wiped out by overfishing, dredging and pollution.

A study led by British scientists has discovered how extensive they once were, with reefs as high as a house covering at least 1.7m hectares (4.2m acres) from Norway to the Mediterranean, an area larger than Northern Ireland.

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Healthier rice variety could counter rise in diabetes, Philippine scientists say

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Researchers develop grain with lower glycaemic index and more protein that ‘could have big impact in Asia and Africa’

Scientists in the Philippines have created a new variety of rice that could help reduce the growing burden of diabetes.

More than 537 million adults worldwide are living with the chronic disease – a number that is expected to grow to 783 million by 2045. Being overweight, genetics and a lack of exercise contribute to type 2 diabetes, which is the most common form. Type 2 occurs when the pancreas fails to produce enough of the insulin hormone, leaving too much glucose in the blood, and cells develop a resistance to insulin.

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Top UK food firms urged to do more to cut ‘staggering’ emissions

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Food campaign Bite Back says 10 firms account for more carbon emissions globally than aviation industry

Britain’s biggest food and drink firms are doing too little to tackle the climate emergency and are producing “staggering” amounts of greenhouse gases, campaigners claim.

The 10 companies that manufacture more of the UK’s food than anyone else produce more carbon emissions between them than even the aviation industry, a report says.

Three of the firms increased their annual emissions in 2022 – Ferrero, Kraft Heinz and PepsiCo.

Seven are on course to miss meeting emissions targets they have set themselves to achieve by 2050.

Only four have a verifiable commitment to reach net zero emissions by 2050 – Danone, Mars, Mondelēz and Nestlé.

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UK’s ‘not for EU’ meat and dairy labelling plan postponed indefinitely

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Policy devised under Conservatives will be reviewed after warnings of chaos for producers and suppliers

Government plans to force food manufacturers to put “not for EU” labels on all meat and dairy products sold across Britain next month have been indefinitely postponed after warnings that the scheme could cause “chaos” for producers and suppliers.

The government will instead review the policy, which was devised under the Conservative administration. Legislation to implement the changes has yet to be brought in.

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Campbell’s to drop soup from company name after 102 years

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Plan to rename group the Campbell’s Company part of shift in focus to other food it sells

Bosses at Campbell Soup Company, whose cans feature in one of Andy Warhol’s best known 1960s pop artworks, have announced plans to drop ‘soup’ from its name after more than 100 years.

Its chief executive, Mark Clouse, said the decision to rename the group the Campbell’s Company was part of a shift in focus to the other snack foods and jarred sauces it sold.

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Drinking wine to 5: Dolly Parton launches prosecco and rosé range in UK

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Country music star’s ‘down to earth’ range at Asda goes head to head with Kylie for the ‘easy drinking’ top spot

Whether it’s 9 to 5, Jolene or Islands in the Stream, Dolly Parton fans are no stranger to belting out her hits with a glass of wine in hand, but now they can sip her vino, too, as the singer’s “down to earth” wine range goes on sale in the UK.

The brains behind Dolly Wines say they have bottled Parton’s “vivacious spirit and love for life” with the decision to branch out from selling albums to alcohol pitting the US country music star against the pop princess Kylie in the battle for the “easy drinking” top spot.

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Arctic tern and common gull join red list of UK species in crisis

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Seabirds are in a precarious position as their breeding areas are threatened by climate breakdown and overfishing

Five seabirds have been added to the UK’s conservation red list, meaning they are at dire risk of local extinction.

The government has been urged to act as the arctic tern, Leach’s storm petrel, common gull, great skua and great black-backed gull join other seabird species such as the puffin on the list after severe population declines.

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Choco Leibniz firm apologises as report reveals scale of forced labour under Nazis

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Germany’s Bahlsen biscuit empire used workers from Nazi-occupied Poland and Ukraine from 1940 until 1945

Germany’s Bahlsen biscuit empire has apologised for the “painful” findings of a report showing that it used several times more forced labourers than previously thought during the Nazi period.

The report was commissioned after family heiress Verena Bahlsen caused outrage in 2019 by appearing to play down the hardship suffered by hundreds of people, many of them women from Nazi-occupied Ukraine, forced to work at the family business.

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Peel those apples: washing produce doesn’t remove pesticides, study finds

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Another report found pesticide levels posing ‘significant risks’ in 20% of tested fruits and vegetables

A new scientific report lends weight to consumer concerns about pesticide residues on food, presenting fresh evidence that washing fruit before eating does not remove various toxic chemicals commonly used in agriculture.

The paper, published on Wednesday in the American Chemical Society’s journal Nano Letters, comes amid ongoing debate over the extent of pesticide contamination of food, and the potential health risks associated with a steady diet that includes pesticide residues.

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Large English vineyards mark boom year as output and investment soars

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Though tiny compared with rivals, English wine trade is thriving as climate crisis fuels flood of new capital from investors

The largest English vineyards increased their revenues by 15% last year, as wine investors respond to the climate crisis by planting more vines.

While the UK still languishes well down the list of the largest wine-producing nations, below countries such as Uzbekistan and Tunisia, the industry’s output has soared in recent years, rising by 77% last year to 161,960 hectolitres, equivalent to 21.6m bottles.

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Sheep and goat plague won’t halt production of feta, say Greek farmers

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Producers insist they have enough milk despite culling of thousands of animals due to livestock virus

Greek farmers have denied that production of feta cheese is likely to be hit hard by the outbreak of a deadly virus among goats and sheep that has led to the culling of thousands of animals.

Livestock industry officials sought to dispel fears that the cheese, a mainstay of the Mediterranean diet, could be imperilled because of the rate at which the highly infectious disease has spread.

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Australian researchers are feeding peanut powder to babies with allergies. Why?

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Nationwide Adapt program will see babies aged under 12 months given a daily dose of powder to try to achieve allergy remission

Australia has the highest rates of childhood food allergies in the world, with peanut allergies alone affecting about three in every 100 children by one year of age.

It can create anxiety for the child and caregivers, as the risk of a life-threatening allergic reaction (known as anaphylaxis) makes it critical to avoid the allergen or ensure quick treatment.

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