FoodBev Media’s David Echevarría rounds up this week’s food and beverage news, including:
Global dairy companies join alliance to cut methane at COP28
Six of the world’s largest dairy companies will soon disclose their methane emissions as part of a new global alliance launched at the UN’s climate summit in Dubai this week.
The six members of the Dairy Methane Action Alliance (DMAA) – Danone, Bel Group, General Mills, Lactalis USA, Kraft Heinz and Nestlé – will begin reporting their methane emissions by mid-2024 and will write methane action plans by the end of 2024 to drive down methane emissions in their dairy supply chains.
Methane is nearly 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency, with the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization stating that livestock is responsible for around 30% of global anthropogenic methane emissions.
EG Group to sell all of its KFC franchise restaurants
EG Group has announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to sell all of its 218 KFC franchise restaurants in the UK and Ireland to Yum! Brands’ KFC Division.
The transaction agreed by EG Group – the largest KFC franchisee in the UK and Ireland – is an additional step in the company’s strategy to reduce its debt. The sale is expected to complete in the first half of 2024.
Zuber Issa and Mohsin Issa, co-founders and co-CEOs of EG Group, said: “We are proud to have been a strategic partner of KFC in the UK and Ireland, playing an important role in helping the brand expand its footprint. Now is the right time to hand the baton to the KFC leadership team to continue to grow the brand in the UK and Ireland.”
Nestlé to invest $1.2bn in Brazil
Nestlé has announced plans to invest BRL 6 billion (approx. $1.2 billion) in food and drink production in Brazil, with a series of payments scheduled between 2023 and 2025.
The funds will be primarily allocated to boost business growth, integrate new technologies in the industry, expand manufacturing facilities, transform its portfolio and advance the sustainability agenda in Nestlé’s chocolate, coffee, pet care and nutrition segments in Brazil.
Marcelo Melchior, CEO of Nestlé Brasil, said: “We are Nestlé’s third largest market in the world, and the even more accelerated growth of our business requires robust investment on different fronts: from expansion and new technologies in factories and supply chains, to new practices in regenerative agriculture and each portfolio increasingly broad and diverse, always focusing on solutions that take health, nutrition and well-being from pre-conception to healthy ageing”.
US jury awards $17.7m to food giants in egg price-fixing case
A US jury has ordered various egg producers to pay $17.7 million in damages to a number of food giants after being found guilty in a long-running overcharging lawsuit.
The egg producers include “the US’s largest” Cal-Maine Foods, and other giants including Rose Acre Farms, United Egg Producers and United States Egg Marketers.
Kraft Heinz, Kellogg, General Mills and Nestlé filed the suit in Illinois federal court in 2011, arguing that between 1999 and 2008, the egg producers ““unlawfully agreed to and did engage in a conspiracy to control supply and artificially maintain and increase the price of eggs”.
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