First, we had that great presentation at the World Dairy Summit in Cape Town, South Africa, reporting on a new method for determining the quality of dietary proteins proposed by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO).
The new method ‘describes dietary protein quality accurately for the first time and thus highlights the superior quality of dairy proteins’.
Dairy proteins, it seems, have a quality up to 30% better than other proteins, such as those derived from plants.
Then came news from researchers at Bristol University in the UK that children who regularly drink milk are physically fitter in old age. A new study suggests that the benefits of milk consumption early in life last through to later years. But hey, I reckon we knew this, didn’t we?
And then, as I was writing this piece, there was news from Denmark at the weekend that the government had dumped its ‘fat tax’. Various press reports said it had had a negative effect on the economy and had done damage to some businesses. Arla Foods said it had lost around €670,000 in a year.
There were also reports that some consumers were switching to cheaper, but less healthy and less nutritious foods, while Danish shoppers were flooding over the border into Germany to do their shopping.
When the ‘fat tax’ was implemented a year ago, it was reported that its praises were being sung by politicians in Switzerland, UK and Germany. They were keeping an eye on its progress while presumably making their plans to implement a similar tax.
If the Germans go ahead, does that mean we will have a reversal of the shopping flow, with Germans now flooding into Denmark to do their shopping?
Zenith International chairman Richard Hall has written an interesting blog on the problems of ‘health taxes’, despite which he reports that ‘pressure is building in the UK for new health taxes’.
So, what about the potential bad news? Well, we had the announcement from the UK’s Department of Health that ‘consumers will be able to make healthier choices about the food they eat with the introduction of a new, consistent system of front of pack labelling’.
The Department’s press release says the new, proposed system includes using colour coding, guideline daily amounts, high/medium/low text.
As my former colleague Rebecca Prescott asks in her excellent opinion piece on FoodBev.com, Will the new labelling system give dairy the red light?
Good news, bad news, what next? Whatever it is, all this highlights how important is the work of our national dairy councils and similar bodies who keep an eye on all these developments and fight the dairy corner.
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