The Cracker magazine, July 2011

Cracker The

July 2011 Edition 53, No. 2

The Official Voice of the International Nut and Dried Fruit Council Foundation for the World Nut and Dried Fruit Trade

BUDAPEST CONGRESS RECAP SINGAPORE CONGRESS 2012 EXPECTED TO TOP 1000!

GLOBAL CASHEW AGREEMENT SIGNED

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The Cracker | July 2011

July 2011 | The Cracker

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July 2011, Edition 53 INTERNATIONAL NUT AND DRIED FRUIT COUNCIL FOUNDATION BOARD OF DIRECTORS Giles Hacking - Chairman CG Hacking & Sons Limited, UK Mark Mariani - Vice Chairman Mariani Packing Company, USA Pino Calcagni - Vice Chairman V. Besana SPA, Italy Jordi Martí - Treasurer and General Secretary Borges SAU, Spain Thomas Apfel Max Kiene GmbH, Germany Asadollah Asgaroladi Hassas Export Co. Ltd., Iran Baljit Chadha Balcorp Limited, Canada Mark Jansen Blue Diamond Growers, USA Barry Kriebel Sun-Maid Growers of California, USA Ashok Krishen Olam International Limited, Singapore Maarten Leerdam Intersnack Group GmbH & Co. KG, Germany Jack Mariani Mariani Nut Company, USA Chris Nubern Kraft Foods, USA Osman Oz Anatolia Tarim Urunleri Sanayi A.S., Turkey Antonio Pont Borges S.A.U., Spain - Honorary President Sabit Sabir Sabirlar Findik Ihracat Ltd. Sti., Turkey Berton Steir Paramount Roll International Corp., USA Dick Walden The Green Valley Pecan Company, USA Michael Waring MWT Foods, Australia Cuneyd Zapsu Balsu A.S., Turkey Bian Zhenhu China Chamber of Commerce, China EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE Giles Hacking - Chairman Mark Mariani - Vice Chairman Pino Calcagni - Vice Chairman Jack Mariani Antonio Pont Berton Steir Cuneyd Zapsu Goretti Guasch - Executive Director SENATORS Hubert Berrebi, France John Cardassilaris, Greece Helmut Dankert, Germany Raoul Gamon, France Chris Hacking, UK Walter F. Payne, USA Abbas Rafii, Luxembourg Don Soetaert, USA James Swink, USA Jack Taillie, Netherlands Frank Vaerewijck, Belgium Doug Youngdahl, USA THE CRACKER EDITORIAL COMMITTEE Giles Hacking - Chairman Susan Brauner - Editor Goretti Guasch - Executive Director Graphic Design by:

Creative • Print • Mail

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Legal Deposit: B-7497-1989 PERMANENT SECRETARIAT OF INC Goretti Guasch, Executive Director Calle Boule 2, 43201 Reus, Spain Tel: +34 977 331 416 | Fax: +34 977 315 028 E-mail: inc@nutfruit.org | Web: www.nutfruit.org The Cracker is published three times a year by the International Tree Nut and Dried Fruit Council Foundation (Fundacio Privada International Tree Nut CIF G-43738475).

This magazine including all articles and illustrations, is copyright protected. Any utilization beyond the light limits set by the Copyright Act is subject to publisher’s approval.

The Official Voice of the International Nut and Dried Fruit Council Foundation for the World Nut and Dried Fruit Trade

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FEATURED ARTICLES

INDEX

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23 INC Ambassadors

WORLD NEWS

Gluten-free products are accelerating worldwide according to packaging magazine, especially in the U.S. where annual growth rate is up 30 percent between 2006-10; Southeast Asia to conduct extensive nutrition study; Food allergies cost $500 million year; growth boom in Indian confectionary market; Wall Street Journal examines pecan industry in China.

63 Statistical Outlook 85 Advertisers

28 BUDAPEST CONGRESS SERIES

An introduction to global retail marketing of nuts; how to market nuts in European supermarkets according to Delhaize Belgium; Tesco looks at solutions for retail marketing; food policy makers asked to consider dried fruit equivalent to fresh fruits; Budapest Congress highlighted in photos; Advisory Committee Report; Scientific Seminar recapped; Nuts and Dried Fruits on Health and Disease; Global Cashew industry signs Task Force Agreement; Innovation Awards for new product and service.

52 CHOCOLATE FORTUNES

The Battle For The Hearts, Minds And Wallets of China’s Consumers continues in the second of a two-part series which explores how Cadbury, Hershey and Nestle approach the chocolate market in China.

57 INC SECRETARIAT NEWS

Sponsorship opportunities for new INC home; 11th European Congress of Nutrition in Madrid in October; INC exhibits at U.S. based IFT Expo; Nuts and Dried Fruit at Pavilion in October Sial Paris; INC Annual Report available; EU border rejections of tree nuts down; MycoRed Project General Assembly report.

86 NUTRITION RESEARCH & EDUCATION

COMMITTEE REPORT

A recap of studies presented by leading researchers at Budapest Congress; INC NREF Diabetes study shows tree nuts may play role in type 2 diabetes patients; new USDA food icon released.

90 NUTRITION RESEARCH UPDATE

Various cocoa studies show chocolate has positive effect on diet; pistachio diet improves reproductive health; antioxidants in pecans help heart health; pistachios deliver weight management and other support; fiber in nuts linked to longevity.

www.nutfruit.org All trademarks, brand identities and graphic images shown in this publication are the property of their respective owners.

While the publishers believe that all information contained in this publication was correct at the time of going to press, they can accept no liability for any inaccuracies that may appear or loss suffered directly or indirectly by any reader as a result of any advertisement, editorial, photographs or other materials published in the Cracker.

July 2011 | The Cracker

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CHAIRMAN’S COMMENTARY

Greetings from Sunny London!

Although, as I sit down to write my first ‘chairman’s commentary’, and with the Wimbledon Tennis Tournament well into its first week, it is looking doubtful that the sun is going to stay with us much longer. So goes the weather in old London Town!

It is a great honor and a privilege for me to be taking over the reins of the INC at this particular time, when the promotion and consumption of nuts and dried fruit around the world is so high on the agenda. From the early days when the INC was founded in 1983, (my own father being one of the original founders) the International Nut and Dried Fruit Foundation has become a very dynamic organization. It now has over 550 members from 60 countries, representing an industry, which is conservatively valued at over $ 25 billion. It has become ‘the’ voice of the industry’ enjoying the respect of governments and health organizations globally.

Your former Chairman Jack Mariani has left the INC in great shape, and I very much look forward to continuing his good work. I will work in collaboration not only with my fellow directors, but also with the entire membership, whose support and feedback is so crucially important to us. I pledge to continue the INCs work for the benefit of all within the industry, producers and consumers alike, and all those throughout the value chain.

With prices of many nuts and dried fruits at all time highs and consumption growing, there must be an increasing emphasis on the need for greater production in the years ahead. Indeed, that is a good problem to have!

For those who do not know me, I offer a bit of background about myself. I have been in the commodity business for the past 27 years, 17 of them in the nut and dried fruit sector. Prior to that I was involved in the cocoa trade, working for two of the largest dealers in the UK. The Hacking family has been in the industry for about 45 years. My father, Chris, started his own business (CG Hacking & Sons) in 1971, when I was 8 years old. I am now 48, married to Sarah, and have three children: Edward, Marina and Felix. I have been a board member of the INC since May 1998 in Charleston, South Carolina, USA and on the Executive Committee since its formation in August 2003 in Istanbul, Turkey.

In this edition of The Cracker you will be able to review the program of events that took place at the Budapest Congress on the 20-22nd of May. The congress was a complete sell-out with 820 delegates and accompanying persons (from 46 countries) participating in it! The new ‘round-table’ format of the presentations was a great improvement and certainly seemed to encourage more audience participation and stimulated open debate. In addition, you will also be able to read reports of the Nutrition Seminar, the Scientific Seminar, and the creation of the Global Cashew Task Force, as well as other presentations made in Budapest.

One of the more exciting new developments you will be able to read about in this issue will be the creation of an INC Pavilion, which we hope will become a permanent feature at all major food shows of the future, and will also be of great use to our membership. The pavilion’s inauguration is planned for October at ANUGA in Cologne. It will also be a feature at GULF FOOD in Dubai, and SIAL in Paris. The pavilion will give members an opportunity to take a booth under the INC ‘umbrella’, and will also provide them with meeting room facilities as well as a catering service.

During the Budapest Congress members had the opportunity to see a scale model of Mas Barrufet, the new home of INC based in Reus. The financing of the building will come almost entirely from the generosity of members who have agreed to sponsor the work by buying ‘bricks.’ This comes with additional benefits, including discounts on future congress registration fees.

While the platinum sponsorships are fully sold out, there still remain a few ‘gold’ sponsorships. Several delegates purchased ‘bricks’ and 16 different companies requested additional information during the Budapest Congress. The Spanish Government has also very kindly agreed to fund part of the construction costs. After some intense lobbying by the Secretariat, we are pleased to let you know that the street where Mas Barrufet is located will be named ‘FruitaSeca’ (Dried Fruit and Nuts Street)!

The 11th European Congress on Nutrition will be held 24-29 October in Madrid, where the INC will sponsor a symposium entitled ‘Nut Consumption, Cardiovascular Risk and Body Weight’, which will include keynote speakers who specialize in cardiovascular disease and nutrition. This symposium is following the success of the INC-sponsored symposium, which took place in Barcelona in March 2010 as the Second Congress of the Federation of Societies of Nutrition Food and Dietetics (FESNAD).

Madrid will also be the location for the next meeting of your Executive Committee at that time.

It may seem premature to talk about our next congress, but believe me it is not! Widely publicized, the 2012 congress will take place at the Marina Bay Sands Hotel in Singapore. The Secretariat has already received overwhelming interest from potential participants! We expect attendance to be over 1,000 people and without a doubt, we will be faced with another fully booked registration at an early stage. We therefore intend to open registration sooner than normal, so look for more information in November, and make your plans accordingly.

Finally, I would like to thank you for all of your valuable contributions to INC over the years. YOU have made INC what it is today, and I thank you also for your confidence in your board and it’s Executive Committee. I look forward to INCs future with great enthusiasm.

All of the best for a fruitful harvest and a new season!

Giles Hacking INC Chairman

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The Cracker | July 2011

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WORLD NUT & DRIED FRUIT NEWS KEEP UP WITH CURRENT EVENTS FROM THE INTERNATIONAL NUT & DRIED FRUIT INDUSTRY PLANTERS NEW PR CAMPAIGN Planters is sponsoring creation of peanut-shaped community parks called “Planters Groves” in four U.S. cities, and launching a “Naturally Remarkable” campaign that encompasses this and other sustainability initiatives ... with a dash of fun.

The Kraft Foods brand will mark the opening of the parks in New Orleans, Washington, D.C., San Francisco and New York City with appearances by a new eco-friendly Planters Nutmobile. The truck is biodiesel; generates energy for its tour-stop needs through solar panels, a wind turbine and a biodiesel generator; uses LED interior lighting; and is constructed of eco-conscious materials (reclaimed wood floors, for example). The Nutmobile will also visit 12 other U.S. cities, and at all stops will encourage young people to contribute to their communities by volunteering for The Corps Network. Young members of that network mobilize volunteers in their regions to engage in needed, community-specific volunteer work ranging from preserving natural habitats and maintaining public lands to renovating deteriorating housing and supporting local education programs. The network’s regional groups will build and maintain the Planters Groves.

The groves are being designed by landscape architect Ken Smith.

Each park design will be city-specific, and will use locally reclaimed materials and native trees, plus plants from the legume family (the peanut’s family). In each park, one bench will feature a seated Mr. Peanut figure.

As part of the Nutmobile’s “Naturally Remarkable” tour, Planters also will partner with the NCAA’s “68 Courts in 68 Days” initiative, conducted during the 2011 NCAA Men’s Final Four, to revitalize a basketball court in Houston, Tex. The campaign kicked off last February in Los Angeles, as Planters unveiled its new Nutmobile and its groves plan during a sustainability showcase hosted by the environmental organization Global Green.

The campaign is meant to generate goodwill for the brand by demonstrating its commitment to helping communities and the environment (as well as underline the natural qualities of Planters snack products).

But the “Naturally Remarkable” theme speaks to a larger revitalization -- or more accurately “return-to-roots” -- mission for the 100-yearold Planters brand. The concept is to honor the origins of the brand’s name -- the U.S. peanut planters and the other planters who now produce its nuts and other snack ingredients -while at the same time

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reflecting the fun/good times that have always been associated with Planters snacks.

Planters is emphasizing its “brand citizenship” re sustainability -- not only through the groves effort and eco-conscious Nutmobile, but by educating consumers about its investments in sustainable facilities (one has now reached zero landfill status and the other should do so this year, and both are energy- and water-efficient); its reduction of packaging materials; and its/Kraft’s membership in the African Cashew Alliance, an initiative to improve production sustainability practices and increase cashew farmers’ income.

Planters’ makeover of the Mr. Peanut brand icon -- who now speaks, in addition to having an updated, more “peanut-like” look and being placed in a peanut-sized creative world -- is designed to reinforce the brand’s role in enhancing social occasions. “’Naturally Remarkable’ captures the sustainability message, but also Planters’ association with good times which positions Mr. Peanut as the spokesperson for this combined message.

GLUTEN FREE MOMENTUM ACCELERATING Sales of gluten-free foods and beverages, once considered specialty items, had a compound annual growth rate of 30% in the U.S. between 2006 and 2010, according to the latest report on this category from research publisher Packaged Facts.

Packaged Facts, which previously projected that sales of gluten-free foods and beverages would reach $2.3 billion by 2011, has revised those

WORLD NUT & DRIED FRUIT NEWS estimates, putting the market at $2.64 billion in 2010. Despite factors such as expected falling product prices due to a greater presence of these items in mass outlets and more private-label choices, the researcher expects gluten-free products to show average annual compound growth of 14% between 2011 and 2015, to reach sales of to $5.6 billion by 2015.

The dynamics behind this growth start with growing consumer awareness of celiac disease -- a chronic autoimmune intestinal disorder in genetically susceptible individuals that causes a toxic reaction to ingesting wheat gluten and similar proteins. A Mayo Clinic study found that the rate of celiac disease has more than quadrupled in the past 50 years -- this despite the fact that it is still “staggeringly under-diagnosed,” according to Packaged Facts. Recent estimates are that 1% of Americans, or about 3 million people, may be affected. Food allergies affect about 4% of U.S. adults and 5% of children, and the incidence among children, in particular, has been rising rapidly.

Currently, the only treatment for celiac disease is lifelong adherence to a gluten-free diet -- which is why, these days, “everyone knows someone” who is living gluten-free, one marketer noted to the report’s researchers.

In addition, there is evidence that gluten-free diets may relieve autism in children and adult rheumatoid arthritis.

From a broader perspective, a growing number of consumers perceive gluten-free products as being of higher quality and having a healthy “aura” -- a dynamic similar to the one that’s driven sales growth of kosher foods in recent years, points out the report. “There is a demand for [gluten-free] foods and beverages that mainstream food manufacturers and retailers are increasingly happy to satisfy,” observes Don Montuori, publisher of Packaged Facts.

SOUTHEAST ASIA FOCUS OF IN-DEPTH NUTRITION STUDY FrieslandCampina has announced details of a 12 month study into the health and nutrition of children in key regions of Southeast Asia, which it claims will deliver scientifically robust data for improved product formulation for local communities. Focusing on Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam, the study claims to be a “first of its kind” in the region and will be conducted in collaboration with leading local nutritional institutes in order to “better understand the nutritional well-being, needs and patterns among children 12 years and below.”

The results of the study will “identify opportunities and gaps in

Recognition by major brands and mass retailers of the sustainable -- non-fad -- growth of gluten-free products, and their resulting push to market/carry such products, has resulted in health food stores’ share of these products’ sales dropping by half in just two years, estimates Packaged Facts. The surge in the sales and number of products specifically marketed as gluten-free in supermarkets and mass merchandisers tracked by Symphony IRI has reached the point that, according to one brand marketer quoted in the report, gluten-free products are becoming “just a regular grocery item.”

Dominant gluten-free product categories in food/drug/mass retailers include food/nutrition bars -- which, largely due to General Mills’ acquisition of the Lärabar brand in 2008, represent about 16% of total gluten-free product sales in these outlets and showed the largest yearover-year sales growth between 2009 and 2010, according to the report.

Sales of gluten-free ready-to-eat cereals declined slightly between 2009 and 2010, but that category remains in second place.

General Mills’ “transformation” of its popular Rice Chex cereal into a gluten-free product without changing its taste “stands as a milestone indicator of the breadth of impact of gluten-free products having mainstream consciousness,” point out Packaged Facts’ analysts.

As of November 2010, General Mills reported offering 250 gluten-free products, including five varieties of Chex and numerous products under the Betty Crocker and Bisquick brands.

Meanwhile, while product categories such as hot cereal, soups and frozen pizza are still very small segments of the overall gluten-free food/beverage market, they are showing significant, double-digit gains.

Consumers on gluten-free diets are willing to pay the higher prices generally associated with gluten-free products, the report notes.

enhancing health and nutrition” and, according to Jan Willem Kivits, marketing director FrieslandCampina Consumer Products International business group, deliver an in-depth understanding of the specific nutritional needs of each local market and so “better serve the local communities.”

Results from the study are expected to become available in the first quarter of 2012. Over 16,000 children, aged 12 and under, across the four counties are expected to participate in the study during the next 12 months. Using recognised scientific measurements, research will focus on three main areas: • Dietary profiling and nutrient intake assessment, including food intake, bone density and cognition.

• Biochemical analysis of blood, including analysis of iron status, vitamins, lipid profile and blood pressure.

• Assessment of body composition and physical activity, including measurements on weight, height and hand grip strength.

The study is being conducted in partnership with leading local and academic institutes in Indonesia (PERSAGI – Persautuan Ahli Gizi Indonesia), Malaysia (UKM – University of Kebangsaan Malaysia), Thailand (MAHIDOL – Mahidol University) and Vietnam (National Institute of Nutrition –Vien Dinh Duong).

Royal FrieslandCampina is a multinational dairy company wholly owned by the dairy co-operative Zuivelcoöperatie FrieslandCampina, which has 15,300 member dairy farms in the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium. Their products are for sale in more than 100 countries.

July 2011 | The Cracker

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WORLD NUT & DRIED FRUIT NEWS

KRAFT EXPANDING IN BRAZIL Kraft opened its sixth manufacturing plant in Brazil to help keep up with soaring demand for its products. The $80 million, 270,000 squarefoot plant will be the first for Kraft in the north-northeast of the country, the fastest growing region in not just Brazil but all of Latin America, according to according to the world’s No. 2 food company. The project is part of the $200 million investment the company will make in Brazil in 2010 and 2011, Kraft’s largest injection of money into the nation in a decade. The plant, located in Pernambuco, will eventually employ 800 locals and make Tang and Fresh powdered beverages, Bis and Lacta brand chocolates, and in 2012 start making Club Social biscuits. The Brazil team has been working closely with its counterpart in India on formulas that are resistant to the hot climate.

The move is the latest step in Kraft’s efforts to evolve from a U.S.focused food enterprise into a global powerhouse. Thanks in part to its 2010 acquisition of Cadbury, Kraft’s developing markets segment has grown from 13% of the company’s business in 2006 to nearly a third in 2010 with almost $14 billion in revenue. Last year Brazil generated $1.9 billion in sales, with its organic net revenue climbing 16%.

In Brazil alone, the acquisition turned Kraft into the No. 3 food company in the country, giving it the No. 1 position in categories like gum with the addition of the Trident brand. It also more than doubled the number of outlets Kraft has to sell its products in Brazil and gave the company access to the “hot zone” -- the area near the register. The north-northeast is critical for Kraft due to its status as a truly developing region within a developing market. Historically a poor area, the north-northeast has seen a buildup of infrastructure in the last decade thanks to investments from the government and private enterprise.

Over the last several years, the region’s GDP has grown at twice the rate of the rest of the country’s, but still has not reached the same level of market maturity as Brazil overall. Chocolate has 56% penetration in Brazil. In the north-northeast region it’s at only 19%. While Kraft has a sprawling portfolio in the U.S. ranging from Triscuits to Cool-Whip, the company’s strategy in its developing markets segment is much more focused. Kraft has dubbed the strategy 5-10-10: focusing on five categories through 10 “power brands” in 10 priority markets.

Kraft’s focus on items like chocolate and biscuits in developing markets has led the company to the top of the global snacking market with just over a 10% share. (Snacks make up about 70% of sales in countries like Brazil versus about 30% in North America.) Not only are items like gum and chocolate high margin products, but they also sit at a key price point for consumers who are new to disposable incomes. Kraft adjusts the size and portion of the products accordingly. Rather than introduce new items, Kraft’s focus in developing markets right now is on its core products and adjusting them to local tastes.

AMERICANS FAVOR SWEET SNACKS, CANADIANS LIKE SALTY Americans are sweeter than their Canadian counterparts when it comes to their eating habits. Two studies released by The NPD Group revealed Americans will increase their consumption of sweet snacks and desserts three times more than Canadians during the next 10 years. Canadians tend to eschew sweet treats more than Americans. Instead, they prefer salty or savory snacks foods, including cheese, chips and crackers, according to the studies, named “A Look into the Future of Eating -- Canadian Marketplace” and “A Look into the Future of Eating -- United States Marketplace.”

Americans differ from their neighbors to the north when it comes to breakfast as well. Americans are projected to increase their consumption of heat-and-eat foods, such as bagels and frozen pancakes.

Canadians are expected to decrease consumption of those breakfast foods during the next 10 years. According to The NPD Group, Americans also will eat more salads, warm side dishes and main meals with proteins, including meat and fish, during the next decade. Americans and Canadians surveyed were alike in one facet: Convenience meals, such as yogurt, fruit, snack bars, canned soup and frozen pizza, are projected to grow equally in both countries over the next 10 years.

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WORLD NUT & DRIED FRUIT NEWS

MEDITERRANEAN DIET GOOD FOR METABOLIC SYNDROME Eating a Mediterranean diet may prevent or even reverse metabolic syndrome, a cluster of risk factors for heart disease and diabetes, according to a new study. The Mediterranean diet includes an abundance of fruits, vegetables, beans, NUTS, olive oil, poultry and fish, with very little red meat.

Scientists believe that eating this way has antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects on the body.

“This study reinforces guidelines over the past 10 years, stressing the need to reduce consumption of refined carbohydrates and saturated fats” from meat and dairy products, Dr. Robert S. Rosenson of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York said. He was not involved in the work.

Metabolic syndrome is a recent catchall for unhealthy traits that spell bad news for the heart, such as belly fat, high blood pressure, low levels of “good” HDL cholesterol, elevated fat levels in the blood (triglycerides), and high blood sugar. The condition is diagnosed when a person has at least three of those risk factors.

Reviewing 35 clinical trials, Dr. Demosthenes B. Panagiotakos at Harokopia University in Athens, Greece, and his team found that faithfully eating a Mediterranean diet can improve each of those traits. For instance, those who stuck with the Mediterranean diet as compared to eating their regular foods or a low-fat diet trimmed their waistlines by about 0.43 cm (0.16 inches) on average. They also showed slashed their blood pressure by 2.35 points on the top reading, and their fasting blood sugar by 3.89 milligrams per deciliter.

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While these benefits may seem small, Dr. Elizabeth Mayer-Davis, who was not involved in the research, said they show a Mediterranean diet might be beneficial. “So it’s reasonable to recommend the Mediterranean diet to patients,” she said. But she added that “we can’t say that this diet reduces the risk of diabetes.”

Nor does the study, published in Journal of the American College of Cardiology, show that the diet cuts the risk of death from heart disease, which has been linked to metabolic syndrome. Mayer-Davis, professor of nutrition at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, also said she was concerned that cost could be a barrier to adopting a diet that emphasizes fresh foods, olive oil and fish.

Olive oil is an important part of the Mediterranean diet because it is a so-called monounsaturated fat, which “protects” levels of HDL cholesterol.

However, it can cost a lot more than other cooking oils on supermarket shelves. Rosenson said that when he suggests this diet to his patients, he makes the point that the much cheaper canola oil is also high in monounsaturated fats.

Dr. Robert Eckel, a former president of the American Heart Association who reviewed the study for Reuters Health, noted that the Mediterranean diet “is part of a dietary pattern consistent with guidelines from the AHA, the USDA, and other bodies, that overall is consistent with reduced risk for cardiovascular disease, stroke and diabetes.”

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WORLD NUT & DRIED FRUIT NEWS

FOOD ALLERGIES COST $500 MILLION A YEAR Visits to the doctor’s office make up the bulk of the medical costs, researchers estimate, amounting to at least $118 million. Food allergies among children have climbed 18 percent from 1997 to 2007, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Today, about four of every 100 Americans suffer from the exaggerated immune response, which can be triggered by peanuts, milk, eggs and other products.

Using several databases, the researchers tallied up the cost of emergency room care, hospitalizations, and visits to the physician’s office for allergic reactions. They then used those numbers to estimate the nationwide cost of treatment and reported their results in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. Total medical costs ranged from $225 million to $307 million, depending on the type of calculation the researchers performed. Visits to the emergency department cost $45 million, about 20 percent of the total medical fees.

David Holdford, a pharmacist at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond who worked on the study, told Reuters Health he had expected emergency room visits to make up a bigger chunk of the medical costs. Food allergies can trigger anaphylaxis, a severe reaction that can

GROWTH BOOM FOR INDIAN CONFECTIONARY MARKET The Indian confectionery market will see rapid growth over the next three years, according to the latest Datamonitor research, with an increasing premiumisation trend leading to a hike in chocolate purchases. The region will also see ballooning volume sales due to a spread in organised retail, projects Datamonitor’s Market Insights: Confectionery in India report.

By 2014, India is projected to jump up from 19th to 25th place in the rank of global confectionery markets, claims the market research company. The Indian market is predicted to grow to a value of $2.28bn by 2014, with a CAGR of 12.4 per cent during 2009-14. Although the country currently has a low market value, the region has been growing at a much faster pace than leading countries such as the US, Germany, UK and Russia over the past few years.

During 2008–09, the Indian confectionery market had the second fastest global growth with a value increase of 12.2 per cent. Chocolate and cereal bars are two of the fastest growing categories due partly to an increasing premiumisation trend, according to Datamonitor.

“Indian consumers are increasingly experimenting with new foods, and novelty consumption is on the rise as consumers are increasingly likely to treat themselves with earned “indulgences”,” said Datamonitor.

cause breathing difficulty, heart problems and death and requires immediate attention.

Doctor visits comprised 52 percent of medical costs. The vast majority of food allergies are to milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, fish, shellfish, soy, or wheat. The study found that the medical cost of treating an allergic reaction to food was greater than for similar conditions. For instance, an emergency department visit for a food allergy cost $553, while previous studies have found that a visit to the emergency room for asthma cost $345. Indirect costs of food allergies, such as missing work to take a sick child to the doctor, cost $115 million to $203 million, annually.

Maria Acebal, the vice president of research at the Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network, an advocacy organization that partially funded the study, said these numbers are just the base of what it costs to deal with food allergies. The study did not include the cost of maintaining special diets, or arranging for particular travel or school accommodations, for instance. “This is the first attempt to try and quantify the economic cost of food allergies,” she said.

In 2010, new product launches were dominated by the sugar confectionery and chocolate category which together accounted for around 80 per cent of all launches. Chocolate is the largest category in terms of value and is estimated to exhibit the second highest CAGR during 2009–14 among all categories, of 18.8 per cent. However, per capita consumption of branded chocolate is extremely low, at around 100g.

Global confectionery giants such as Cadbury’s, Perfetti Van Melle, and Nestle are the key contributors to the pool of new product launches in the premium price range in the market. “An analysis of the leading five manufacturers in terms of growth suggests that companies with a higher focus on chocolate products are performing relatively better than others,” said Datamonitor.

The leader in the Indian confectionery market, Cadbury, has a large brand depth, especially in the fast growing chocolate category and saw a value growth of 18.1 per cent during 2008–09. However, Perfetti Van Melle, which key brands focus on the slower-growing sugar confectionery category, saw a relatively sluggish growth of seven per cent over 20082009.

In terms of growth prospects, cereal bars are expected to be the most promising confectionery category over the next few years, according to Datamonitor. Increasing snacking/ eating on-the-go habits and a rising health consciousness trend will fuel the growth in this category, which is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 37.3 per cent over 2009–14.

Factors such as the rising number of diagnosed diabetics will push sales of confectionery products in India that are perceived to be healthier than traditionally available sweets, projects Datamonitor. The number of diabetics in the country more than doubled from 19m in 1995 to 40.9m in 2007, and is further projected to increase to 69.9m by 2025.

July 2011 | The Cracker

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WORLD NUT & DRIED FRUIT NEWS

NUTS FOR TASTY BETWEEN-MEAL SNACKS

when they’re really hungry. But they can’t conveniently forget about those calories when considering their daily total calorie count.

The best between-meal snacking practice, say dietitians, is not to deny yourself snacks when you’re hungry, but to make them healthy, nutrientdense food that will keep you full until the next meal. “The worst thing is people thinking they aren’t snacking and they’re being good,” said Margie Fougeron, registered dietitian with The Care Group, a member of the St. Vincent Medical Group. “We have to break that cycle of thinking snacks are bad for us. We need to pay attention to our body’s cues and respond to them with healthy choices.”

“If someone is going to go longer than five hours without a meal, then they will overeat and binge at that meal,” said Melissa Greives, registered dietitian for Indiana University Hospital, who advises runners and walkers in the Tune-Up Indy training program. She said eating a good snack between meals will result in consuming fewer overall calories and more healthy foods because people tend to make bad choices and eat too much

USDA BREAKS THROUGH PRODUCE FOOD SAFETY Scientists with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS) working at the Environmental Microbial and Food Safety Research Laboratory in Beltsville, Maryland, have developed and patented an advanced scanning system to be used in fresh produce packinghouses to detect certain kinds of exterior defects or contaminants.

According to an article published May 10, by Marcia Wood, Public Affairs Specialist for ARS, the team of ARS scientists designed “an experimental, cutting-edge optical scanning system that would use two different kinds of lighting, a sophisticated camera and other pieces of equipment” in order to examine fresh produce for quality and safety before it even reaches the grocery store.

By experimenting with apples, the scientists found that the system would detect cuts and bruises on the surface of the fruit as well as trace amounts of fertilizer and soil particles. In describing the process, Wood wrote:

So what’s a healthy snack? Basically, it should be a combination of food items with protein, fiber in the form of carbohydrates, and a little healthy fat (polyunsaturated or monounsaturated). Carbohydrates will give immediate energy, protein sustains the energy for a period of time, and the fat makes it last even longer, said Fougeron. Most snacks, she said, should have 5 to 10 grams of protein, 3 or more grams of fiber and less than 15 to 20 grams of sugar.

For someone eating an average of 2,000 to 2,200 calories a day, anywhere from 100 to 300 calories per snack is acceptable, although not at the expense of skipping meals, she advised. Studies show people who eat more frequent smaller meals get more nutrients during the day and are more successful in controlling their weight, Fougeron said.

That could mean fruit with either a handful of nuts, cheese or yogurt.

Sometimes dark chocolate or a raisin cookie. It doesn’t take much to add up to 100 to 200 calories: two tablespoons of nuts with an apple; a hardboiled egg and five wheat crackers; 1/4 cup hummus and veggies; 3 cups of popcorn with 2 tablespoons of nuts.

The team’s system harnesses the capabilities of a type of camera known as a high-speed multispectral/hyperspectral line-scanner. Positioned above a conveyor belt, the scanner captures images of each fastmoving item, such as an apple. Each apple is exposed simultaneously to ultra-violet light from a UV fluorescent lamp and near infra-red light from a halogen lamp. The near infra-red light that bounces off the apple can be captured by an instrument known as a spectrograph and analyzed for tell-tale patterns of defects, while the UV light beamed on the apple can disclose the whereabouts of contaminants. The system combines information from both forms of illumination into a single image with contaminant and defect results. When linked to a sorting machine, the system can signal the sorter to separate the problem apples from others.

Moon S. Kim, a biophysicist working on the project, explained that he and his team have been refining this system for the past few years. Their preliminary research was published in 2008, and, in 2010, Kim, along with engineers Yud-Ren Chen, Kuanglin (Kevin) Chao, and Alan M. Lefcourt received a patent for the system. Currently, the scanning technology is limited to a 180-degree view of the produce item’s surface; however, Kim and his colleagues are hopeful that they will further improve the process to provide a complete 360-degree view, allowing produce packers to perform a thorough inspection for quality and safety.

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July 2011 | The Cracker

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WORLD NUT & DRIED FRUIT NEWS

WSJ EXAMINES CHINA’S FASCINATION WITH PECANS

Prices of pecans have nearly doubled over the past three years, thanks to increased demand from China. In an April Wall St. Journal article, David Wessel examined what is driving China’s strong interest in pecans, of which the U.S. grows about two-thirds of the world’s market.

The following is an excerpt from Wessel’s story.

“Pecans are...the state nut of Arkansas, Alabama and Texas. The U.S. grows about two-thirds of the world’s pecans and chews most of them itself. For generations, pecan prices have fallen with bumper crops and soared with lousy ones. But lately, they’ve only been going up. A pound of pecans in the shell fetched $2.14 on average last year, according to the U.S Department of Agriculture, nearly double what they brought three years earlier....Five years ago, China bought hardly any pecans. In 2009, China bought one-quarter of the U.S. crop, and there’s no sign demand is abating.

“At a Carrefour store near Beijing’s Sanyuan Bridge, Liu Wei, a 61-year-old retired chemistry teacher, is buying a 260-gram (9.1-ounce) bag of Orchard Farmer U.S.-grown pecans for 38 yuan ($5.78). That’s nearly six times Beijing’s official minimum hourly wage. “We used to eat only walnuts, and then we saw on TV that pecans are more nutritious than walnuts,” she says.

“Pecans are very good for the brain. We older people should eat more pecans so that we don’t get Alzheimer’s,” Ms. Liu adds. “My husband has cardiovascular disease, and Beijing TV said eating pecans can help.” She has asked her pregnant daughter-in-law to eat two pecans a day because, she says, “pecans are very good for baby’s brain development.”

Pecans offer a case study in how China is reshaping entire industries for its trading partners—and not only by exporting goods made by its low-wage workers. Nearly $1 of every $5 China spent on U.S. items last year went to buy food of some sort, $16.6 billion worth, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce. U.S. exports of goods of all sorts to China more than doubled between 2005 and 2010. Exports of crops and processed foods—soybeans, dairy, rice, fruit juice—more than tripled.

Exports of pecans rose more than 20-fold.

“What’s changed in our business?” asks second-generation pecan merchant and sheller George Martin, president of Navarro Pecan Co. in Corsicana, Texas. “The Chinese entered…and they have been getting bigger and bigger and bigger.”

“The dynamics are simple. “We’re in a situation of finite supply and seemingly infinite demand,” says Thomas Stevenson, a Georgia pecan

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grower and merchant. Eventually, more trees will be planted, but a pecan takes eight to 10 years to bear fruit. For now, life is good for pecan growers, who produce about $550 million a year worth of nuts at today’s prices. Grower Bill Goff sold the entire crop of his 1,800 acres of Georgia pecans to Chinese buyers last year. But he’s not putting the profits into a sports car. Instead, he is buying up another 500 acres of pecan orchards. In Georgia, he says, pecan orchards hovered between $3,000 and $3,800 an acre five years ago. Today, they sell for between $4,500 and $6,000 an acre.

“While China’s appetite for pecans has been a windfall for growers, it poses a challenge for pecan shellers—the middlemen who separate nut from shell and then sell the insides to food companies, grocery stories and direct to consumers. For some shellers, the trouble is simply getting the nuts they need before the Chinese buy them. For others, it’s about coping with volatile prices to avoid profit-reducing squeezes. This can happen if they pledge to sell nuts at prices that turn out to be below market, or if they try to time purchases only to end up buying at the peak....

“Pecans are a peculiar nut. Walnuts and almonds are grown in the U.S. almost exclusively in California; hazelnuts mostly in Oregon. Pecans, in contrast, grow across the South from New Mexico to Georgia as well as in northern Mexico. That means the types of pecans, their growing seasons and the cost of production vary widely. Further fragmenting the market, between 20% and 30% of all pecans harvested in the U.S. are from wild orchards, which makes it tough for the industry to estimate the size of harvests and for growers to coordinate.

“Over time, pecan growers and merchants figured out ways to thrive.

Because pecans, more than other nut trees, bear heavily one year and lightly the next—and because the nuts freeze well—companies set aside some nuts in cold storage in good years and sell them in the lean ones. Machines have been developed to shake nuts from the tree at harvest, and others sweep them off the ground. In shelling plants, nut crackers, conveyer belts, mechanical sorters, laser and infrared inspectors are joined in a Rube Goldberg contraption. These machines bathe nuts in hot water to kill bacteria, crack them, separate meat from shell, segregate intact halves from smaller pieces, skim out tiny worms, roast nuts and then chop and sort pieces by size and color.

“Pecans traditionally made their way from U.S. and Mexican growers to the eight or so major shellers in the U.S. In good years, says Daniel Zedan, a long-time pecan broker in Wayne, Ill., the price paid for the nuts would fall and growers would complain “that the shellers had cheated

WORLD NUT & DRIED FRUIT NEWS them.” In bad years, growers would demand higher prices, “leading shellers to feel that they had been taken advantage of,” he says. Some businesses prospered, others failed. But overall, growers and shellers kept each other in check.

“All this changed when China entered the picture.

In 2007, the U.S. had a bumper pecan crop amid a global shortage of walnuts. That pushed the price of pecans below the price of walnuts, which in the nut business is something like the price of gold falling below the price of silver. The Chinese, who grow and import a lot of walnuts, bought 47 million pounds of pecans that year, four times the previous year’s total, estimates one pecan broker.

“Chinese consumers, it turned out, liked pecans, and they were easier to shell than native Chinese hickory and other nuts. Chinese traders mainly buy pecans in the shell in the U.S., ship them to China where they are cracked, often by hand one at time, and then are marinated in a flavoring brine, roasted and sold in the partially cracked shell as a

€26M SPANISH INITIATIVE TARGETS THE ELDERLY A Spanish government-backed scheme that unites academia and business is set to deliver a range of functional food solutions at the end of next year targeting health issues suffered by the country’s rising numbers of elderly people.

Health concerns being tackled include metabolic syndrome, bone, muscle, gastrointestinal and visual health, as well as cognitive function and neurodegenerative disorders. Certainly, this is an opportunity for dried fruits and nuts to fit into a healthy diet for the elderly!

popular snack, particularly during the Lunar New Year.

“American shellers complained that selling so many premium pecans to China—the Chinese want the biggest, best nuts— would undermine both the domestic market and export markets in Europe. So they held back orders. China responded by going directly to growers. As Texas A&M pecan expert Jose Pena puts it: “It’s kind of hard to tell a grower not to sell to the highest bidder.”

“In 2008, an off year for pecan production, China bought 53 million pounds, more than they did the previous year. And in 2009, an on-year for pecans but not a particularly big one, they bought 83 million pounds, more than all the pecans the U.S. exported to the rest of the world that year. With so little left in storage from the previous year and with the crop later than usual, the demand pushed the price higher....

What is the future outlook for U.S. pecans? Only time will tell!

The SENIFOOD project kicked into life last year after the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation committed to a 50 per cent investment in the €26m project with the other half coming from industry players like the four Spanish ingredients suppliers and seven food companies. It is due to complete by the end of 2012. Particular applications under development using Naturex botanical extracts and other ingredients included beverages for cognitive wellbeing; for blood glucose management; for reducing fat mass and cardiovascular function.

“ More functional foods for the elderly may be on the horizon in Spain.”

At its current stage, the project has four main priorities: •

Defining foods and diets eaten by the elderly

•

Developing existing and new ingredients

•

Developing new products for the elderly market

•

Validating in vivo, in vitro and clinical trial data

July 2011 | The Cracker

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WORLD NUT & DRIED FRUIT NEWS

CHOCOLATE AND NUTS MAY BE CARDIOPROTECTIVE According to author Ellen Coleman who wrote Chocolate and Nut Lovers Take Heart--Foods May be Cardioprotective in Today’s Dietician magazine, evidence suggests that both chocolate and tree nuts help prevent coronary heart disease (CHD), the leading cause of death in the United States. The full article reviews and references the epidemiological and clinical evidence concerning the heart benefits of nuts and cocoa derivatives and discusses the potential mechanisms responsible for their cardioprotective effects.

Although the mortality rate from CHD has dropped 41% since the early 1980s1, it still causes one in every six deaths and remains the single-largest cause of death in America today.2 About 47% of the decrease in U.S. deaths from CHD from 1980 to 2000 is due to evidence-based medical and surgical treatments, and about 44% is due to reductions in CHD risk factors.1 Medical interventions such as drugs and heart surgery can treat CHD, but they do not cure the disease, nor do they prevent it.

It is safer and less costly to prevent CHD rather than rely on heroic medical intervention after a coronary event.2 Diet and lifestyle therapies remain the cornerstone of clinical interventions to prevent CHD. It is well established that numerous dietary variables influence major CHD risk factors as well as the risk of developing CHD.

“Surprisingly, there is consistent evidence from epidemiologic and clinical studies that tree nuts and peanuts reduce the risk of developing CHD and have beneficial effects on CHD risk factors.“ Surprisingly, there is consistent evidence from epidemiologic and clinical studies that tree nuts and peanuts reduce the risk of developing CHD and have beneficial effects on CHD risk factors. Research also suggests that the dietary flavonoids in cocoa and cocoa-derived products have beneficial cardiovascular properties.

The first use of the cacao tree fruit as a food is unknown. Speculation is that the Inca were the first to create a drink from dried cacao seeds, but hard evidence is lacking. It is known that the Maya, and later the Aztec, considered cocoa a drink of their gods and reserved it for rituals and celebrations by royalty and high priests. The scientific

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name of the cacao tree, Theobroma cacao, comes from the Greek words theo (god) and broma (drink). Spanish conquistadors soon learned to appreciate chocolate and introduced it to Europe. Chocolate has never waned in popularity.

Cocoa and its derived products, such as chocolate, represent a very rich source of dietary flavonoids and contain a higher content of flavonoids per serving than tea or red wine. Flavonoids belong to a class of antioxidants from plants called polyphenols and share a common chemical structure: C6-C3-C6. Flavanols, consisting of epicatechin, catechin, and procyanidins, are the predominant class of flavonoid found in cocoa and chocolate. Dark chocolate contains substantially more flavonoids than milk chocolate.

Cocoa flavonoids may protect against CHD by reducing the susceptibility of LDL to oxidation, inhibiting platelet aggregation, reducing inflammation, improving endothelial function, lowering blood pressure, increasing HDL cholesterol, and decreasing insulin resistance.High cocoa and chocolate consumption has been associated with a reduced risk of CHD in several population studies.

The Zutphen Elderly Study found that in a cohort of 470 healthy men, cocoa intake was inversely associated with blood pressure and cardiovascular death. The 15-year risk of cardiovascular mortality for men in the highest tertile of cocoa intake was reduced by 50% compared with those in the lowest tertile of intake.

The Iowa Women’s Health Study, a prospective study of 34,489 postmenopausal women with a 16-year followup, found a borderline significant inverse association between chocolate intake and cardiovascular mortality.

The Stockholm Heart Epidemiology Program found that chocolate consumption had a strong inverse relationship with CHD mortality in 1,169 subjects with established CHD (confirmed acute myocardial infarction) after eight years of follow-up. Subjects who consumed chocolate once per week had a 44% lower risk of CHD death, and subjects who consumed chocolate twice or more per week had a 66% lower risk of CHD death compared with those who did not report any chocolate intake.

The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute Family Heart Study, a cross-sectional design of 4,970 participants aged 25 to 93, found that the consumption of chocolate was inversely related with the risk of developing CHD. Subjects who consumed chocolate one to four times per week had a 26% lower risk of CHD; subjects who consumed chocolate five or more times per week had a 57% lower risk of CHD compared with those who did not report any chocolate intake.

WORLD NUT & DRIED FRUIT NEWS

NESTLÉ / GENERAL MILLS INVEST IN MALAYSIAN CEREAL FACTORY Nestlé and General Mills’ joint venture Cereal Partners Worldwide (CPW) is investing €27m in a new Malaysian factory to enable the local production of Nestlé breakfast cereals in the country for the first time. The new facility will produce well known Nestlé cereal brands for Malaysian customers. The products will also be exported to Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand, said the cereal makers.

Nestlé said the unit will be built based on CPW’s policies for environmental sustainability and, additionally, the manufacturer said it will source up to 80 per cent of its raw materials from local suppliers. The 6,500 meter square facility, which is due to begin production in 2012, will create hundreds of direct and indirect jobs.

The new factory will be the third CPW cereals production centre in Asia, with the group citing increased popularity of Nestlé breakfast

products in the region. The two other facilities are the Philippines and in China. Nestlé has invested in a number of other new cereal factories across the globe this year. In March, the company pumped €38m into a new Turkey cereal plant, and in February the company announced plans to put €30m into two new factories in South Africa, one of which will produce its Milo and Cheerio cereal products.

HERSHEY EXPECTS INTERNATIONAL GROWTH US confectionery manufacturer Hershey claims its growth levels are on pace to achieve $1bn international net sales - outside of North America – by 2015.

In terms of emerging market growth, China net sales were up 50 per cent in both 2009 and 2010, reported the US manufacturer. In India, the company has designed its portfolio to meet relevant price points and local coinage, with rapid growth for Hershey’s chocolate range reported there – 21.5 per cent CAGR between 2006 and 2010.

Hershey CEO David West and the company’s chief operating officer, JP Bilbrey, said that continued investment in emerging markets with the most potential while continuing to ensure a regionally relevant portfolio would secure such gains within the allocated five year timeframe. Net sales in 2010 for the confectionery maker showed a 7 per cent gain on 2009 revenue, with certain product categories such as gum and chocolate showing increased market penetration.

West revealed that he expects 2011 net sales for Hershey, which has a 43 per cent share of the US chocolate market and a 50 per cent share of the confectionery retail aisle space, to be around the top of the long term 3-to-5 per cent and 6-to-8 per cent objectives. He claims the confectioner’s strong and repeatable business model is fuelling US and international growth, along with its decision to focus product innovation on ‘fewer, bigger ideas.’

July 2011 | The Cracker

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WORLD NUT & DRIED FRUIT NEWS

NESTLÉ INVESTS €38M IN TURKEY CEREAL PLANT

cereal products. The 16,000 square metre unit in Babelegi, will enable the local production of the cereals which are currently being imported into the region, said the breakfast cereal maker.

Food giant Nestlé is investing around €38m in a new cereals factory in Turkey on the back of increasing demand for the breakfast category in Turkish households. Nestlé said the 9,400 square-metre factory in Karacabey, Bursa will be a regional hub for breakfast cereals such as Nesquik and Nesfit and will export products to North African and Middle Eastern countries.

Nestlé Turkey first entered the cereal category in 1998 and has since become the Turkish market leader in the category, according to the company. But Up until now the company has imported breakfast cereals into Turkey, by the end of the year when the factory is up and running, Nestlé will be able to produce the majority of the products in the country.

The raw ingredients for the products will also be sourced locally, which will create 1,000 indirect jobs among Turkish communities and farmers, said Nestlé. The facility, constructed with the backing of the Investment Support and Promotion Agency of Turkey (ISPAT), will create 160 new jobs.

The new investment brings Nestlé’s total investment in Turkey up to TRY 325m (€148m) over the past four years. This is not the first investment Nestlé has put into its cereal business this year, in February the company announced plans to pump CHF 67m (€30m) into two new factories in South Africa, one of which will produce its Milo and Cheerio

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WORLD NUT & DRIED FRUIT NEWS

UK TO SURVEY ALLERGEN LABELING The UK’s Food Standards Agency will conduct a survey of sample chocolate and biscuit-type products this year to determine the extent of use and the nature/wording of ‘may contains’ labelling as well as providing quantitative measurements of milk, peanut and hazelnut allergens. These data will be used to determine how closely the advisory.

Also helpful will be the establishment of action or threshold levels for peanuts, milk and eggs, expected in 2012 in the UK following extensive research. The Food and Drink Federation has published some guidelines which it proposes shifting from the hazard-based approach to a more consistent risk-based approach whereby manufacturers carefully assess the risk of cross-contamination with allergens and only use ‘may contains’ terms where this risk cannot be controlled.

less severe or disappear in adulthood. The 12 major allergens recognised in Europe are: cereals containing gluten, crustaceans, eggs, fish, peanuts, nuts, soybeans, milk, celery, mustard, sesame, and sulphur dioxide (at levels of over 10mg/kg).

For the food industry, the biggest challenges are posed by ingredients with allergic potential that are used in composite foods where their presence may not be immediately apparent. While European law requires major allergens added as ingredients to be labelled, companies may seek to avoid litigation if cross-contamination occurs and some trace amounts make it into their products. However there are concerns that so-called ‘may contain’ labelling leads allergen sufferers to take chances, or restrict their diet even further than necessary.

Food allergy incidence has been rising in the EU, with around 3.9 per cent of children suffering from an allergy - although allergies often become

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July 2011 | The Cracker

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WORLD NUT & DRIED FRUIT NEWS

from Wisconsin, Mariani’s decision to purchase the processing facility in Wisconsin positions us to truly be leaders in the marketplace.”

ANOTHER FIRST FOR MARIANI IN THE DRIED FRUIT INDUSTRY Mariani Packing Company’s CEO, Mark Mariani, announced another FIRST in the dried fruit industry last April. The century old family company purchased the globally recognized cranberry processing facility, Urban Processing, LLC. Mariani is the largest independent dried fruit packer, and now with the acquisition of Urban Processing, is the only company to be “vertically integrated” in the 3 largest segments of the dried fruit industry. With over 80% of the United States’ dried fruit consumption being in raisins, prunes, and cranberries, Mariani Packing will be the only company to deliver all 3 products from farm to plate.

“There could be no better time to make this investment,” says President, George Sousa Jr. “There has been tremendous growth of dried cranberries in the last 10 years, in fact they are now the second segment to raisins in total category sales. With 60% of cranberries coming

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The Cracker | July 2011

“Dried cranberries are a ‘healthy...good for you’ snack alternative with so many versatile applications in home - baking ingredients, cereal and salad toppings to name a few. It’s no wonder dried cranberries are the fastest growing segment within the category,” says Marketing Director, Miranda Ackerman.

Cranberries are not a new item for Mariani. In fact, Mariani is the second leading brand of cranberries and cranberries are the best selling item in the company’s vast retail product line. Urban Processing is a family owned company that has been growing and processing cranberries in Wisconsin Rapids for many years. With the growth of cranberries over the last two decades, Wisconsin has become the largest cranberry producing state in the U.S, accounting for over 400 million of a near 700 million pound annual crop.

Mariani’s decision to invest in a family run company is no surprise.

“As a family we’ve had the opportunity to know the Urbans for several years,” says Mark Mariani, “They have enormous integrity as a family, in the way they’ve run Urban Processing, and in their business relationships. They’ve brought the strictest standards to their facility and we are fortunate to carry on their legacy.”

“The family’s decision to make this investment in cranberries is exciting in many ways,” says Mark, “But most importantly being the only company to complete the full cycle from purchasing to processing to packaging, with the three top commodities – raisins, prunes, and cranberries, we have a real competitive advantage that will allow us to better serve our Brand, Private Label, Ingredient and International customers, with quality products our customers can trust.”

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WORLD NUT & DRIED FRUIT NEWS

TASTE STILL TRUMPS HEALTH FOR FOOD ACCEPTANCE When it comes to deciding whether to purchase functional foods, ‘the principal considerations still do not pertain to health, but rather taste and price’ according to a new consumer study. The study, published in Journal of Functional Foods, found that an informed food choice regarding nutrition content from ‘health claim’ labels is only one aspect of several when consumers choose foods; noting that taste and price are still commonly identified as the most influential factors.

The authors, led by Fiona Lalor from University College Dublin, Ireland, also found that consumer food choices are heavily influenced by the trustworthiness of any related health claim. “About half of the participants declared that they would trust big food companies to give them accurate information about their products and about one third said that they trusted family/friends as a source of information on the topic,” said Lalor and her colleagues.

They added that while there can be “professional scepticism” about the role of these products on the market place; “it is clear that the consumer is showing increasing interest in the purchase of products which could provide solutions to dietary problems or go some way towards preventing problems before they arise.”

The researchers oversaw a series of five focus groups, involving 35 female consumers, finding that taste, price and packaging were most frequently cited as ‘reasons to purchase’.

They added that many were more inclined to buy a product if there ‘was an offer on’ and the product was reduced in price, whilst “participants were not prepared to purchase food if they did not ‘taste good’, irrespective of health or any other issue.”

Lalor and co-workers found that health claims do influence purchasing habits in older populations (over 55 years old), and reported that people are more positive towards health claims when a friend or relative suffers from a related condition. “Participants seemed more inclined to have a positive attitude if they were attempting to reverse a health issue, i.e., reduce cholesterol …but if the claim was non-specific e.g. improves your immunity, they were less inclined to believe it,” explained the authors.

They added that consumers also “had a sense of comfort” with products they are familiar with, which leads to lack of change towards new products on the market. “Given that many products that make health claims are relatively new to the market place, this suggests that consumers may be slow to try them also,” said the authors.

Lalor and her co-workers explained that consumers are becoming “increasingly concerned with the foods they eat and the impact they have on their health.” To address this, the food industry has developed an extensive selection of foods that make ‘health claims’: to reduce disease risk, or to improve/maintain health, for example. Such ‘functional foods’ are designed to be consumed as part of a regular diet, “but have a health benefit with a clear, nutritional basis,” said the authors.

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As part of the discussions, participants were also asked whom they most trusted as sources of information and advice on foodstuffs that made health claims. The researchers found that for some participants’ familiarity with a long-standing brand “encouraged them to trust the product”, whereas for others a branded product produced by a multinational and available all over the world was less trustworthy and “more likely to be motivated solely by profit”.

“For these, more sceptical participants, there was a feeling that manufacturers were just using the claims as a ‘marketing gimmick’ and had limited scientific support,” explained Lalor and her colleagues. However, they noted that for those who trusted multinationals, a clear reason for the trust was that larger companies are in a financial position to conduct research “and therefore their claims were more credible.”

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HOW TO MARKET NUTS IN EUROPEAN SUPERMARKETS...

AN INTRODUCTION TO GLOBAL RETAIL MARKETING

Presentations by: Pino Calcagni, Budapest Congress Co-Chairman; Mr. Raffael Li Preti, Senior Manager Fruits & Vegetables, Delhaize Belgium; and Mr. James Waddy, Senior Buying Manager, Produce - Fruit Team TESCO

Morocco

Istanbul

Istanbul

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HOW TO MARKET NUTS IN EUROPEAN SUPERMARKETS...

DELHAIZE BELGIUM : DRY FRUIT

CONCLUSION:

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• Give visibility to the products • Dry fruits is an impulse buying • Educate the customer on the healthy aspect

The Cracker | July 2011

• Give an answer on to new trends (in Belgium) • Snacking • Culinary

almonds brazil nuts cashews dehydrated fruit dried fruit hazelnuts macadamia nuts peanuts pecans pine kernels pistachios pumpkin seeds sunflower seeds walnuts

service commitment reliability expertise

Building your business with a rock solid partner enquiries: sales@kenkko.com

call: +44 (0) 208 202 6600

www.kenkko.com

ING C E L E B RAT YRS

...Quality, Commitment, Tradition 1 9 61-2011

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HOW TO MARKET NUTS IN EUROPEAN SUPERMARKETS...

TESCO: SOLUTIONS FOR RETAIL MARKETING • • • •

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MULTI-FORMAT RETAILING IS EXPANDING WORLDWIDE RANGE IS THE KEY PLATFORM TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THIS PROVIDE FLEXIBLE MERCHANDISING SOLUTIONS SUPPORT THIS WITH A CUSTOMER LED MARKETING PROGRAMME

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FOOD POLICY MAKERS ASKED TO CONSIDER DRIED FRUITS Food Policy makers to Consider EQUIVALENT TO Asked FRESH FRUITS Dried Fruits equivalent to Fresh Fruits SummAry STATemenT Traditional dried fruits should be included with fresh fruits in dietary recommendations for fruit and vegetable intake around the world.

ConTrIbuTorS uygun Aksoy — Department of Horticulture, Ege University, Izmir, Turkey Arianna Carughi — Sun-Maid Growers of California & California Dried Fruit Coalition, Sacramento, California James Anderson — Medicine & Clinical Nutrition, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky mary Jo Feeney — California Dried Plum Board, Los Altos, California Dan Gallaher — Department of Food Science & Nutrition, College of Food, Agricultural & Natural Resource Sciences, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, Minnesota Andriana Kaliora — Department of Science & Dietetics–Nutrition, Harokopio University, Athens, Greece Vaios Karathanos — Department of Science & Dietetics–Nutrition, Harokopio University, Athens, Greece Shin-ichi Kayano — Department of Health & Nutrition, Faculty of Health Science, Kio University, Nara, Japan Jim Painter — School of Family & Consumer Sciences, Eastern Illinois University, Charleston, Illinois ron Prior — Department of Food Science, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Arkansas Praveen Vayallil — Department of Pathology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama Gary Williamson — Department Food Science & Nutrition, University of Leeds, Leeds, United Kingdom Ted Wilson — Department of Biology, Winona State University, Winona, Minnesota

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hirteen internationally recognized researchers from the United States, Greece, Turkey, Japan, and the United Kingdom have collaborated on a combined work which recognizes that traditional dried fruits such as apricots, apples, dates, figs, raisins and sultanas, and prunes should be included side by side with fresh fruit recommendations by policy makers around the world.

The paper, entitled Traditional Dried Fruits: Valuable Tools to Meet Dietary Recommendations for Fruit Intake presented as part of the XXX World Nut and Dried Fruit Congress in Budapest, Hungary on 21 May 2011. Accessible at http://www.nutfruit.org/inc-projects/ driedfruits, the paper was coordinated

by Dr. Arianna Carughi and outlines the scientific support for considering dried fruits alongside their fresh counterparts.

Dried fruits originate from only a few select areas in the world and are therefore often overlooked by health professionals. However, it is the responsibility of the Dried Fruit Industry, concentrated in these select areas, to build upon the assertions of the researchers, and communicate the nutritional benefits of dried fruits to the rest of the world.

Increasing consumption of dried fruits is an effective way to increase overall consumption of fruits and vegetables.

Epidemiological evidence links increased intake of fruits and vegetables with lower rates of obesity and chronic diseases. However, despite campaigns and educational efforts, a significant gap still remains between the recommended amount of fruits and vegetables and the quantities actually consumed by populations around the world.

Dietary advice concerning the health benefits of fruits and vegetables has often overlooked the nutritional value of dried fruits, even though traditional dried fruits provide essential nutrients, such as fiber and potassium, and an array of health protective bioactive compounds.

Because they are naturally resistant to spoilage, available year round, easy to store and transport, readily incorporated into other foods, and relatively low in cost, traditional dried fruits serve as a convenient and cost-effective way to increase fruit consumption.

Traditional Dried Fruits: A Definition Traditional dried fruits are fruits which have had a large portion of their original water content removed. No sugar or fruit juice concentrates are added, and therefore, they retain most of the nutritional value of their fresh counterparts. These dried fruits are very low in sodium and do not contain fats, cholesterol, or added sugars.

As a group, traditional dried fruits are good sources of several essential nutrients, especially potassium and dietary fiber. Potassium intake levels are low among most children and adults, becoming a substantial health concern since increasing dietary potassium can lower blood pressure. Additionally,

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ComPArISon: DAILy reCommenDeD VS. ACTuAL InTAKeS 600g 400g

363g

350g 154g

oPTImum mInImum RECOMMENDED INTAKE OF FRUITS AND vEGETABlES

uS uK TOTAl FRUITS AND vEGETABlES INTAKE

uS

99g

uK TOTAl FRUIT INTAKE

2.4g

3g

uS

uK DRIED FRUIT INTAKE

The World Health Organization recommends that individuals consume at least 400 grams total of fruits and vegetables per day, and optimally, 600 grams. Data from the United States and United Kingdom illustrates the shortfall between health targets and total intakes of fruits and vegetables.

high fiber diets are recommended to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, obesity, type 2 diabetes and several types of cancer. A 40g serving of dried fruit delivers approximately 10 percent of the recommended daily requirement for fiber, depending on the fruit, and dried fruit ranks among the top potassium sources in diets around the world.

Dried fruits contain a range of increasingly important bioactive phenolic compounds as well as specific vitamins and minerals, unique to each fruit. Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity, or ORAC values for antioxidant capacity are higher for dried fruits than the corresponding values for fresh because antioxidants are concentrated during the dehydration process.

Epidemiological evidence consistently links high intakes of fruits and vegetables with reduced risk for chronic diseases.

This, together with their nutritional credentials, points to a strong case for promoting increased intakes of traditional dried fruits as a means to achieving World Health Organization recommendations for total fruit and vegetable consumption, which is a minimum intake of 400g per day or optimally, 600g per day.

Healthy Dietary Patterns Dried fruits are already included alongside fresh fruits in formal dietary recommendations for Argentina, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Policy makers in other countries should follow the lead of these countries to include dried fruits with their recommended guidelines for fruit and vegetable intake.

Dried fruits are common components in several dietary patterns associated with a lower risk of major chronic diseases, including Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension or DASH, Mediterranean style dietary patterns, and vegetarian diets. A common feature of these diets is an emphasis on fruits, vegetables, and other plant foods, including dried fruits.

Despite dietary recommendations, statistics show a disparity between fruit

and vegetable recommendations and the quantities populations actually consume.

For example, a World Health Survey showed that 78 percent of respondents ate less than the minimum recommended five daily servings of fruits and vegetables, while 75 percent of adult men and women in the United States failed to meet the minimum recommended level of fruit intake per day. Though low fruit and vegetable intake is only one of the many risk factors for cardiovascular disease and cancer, its impact is significant. The World Health Organization estimates that globally, roughly 5 percent of deaths are attributable to low fruit and vegetable intake.

By promoting increased intake of dried fruits as part of the big push to increase consumption of fruits and vegetables, dried fruits have the potential to bridge the gap between actual and recommended intakes of fruits and vegetables. Given the importance now placed on dietary intervention to improve the global health burden, this represents a significant opportunity for the Dried Fruit Industry.

WHAT THIS meAnS For THe DrIeD FruIT InDuSTry An opportunity for the Dried Fruit Industry lies in the fact that globally, average consumers fail to achieve the minimum recommended intakes for fruits and vegetables. Using the evidence outlined by the paper, the Dried Fruit Industry can: 1. Demonstrate that dried fruits are as good as fresh fruits in terms of both health benefits and convenience; and secondly 2. Promote increased consumption of dried fruits. Where fresh fruit has thus far failed to change habits for a majority of the population, dried fruits may be an alternative to confectionary/cakes/biscuits, used as school/sports snacks, or as a low cost option.

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Changing Perceptions of Dried Fruits

TyPICAL SerVInG SIZeS — FreSH AnD DrIeD FruITS

Several misconceptions have perpetuated the idea that dried fruits may be less healthy than their fresh counterparts. New research clarifies past concerns regarding sugar concentration, oral health and vitamin C in order to return dried fruits to the positive perception they deserve.

APPLe = 200g (approximately 1 large apple)

GrAPeS = 170g

DrIeD APPLe = 40g (approximately 12 slices)

rAISInS = 40g

(handful of grapes)

Sugar Concentration: In terms of sugar concentration, when compared weight for weight, dried fruits appear to have higher sugar concentrations than fresh fruits. This has been a negative issue for dried fruits ever since health concerns around sugar started to influence public health policy and consequent dietary advice.

PeACH = 150g (approximately 1 medium peach)

PLumS = 190g

One of the common problems encountered with comparing dried foods on nutritional grounds is the common practice of equating on a weight for weight basis, for example, per 100g. Not surprisingly, the sugar content of dried versus fresh fruits on this basis appears disproportionately high, contributing to the mixed messages about the sugar concentration of dried fruits.

(approximately 3 prunes)

APrICoTS = 180g

DrIeD APrICoTS = 40g

fruits are the equivalent of their fresh counterparts with the water removed.

This means 100 grapes should equate to 100 raisins, instead of comparing 100g of grapes with 100g of raisins. Therefore, a 40g serving of traditional dried fruit equals approximately four times the

APProxImATe InDuSTry Dry-DoWn rATIoS

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PruneS = 40g

(approximately 3 dried apricots)

When comparing fresh fruits with their dried counterparts, the definition of traditional dried fruits must be considered. Traditional dried fruits are fruits which have had a majority of their water content removed. Therefore, instead of comparing equal weights of fresh and dried fruits, equal serving sizes translate to roughly the same nutritional value in terms of calories, sugar content, and fiber.

The latest nutritional research compares fresh and dried fruits based on typical serving sizes, not equal weight measurements of fresh fruits compared to dried fruits. Using the definition for traditional dried fruits, traditional dried

2.5-3.5 kg 3 kg 3.3 kg 4-4.25 kg

(approximately 2 dried peach halves)

(approximately 3 small plums)

(approximately 3 small apricots)

When portion size and water content are taken into account, then natural fruit sugars and calories become equal for fresh and dried fruits.

FreSH Mediterranean Apricots California Plums Calimyrna Figs Grapes

DrIeD PeACHeS = 40g

= = = =

DrIeD 1 kg Dried Mediterranean Apricots 1 kg California Prunes 1 kg Dried Calimyrna Figs 1 kg Raisins

weight in fresh fruit, with exact weights varying with fruit and drying method.

Additionally, recent studies show that traditional dried fruits have a low to moderate glycemic and insulin index and a glycemic and insulin response comparable to fresh fruits, possibly due to the presence of polyphenols, phenols, and tannins. When using industry dry-down ratios for fruit, just one 40g serving of dried fruit would make a significant contribution towards meeting the recommendations for fruit and vegetable intake.

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Dried Fruits and Oral Health: Dental health advice was once based on the perception that sweet and sticky foods caused tooth decay, making dried fruits a target. However, new evidence demonstrates the contrary position. Dried fruits may in fact promote oral health.

it lacks much of the fiber of whole fruit.

Including dried fruits alongside fresh fruits in dietary recommendations expands the range of nutrients available to the population, particularly fiber and potassium, which would be especially beneficial to a majority of people.

Sucrose is by far the most cariogenic of sugars and most dried fruits contain minimal amounts of sucrose, being high in the less cariogenic sugars fructose and glucose. Raisins have been shown to block the adherence of bacteria to experimental surfaces, and dried fruits are less retentive than other commercially available snack foods. Research on raisins and prunes confirms that they contain certain bioactive compounds with antimicrobial properties, capable of inhibiting the growth of bacteria that cause cavities and gum disease.

Highlighting the Appealing Characteristics of Dried Fruits

Vitamin C: At one time, the fact that dried fruits do not provide vitamin C was seen as a negative. However, intakes of vitamin C in the United States and industrialized countries already meet or exceed requirements. The Dietary Guidelines for Americans conclude that it is unlikely that vitamin C is of major public health significance for the vast majority of healthy individuals in the US. This is most likely because children and adolescents in the US and other industrialized countries consume more than half their fruit intake as fruit juice. Unfortunately, while fruit juice provides potassium and vitamin C,

Aside from sound scientific benefits of dried fruits for health protection, there are significant other attributes that will help to ensure that dried fruits can appeal to consumers: • Convenience: Enviable shelf life; easy storage; portability; no special packaging; minimal seasonality issues; naturally resistant to spoilage; relatively low cost.

• Transportability: With the majority of water removed, dried fruits have the advantage of being considerably lighter, less perishable and hence easier and cheaper to transport than fresh fruits.

• Taste and Versatility: Naturally sweet snack foods can be eaten directly or used in cooking without loss of texture/ form; a healthy alternative energy snack.

• Lower Cost Fruit Solution: Dried fruits are ideal in developing countries and those in poverty where fresh fruits remain price-prohibitive or not readily accessible.

• A Place in History: Historically, dried fruits were prized foods recognized for their stability and energy. Documented

through the centuries, from as early as 1700BC in Mesopotamian cuneiform recipes and extremely popular with the Romans, dried fruits were staple foods for civilizations across the Middle East, the Mediterranean and Asia. As such it is no surprise that dried fruits occupy a place in religious and other holiday menus across the world.

Education on the nutritional and health attributes of dried fruits is needed to overcome the perceived disparity between dried and fresh fruits, and to increase consumption of dried fruits on health grounds. Communicating the need for increased fruit and vegetable consumption can simultaneously increase awareness of the many benefits of eating dried fruits.

In Conclusion Despite campaigns and educational efforts, a significant gap still remains between the recommended amount of fruits and vegetables and the quantities actually consumed by populations around the world. Because they are naturally resistant to spoilage, easy to store and transport, available year round, readily incorporated into other foods, and relatively low in cost, dried fruits represent an important means to increase overall consumption of fruit, to bridge the gap between recommended intake of fruits and the amount populations actually consume.

A complete text of Traditional Dried Fruits: Valuable Tools to Meet Dietary Recommendations for Fruit Intake is available online at http://www.nutfruit.org/inc-projects/driedfruits with biographical summaries of the contributors, along with supporting charts, statistics, and references.

ConTACT Jennette Higgs — BSc (Hons) Nutrition RD RPHNutr, Registered Public Health Nutritionist & Dietitian, www.foodtofit.com, Member of the INC Scientific & Government Affairs Committee jennette@foodtofit.co.uk +44(0) 1327 354632

Arianna Carughi — PhD, CNS Health & Nutrition Research Coordinator, Sun-Maid Growers of California & California Dried Fruit Coalition ariannacarughi@gmail.com +1 650 799-4420 146-11

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We look forward to seeing you in Singapore May 18-20, 2012

Held in:

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www.nutfruit.org

The Cracker | July 2011

Supported by:

SAFETY & QUALITY

WHICH ONE AND WHY? GFSI STANDARDS

Food safety standards have been around in Europe and Asia for quite some time. But as the international food trade expanded, it was apparent that existing private food safety standards and governmental food-safety policies could not prevent food recalls that were occurring worldwide. With consumer confidence waning, it was evident that something had to be done.

To address these issues, the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) was created and launched in May 2000 by CIES--The Food Business Forum, an independent global food business network headquartered in Paris.

Founded in 1953, CIES has developed numerous programs for retailers and supply chains, and continues to facilitate the development of common positions and tools on strategic and practical issues affecting the food business. CIES shares best practices throughout most of the countries of the world.

CURRENTLY, THERE ARE 8 APPROVED FOOD SAFETY MANAGEMENT SCHEMES: • British Retail Consortium Standard for Food Safety Version 5 • Dutch HACCP (Option B)

One of the lofty goals of the organization is to harmonize international food safety standards and reduce the need for multiple supplier audits. The CIES members include the world’s leading retailer organizations and food manufacturers. While this has been a goal of this organization, Food safety standards continue to proliferate. The GFSI has “benchmarked” existing food safety schemes. Once a system is “benchmarked” it means that certification to the scheme is accepted by organizations requiring a GFSI scheme.

• FSSC 22000 (Formerly ISO 22000)

The Guidance document, available at www.ciesnet.com provides the procedures used for benchmarking food safety management schemes.

Typically this is based on a HACCP based program. It also includes how food safety schemes are certified.

• Synergy 22000

• Global Aquaculture Alliance BAP Issue 2 (GAA Seafood Processing Standard) • Global Red Meat Standard Version 3 • International Food Standard Version 5 (German) • SQF 2000 Level 2 (Food Marketing Institute USA)

And a ninth (primusGFS) incorporates pre and post farm gate food safety. No one can agree on one standard for food safety. Each has its own nuance regarding how the facility should implement a food safety management plan. Each standard has its advantages and disadvantages.

In order to become certified, the facility must have an audit conducted by an approved Certification Body and the requirements for certification can be rigorous.

THERE ARE SEVERAL BENEFITS TO CERTIFICATION THAT SHOULD BE CONSIDERED WHEN DECIDING WHETHER TO BECOME CERTIFIED: 1. It could reduce the number of customer audits, although given the current environment with regard to foodborne outbreaks this may no longer be the case.

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SORTEX Z+R Maximum product safety by removal of challenging foreign material (FM) Highest efficiency, maximum yield increases profitability The user-interface is simple, easy to set up and operate The climate control system allows consistant performance in harsh ambient temperatures of 0°C (32°F) to 50°C (122°F) Protects brand reputation with consistent quality Increases productivity with maximum uptime Over 20,000 SORTEX installations in 140 countries Offers highest quality, after sales service with SORTEX Total Care

Safe Food. Clean Food.

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The Cracker | July 2011

SAFETY & QUALITY

2. All of the standards include a process for continuous improvement which leads to a more efficient and more profitable company.

3. Improved customer confidence.

4. Auditors are certified and have to undergo rigorous training and must demonstrate competence in the areas that they audit. What this means for the company is a more accurate audit outcome.

5. These standards are recognized worldwide.

6. Lastly, it could serve to enhance the company’s marketing image.

THE NEXT QUESTION MOST ASK IS: “WHICH STANDARD IS RIGHT FOR MY COMPANY?” So how does one choose? There is no correct answer to this question, however there are three possibilities.

1. Your customer chooses for you. While retailers like Wal Mart will accept any of the GFSI standards, there are retailers, which will only accept SQF, level 2 or BRC. Listening to you customer’s demands may give you some clue as to which certification scheme is right for you.

2. You choose. Educate yourself. There are representatives from these certification organizations visiting your customers and holding webinars to promote their standard. It is important that your company become educated through formal training or information sessions.

3. Get help. An external consultant who is familiar with the Standards may help you by evaluating your situation and making a recommendation based on your company’s resources and status of your food safety plan.

For US companies, it will require a new mindset toward food safety.

These programs, if properly implemented will greatly improve the food safety program at the facility.

Tom Vogel, Director of Food Safety, American Council of Food Quality and Safety (DFA)

Eurofins_Anzeige_TheCracker_Trampe_version2.1 Dienstag, 20. April 2010 16:16:32

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FEATURE STORY

CHOCOLATE FORTUNES:

The Battle For The Hearts, Minds And Wallets Of China’s Consumers Part 2 of a 2-part series

By Lawrence L. Allen

In the this issue of The Cracker, we will continue with Part 2 of Chocolate Fortunes where Mr. Allen explores how Cadbury, Hershey and Nestle approach the chocolate market in China.

CADBURY The storied adage that “The sun never sets on the British Empire” was also true of Cadbury. Wherever the British Empire went, so too did Cadbury chocolate, including British colonial enclaves such as those in Hong Kong and Shanghai. As Cadbury planned to reenter the China market during the early 1990s it did so with an intriguing, if idealistic, strategy: to sell a Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate bar to each of the country’s 1 billion people. With the vast majority of China’s consumers inaccessible to the Big Five this was, of course, a fanciful proposition.

However, it reflected Cadbury’s belief that it was one of the best positioned of the Big Five to become market leader in China.

Cadbury initially shared the same gray-market distribution channel through Hong Kong as Ferrero. However, unlike Ferrero, which was satisfied with exporting its products to China indefinitely, Cadbury was convinced that it needed in-country manufacturing in order to compete with Mars and achieve its goal of selling 1 billion chocolate bars there. Confident in its chocolate manufacturing prowess, it commenced operations at its suburban Beijing chocolate factory in 1995.

“Without a wellestablished international business doctrine to follow, Hershey’s executives relied on the fundamental principles of the chocolate business to guide them in China.”

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Unlike Mars, which chose to bring the various pieces of

its in-country operation in-house in phases (e.g., manufacturing in 1993, followed by an in-house national sales and distribution team in 1999), Cadbury believed that with the installation of its factory it would naturally follow that it would immediately take over sales, distribution, and collection for its products. Cadbury jumped in with both feet, dismissed its national master distributor just prior to the factory opening, and took end-to-end control of its China business. This brought an astounding level of complexity into Cadbury’s new China operation and put its young organization on an extremely steep learning curve that would test its executives’ leadership skills to the limit.

Cadbury’s market entry strategy drew heavily on the reservoir of knowledge and experience in seemingly related markets such as Hong Kong and Singapore. But China was a completely new market of virgin consumers—to a large degree an unprecedented situation for the global chocolate industry in modern times—and a market-entry strategy built upon replicating past successes in established markets had its perils. Indeed, an entrenched international business dogma could be as much an asset as a liability in a country such as China, which was undergoing fundamental change.

HERSHEY Another turn-of-the-twentieth-century chocolate maker, Hershey, the purveyor of the great American chocolate bar, had watched its U.S. domestic market share erode during the early 1970s. This prompted a twenty-year effort to regain its dominant position in the U.S. chocolate market, which it succeeded in doing by the late 1980s. This near-total focus on its domestic market resulted in its business outside of North America amounting to less than 10 percent of total company sales, and the company’s limited competency with developing international markets.

Starting in the late 1980s, Hershey experimented with various interna-

FEATURE STORY tional business models, but none were successful.

Successive failures in the international marketplace brought a cautious and measured approach toward the development of its China market-entry strategy that allowed it to successfully enter the market under a low-risk, high-reward business model that did not require a substantial brick and mortar investment there.

Without a well-established international business doctrine to follow, Hershey’s executives relied on the fundamental principles of the chocolate business to guide them in China.

In devising their broad-stroke route-to-market strategy, two aspects of China’s chocolate market were instrumental in their decision about whether or not to manufacture there. First was the relatively high retail price for chocolate in China, attributable in large part to Mars and Cadbury having established factories there (high prices were necessary to pay back the investment made in these factories). Second was the relatively low cost of exporting finished goods from Hershey’s North American factories. China’s import duty for chocolate was then only 12 percent. Combined with a 3 percent cost of ocean freight from the U.S. to China, selling U.S.-made product in China cost only 15 percent more than selling it in the United States. Hershey executives determined that more than acceptable gross margins could be achieved by exporting finished goods from Hershey’s existing factories—enough even to support a respectable amount of consumer marketing investment. As a result, like Ferrero, Hershey chose an export business model to establish its products in China when it entered the market in 1995.

In China, Hershey had the opportunity to overcome a hurdle that had plagued the company for decades: the historic inability to sustain an investment outside of the North American market to fruition. At one point, Hershey commanded the number-two market share in the city of Shanghai and was an up-and-coming brand in the more than thirty other cities where its products were distributed. It accomplished this while importing its products with only a repacking warehouse and fewer than 200 people.

However, if China’s chocolate war has taught any lesson, it is that success hasn’t been about the size of a company’s manufacturing investment, but the size of its commitment to the market and its consumers.

NESTLÉ When Heinrich Nestlé moved from Frankfurt, Germany to Switzerland in the 1830s, it was not yet the prosperous mountain enclave known for discreet bankers, precision mechanical watches, and chocolate that it would later become. Indeed, many Swiss villages were quite impoverished by their isolation among the Swiss Alps, and malnutrition among infants whose mothers could not adequately breast-feed was commonplace. Nestlé dedicated a large part of his life to developing baby food formulas to reduce Switzerland’s high infant mortality, which was closely linked to malnutrition. Nestlé’s infant formula, developed in 1867, became a worldwide commercial success, and by the early 1870s, was being exported as far as Australia and Latin America. Over a century later Nestlé S.A. was the world’s

largest food and beverage company, with an international business that accounted for more than 95 percent of its sales (less than 5 percent of sales are made in its home country of Switzerland).

In 1990, Nestlé’s Group CEO was so convinced of the importance of the China market that he announced the company would have ten factories in the country within ten years. Indeed, eighteen years later it was operating more than twenty factories there.

Few companies have gone into China with a commitment as large or as strong as Nestlé’s.

Nestlé’s slogan is “Good Food, Good Life,” and the company helped bring the good life to the Chinese people, who had suffered decades of extreme privation.

Nestlé was unique among the Big Five in that not only did its vast range of products satisfy consumers’ desires to experiment with exotic foreign indulgences, such as chocolate, but its other offerings helped meet their health and nutrition needs, which was at the core of the company’s heritage. It is not surprising then, that when Nestlé opened its first factory in China in 1990, it was an infant formula and milk powder facility, which was followed by a Nescafé factory in 1992 and a bouillon and seasonings factory in 1994.

Nestlé’s chocolate and confectionery products, which accounted for only about 10 percent of the company’s worldwide sales, faced a relatively small chocolate market size in China and therefore these products ranked lower in Nestlé’s sequence of priorities. Of the Big Five chocolate companies that chose the in-country manufacturing route during the 1990s, Nestlé was the last to invest in chocolate manufacturing, opening a Kit Kat factory in Tianjin in 1996.

“...Providing consumers good quality food at an affordable price was one of the pillars of Nestlé’s overall effort in China.”

Being a vast and diversified food and beverage company profoundly influenced the way the company competed in China’s emerging chocolate market, and as a result Nestlé executives approached China’s virgin chocolate consumers quite differently than the other Big Five chocolate companies. Nestlé had China operations multiple times larger than any of its chocolate competitors, which were supported by a massive sales and distribution organization juggernaut that was second to none. Its brand recognition was on par with Coke and KFC, and the Nestlé brand had been established among consumers as an icon of good nutrition, purity, quality, and product safety. The power of this brand was brought to bear in China’s chocolate war by marketing all of its confectionery products under the Nestlé overbrand, while differentiating individual products through sub-brands (e.g., Nestle Kit Kat).

Story Continues on Page 54 JULY July 2011 | The Cracker

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FEATURE STORY Story Continued from Page 53

☟

Providing consumers good quality food at an affordable price was one of the pillars of Nestlé’s overall effort in China, and Kit Kat was priced demonstrably below its chocolate competitors as the way to attract China’s emerging chocolate consumers. And, to profitably support this discount strategy Nestlé needed to convert to a compound chocolate (chocolate made with less expensive cocoa butter substitutes) in China while abstaining from advertising its products.

Intuitively, discount pricing was a logical choice in a country where consumers at the time had little disposable cash income. So too was the use of compound chocolate in a market composed of a small minority of chocolate consumers whose knowledge and experience with chocolate was still in its infancy. But as Mark Twain once said it is differences of opinion that make horse-races and Nestlé’s Big Five rivals believed that precisely because Chinese consumers had little experience with chocolate—and their choices were guided almost entirely by brand awareness, packaging, and pricing—that adopting a discount pricing strategy for chocolate in China was potentially hazardous since it ran the risk of sending the wrong message to consumers. Furthermore, with the image of foreignbranded chocolate having evolved around a premium, exotic mystique they believed that it was imperative to deliver on the promise of a rich and indulgent chocolate-eating experience. Nestlé would therefore go it alone in being the only Big Five chocolate company to market compound chocolates at a discount price in China. Over the decade that followed both Nestlé and its competitors would find out if, like Nestlé’s hundreds of other highly successful food products, selling chocolate as an economical snack food from a reputable player was ultimately the way to go in China.

CONCLUSION The Big Five chocolate companies not only challenged each other for the dominance of China’s chocolate market, but ultimately challenged themselves to decode their own formula for success in China’s enigmatic marketplace. There is no single path to business success in China, however; the country is too big, too complex, and evolving too quickly for simple, “one size fits all” business formulas.

As China’s new consumer class continues to emerge from the darkness into the stark florescent light of China’s burgeoning retail stores, the best and the brightest minds of the global chocolate industry continue to engage each other in battle for their attention and affections. Though China’s chocolate market of the future will present new and daunting challenges, with tens of millions of new consumers becoming accessible each year, chocolate companies will have more opportunity than ever to build a sustainable and profitable China business.

And for all of its complexity, winning the future battles in China’s chocolate war will demand precisely what it required in the past: visionary leaders who will sustain a long-term commitment to the market; invest in, develop and empower the next generation of leaders; and maintain an unrelenting focus on meeting the expectations of China’s emerging consumers.

About Lawrence Allen: Lawrence Allen is a twenty-year China-business veteran, leadership advisor, and author living in Beijing, China. After graduating from the Thunderbird School of Global Management in 1987, Allen established his career building global consumer brands for multinational companies in the Greater China region. For seven years, between 1998 to 2006, the author was a foot soldier on the front lines of China’s “chocolate war,” first as an executive with Hershey, and later Nestlé.

Allen is author of the book Chocolate Fortunes: The Battle for the Hearts, Minds, and Wallets of China’s Consumers, published by AMACOM in fall 2009 (to learn more about Chocolate Fortunes visit www.amacombooks.org/book. cfm?isbn=9780814414323 or, www.amazon.com/Chocolate-Fortunes-BattleWallets-Consumers/dp/081441432X

This article is adapted by permission of the publisher, from the book Chocolate Fortunes by Lawrence L. Allen ©2010, Lawrence L. Allen, AMACOM books, Division of American Management Association, New York, New York, All rights reserved. www.amacombooks.org

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JULY July 2011 | The Cracker

55

Sustainable Practices Make Hilltop Ranch the Long-Term Source for California Almonds Hilltop Ranch uses sustainable practices to make a cleaner environment, and to enhance the quality and value of California Almonds - the world’s most versatile and successful tree nut. We are working to be good neighbors, and provide a strong foundation for generations to come.

Here are just a few of the things we do as an environmentally sustainable supplier of California Almonds: Our Solar Power plant provides 75% of the electric power required by our processing facility.

Our New, Clean Diesel Truck Fleet moves containers to the Port of Oakland with respect for the environment and our neighbors.

New “Green” corrugated packaging looks great, and is easier to recycle.

To Hilltop Ranch, it is just common sense - take care of the environment with sustainable practices, and good things will follow.

Hilltop Ranch, Inc. 13890 Looney Rd. Ballico, California 95303 USA Tel. 1. 209. 874. 1875 Fax 1. 209. 874. 1877 almonds@hilltopranch. com www. hilltopranch. com Product of USA

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The Cracker | July 2011

NEWS FROM THE INC SECRETARIAT BUILDING THE FUTURE TOGETHER New INC Home “THE PROJECT TO REMODEL AND MOVE INTO THE NEW HEADQUARTERS IN 2013 IS PROGRESSING ON SCHEDULE”.

LD r

be

em

M

On occasion of the World Nut and Dried Fruit Congress in Budapest, Hungary on 20-22 May 2011, the INC presented the scale model of the building. Located inside the Exhibition Area, the model drew much public attention.

GO

The project to remodel and move into the new headquarters in 2013 is progressing on schedule. The support given by our membership after the announcement in the World Nut and Dried Fruit Congress in Beijing, May 2010, has been outstanding.

Over 35 Sponsors have already signed on to support the New INC Home, and we are still receiving commitments from members who will be rewarded with a brick with their name inscribed to be placed at the entrance to the building. The INC extends a very big and heartfelt thank you to the companies whose sponsorship will make the New INC Home possible. We truly appreciate their commitment and loyal support.

Sponsorship

Opportunities for Members Sponsorship Benefits for 8,000 EUR: • Recognition as GOLD Member • Discount for INC Congresses • A plaque of recognition at the entrance of the building Gold Sponsors and Government Sponsors are open for Sponsorship. Now the INC offers the opportunity to be part of the project and build the future together to its members.

Please contact us if you are interested: Tel. +34 977 331 416 or at E-mail: goretti.guasch@nutfruit.org

DONORS WALL

July 2011 | The Cracker

57

News FROM THe INC seCReTARIAT

INC Nuts & Health session at the 11th european Congress of Nutrition The INC will take part in the 11th European Congress of Nutrition from 24th to 29th October 2011, in Madrid, Spain, where scientists, health professionals and researchers from around the world will learn about the latest findings and developments in the fields of health and nutrition. The Congress is organized by the Federation of European Nutrition Societies every 4th year, and attracts approximately 2,000 experts on nutrition (www.fensmadrid2011.com).

The INC is sponsoring the symposium “Nut Consumption, Cardiovascular Risk and Body Weight” to be held on Friday, 28 October 2011. The program presents keynote researchers in the field of cardiovascular diseases, obesity and diabetes. It will be moderated by Prof. Jordi SalasSalvadó, Rovira i Virgili University, and Dr. Emilio Ros, Hospital Clínic of Barcelona in Spain.

Nut Consumption, Cardiovascular Risk and Body weight 11th european Congress of Nutrition. Friday, 28 October 2011, Madrid, spain

PROGRAM INTRODUCTION

DOES NUT INTAKE INFLUENCE ADIPOSITY?

Prof. Jordi Salas-Salvadó, Rovira i Virgili University, Spain

Richard Mattes, MPH, PhD, RD, Department of Foods and Nutrition, Purdue University, USA

Dr. Emilio Ros, Hospital Clínic of Barcelona, Spain NUTS AND CARDIOVASCULAR RISK: EPIDEMIOLOGIC STUDIES Luc Djoussé, MD, MPH, ScD, Harvard Medical School, USA NUTS AND CARDIOVASCULAR RISK: CLINICAL CLINICAL TRIALS

NUTS, GLYCEMIC CONTROL AND RISK OF DIABETES David Jenkins, MD, PhD, ScD, Department of Nutritional Sciences, University of Toronto, Canada

Joan Sabaté, MD, PhD, Loma Linda University School of Public Health, USA

INC at IFT Institute of Food Technologists expo The INC exhibited at the IFT Annual Meeting and Food Expo in Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans, USA, 12-14 June 2011.

Thousands of food suppliers, marketers, and scientists around the globe annually join the IFT, attracted by the promise of encountering the driving forces behind the innovations and information affecting consumers, growers, processors, regulators and researchers.

INC’s booth was located in the Healthy Food Ingredients pavilion and was very well visited. The expo provided the INC a great opportunity to increase general awareness of the INC activities and projects, and reach new business contacts.

Experts from companies, government agencies, and research institutions provided insight during more than 1,000 presentations covering topics ranging from new health and safety benefits and product innovations to the latest consumer favorites, fears, and trends.

Officials from the White House, United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) discussed the new public rollout of the MyPlate initiative during the IFT Meeting and Food Expo. The new program will focus on simple messaging directed to consumers with the ultimate goal of helping them make healthy food choices.

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The Cracker | July 2011

From left to right: Maureen Ternus (INC NREF), Kelly Plowe (Paramount Farms), Karen Lapsley (ABC), Goretti Guasch (INC), and Constance Geiger (WPA).

July 2011 | The Cracker

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News FROM THe INC seCReTARIAT

Nuts and Dried Fruit Pavilion at sIAL Paris 2012 The INC invites its members to participate in the INC Official Pavilion at the next edition of SIAL Paris, France, scheduled for October 21-25, 2012.

The INC proposes featuring a nut and dried fruit specialized trade show segment aimed at matching our exhibitors with their right target audience.

For the first time ever the INC will be hosting a unique pavilion exclusively dedicated to nuts and dried fruits. Exhibiting within the INC Pavilion will provide companies a meeting point of reference for the nut and dried fruit industry, while enjoying a cost-effective full-service package.

“The inc pavilion will provide iTs members a highly visible plaTform in one of The mosT imporTanT fairs in The food secTor”.

The Pavilion offers participants high visibility by exhibiting with other industry-related companies while keeping your own identity and

INC Annual Report of Activities The INC recently released the Annual Report of Activities for the period May 2010 to April 2011. The brochure was distributed to the participants of the 30th World Nut and Dried Fruit Congress in Budapest, Hungary, May, 20-22, 2011.

“The compleTe reporT can be locaTed on The web siTe aT www.nuTfruiT.org”.

Printed copies or a CD-Rom may be provided to INC members upon request. Please contact us at +34.977.331.416 or e-mail inc@ nutfruit.org.

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The Cracker | July 2011

highlighting your own brands. It is an easy and cost-effective way to maximize your trade show success.

Please contact us if interested at +34 977 331 416 or e-mail secretariat@ nutfruit.org.

News FROM THe INC seCReTARIAT

eU Border Rejections of Tree Nuts Reduced significantly The INC recently published the Nuts and Dried Fruits RASFF Notifications Report which collects and classifies all 2010 EU Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed notifications for nuts and dried fruits. The report is part of the EU MycoRed Project.

Most notified nuts were:

The number of notifications for nuts reached a total of 453, which represents a 12% decrease from 2009 numbers. This improvement is directly related to the decrease of aflatoxin notifications from 500 to 410, and is attributable to the adoption of Commission Regulation (EU) No 165/2010 that entered into force on the 9th of March 2010, modifying the maximum level of aflatoxins allowed in almonds, apricot kernels, Brazil nuts, hazelnuts and pistachios.

That is the result of 12 years of unceasing efforts by the INC to implement an increase of maximum levels for total aflatoxins for further processing (15 ppb) and ready-to-eat (10 ppb) almonds, hazelnuts and pistachios. The adoption of these higher aflatoxin levels is based on scientific assessments that have proved that such levels are not harmful to the health of consumers.

These measures have facilitated international trade as shown by a decrease in the number of aflatoxin notification of 59% for almonds, 67% for Brazil nuts, 69% for hazelnuts and 24% for pistachios between March 9th and to the end of 2010, compared to the same period in 2009.

• Pistachios: 141 notifications, of which 113 were for aflatoxins. The most notified countries of origin were Iran (57), Turkey (28) and USA (23).

“The number of noTificaTions for nuTs reached a ToTal of 453, which represenTs a 12% decrease from 2009 numbers.”.

The main notifying reason for nuts remains -aflatoxins, with 409 notifications (90%), followed by salmonella (11 notifications), health certificates (8 notifications) and other reasons (25 notifications).

• Peanuts: 252 notifications, of which 241 were due to aflatoxins. Argentina was the most notified country of origin, with 96 notifications, followed by China (87), South Africa (23), Brazil (21), Egypt (4), India (4), Nicaragua (4) and others (13 notifications).

• Almonds: 33 notifications, 20 for aflatoxins, 29 for USA. • Hazelnuts: 25 notifications, 19 for aflatoxins, 20 for Turkey.

• Pine Nuts: 11 notifications, 8 for salmonella, 9 for Turkey.

There were no significant changes in dried fruits in 2010 with 110 notifications compared to 103 in 2009. Most notifications, 58, were for aflatoxins, 12 for ochratoxin, 8 for sulphites, 6 for insects, and 26 for other reasons. The most notified dried fruits were dried figs, with 63 notifications, most of them for Turkey (61) and 53 of them for aflatoxins.

Raisins followed with 24 notifications, of which 11 were for Ochratoxin A, with Uzbekistan (9), India (5) and Iran (4) as the most notified countries of origin. The 8 notifications for sulphites concerned dried apricots (5), raisins (2) and dried figs (1).

The main notifying countries regarding mycotoxins were the Netherlands with 147, Germany with 100, Spain with 40 and Italy with 36 notifications.

Copies of the report may be provided to INC members upon request. Please contact us at +34.977.331.416 or e-mail inc@nutfruit.org.

MycoRed Project General Assembly The INC participated in the Third General Assembly of the EUfunded project MycoRed (Novel Integrated Strategies for Worldwide Mycotoxin Reduction in Food and Feed Chains), held in Rome, 5-6 May 2011, where participants discussed the ongoing work and situation of the different Working Packages of this large collaborative project that involves mycotoxins experts around the world.

The INC contributed with the report “Economic Evaluation of the Impact of Mycotoxin Contamination in Nuts and Dried Fruit Chain”, where an estimation on the global economic losses caused by mycotoxins in nuts and dried fruits has been made taking into account the losses of the industry as regards routine testing and

border rejections as well as Governments losses as regards controls and public health costs. The INC also presented a video on mycotoxin sampling aimed at disseminating good practices on sampling among developing countries, and the 2010 RASFF notifications report on nuts and dried fruits.

The overall conclusion of the Assembly was that the mid-term objectives have been achieved and the work is going properly.

Optimistic expectations were set for the following two years, where the INC will enlarge the Economic Evaluation including the impact of mycotoxins in maize, wheat and grapes.

July 2011 | The Cracker

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WORLD INDUSTRY NEWS

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GLOBAL STATISTICAL REVIEW

Cashew · Anacardo · Noix de Cajou · Anacardio · Cashewkerne · Cashew Cevizi World cashew production is forecast at 491,400 MT (kernel basis) in 2011/2012, 4% down from the previous season, and a 9% decrease over the past 3 years. In the last two years, the Cashew market has witnessed some significant mismatches: tight supply over the last two years; reluctance to hold stocks; significantly higher prices; steady growing demand, especially in India, China and Middle East, and better than anticipated consumption is some markets, such as the United States, the European Union, and Australia.

Added to the change in trading pattern, this has led to firm prices.

prices (1.7 increase over the same period in 2010), and bank credit access problems. The Vietnamese Government is expected to adopt the draft circular on import tax reduction by September 2011, so that the import duty of raw cashews nuts will be zero %.

W 320 Price. Jan 2010 - Apr 2011. $ per lb.

Production in India and Cote d’Ivôire, the first and second largest producers, is estimated at 150,000 and 75,000 MT respectively, the same production as in 2010. The two countries represent together 46% of world’s production.

According to the Vietnam Cashew Association (VINACAS), the Vietnamese crop ended in the South East area, the Central Highlands, and South Central Coast by end May due to climate conditions. In addition, many areas were damaged by hail and tornadoes, which pushed down the crop forecast to 60,000 MT (kernel basis), 14% over 2010. In the first 4 months of 2011 the output of processing factories decreased by 30% due to the lack of materials, high domestic Source: Cashew Round Table, 2011 World Nut and Dried Fruit Congress.

Estimated World Cashews Production. Kernel Basis. Metric Tons Brazil converted basis: 4,8 kg RCN = 1 kg kernel, all others: 4,2 kg RCN = 1 kg kernel

COUNTRY

2010/2011

2011/2012

BEGINNING STOCK

CROP

TOTAL SUPPLY

ENDING STOCK

BEGINNING STOCK

CROP

TOTAL SUPPLY

ENDING STOCK

INDIA*

0

150.000

150.000

0

0

150.000

150.000

0

COTE D'IVOIRE*

0

75.000

75.000

0

0

75.000

75.000

0

VIETNAM*

0

70.000

70.000

0

0

60.000

60.000

0

BRAZIL**

0

35.000

35.000

0

0

57.000

57.000

0

INDONESIA**

0

16.000

16.000

0

0

24.000

24.000

0

GUINEA-BISSAU*

0

23.500

23.500

0

0

23.500

23.500

0

TANZANIA**

0

19.000

19.000

0

0

19.000

19.000

0

NIGERIA*

0

18.000

18.000

0

0

18.000

18.000

0

MOZAMBIQUE**

0

15.500

15.500

0

0

15.500

15.500

0

CAMBODIA*

0

12.000

12.000

0

0

12.000

12.000

0

BENIN*

0

11.500

11.500

0

0

11.500

11.500

0

GHANA*

0

7.500

7.500

0

0

7.500

7.500

0

SENEGAL*

0

4.500

4.500

0

0

4.500

4.500

0

OTHERS

0

13.900

13.900

0

0

13.900

13.900

0

WORLD TOTAL

0

471.400

471.400

0

0

491.400

491.400

0

WORLD CONSUMPTION (SUPPLY - ENDING STOCK)

*2011/12 estimated crop. ** The 2011/12 crop will flow Oct-Dec, normal crops are assumed.

Source: INC.

66

The Cracker | July 2011

471.400

491.400

GLOBAL STATISTICAL REVIEW

Hazelnut · Avellana · Noisette · Nocciola · Haselnuss · Findik World hazelnut production is forecast at 801,500 MT (in shell basis) in 2011/2012, 6% down from the previous season.

Turkey’s 2011 crop has been forecast at 510,000 MT (in shell basis). According to the Hazelnut Promotion Group, Turkey exported 220,523 MT of hazelnut kernels in 2010/2011, slightly up from the previous season.

The Italian crop has been estimated at 125,000 MT (in shell basis), up 43% from the previous season. Oregon’s crop is forecast to increase by 41%, reaching 34,500 MT (in shell basis), while the Spanish crop is expected to be 25,000 MT (in shell basis), up 25% from the previous season.

Estimated World Hazelnuts Production. Kernel Basis. Metric Tons COUNTRY

2010/2011

2011/2012

BEGINNING STOCK

CROP

TOTAL SUPPLY

ENDING STOCK

BEGINNING STOCK

CROP

TOTAL SUPPLY

ENDING STOCK

10.000

315.000

325.000

80.000*

80.000*

255.000

335.000

15.000

4.700

41.000

45.700

4.700

4.700

58.750

63.450

14.100

AZERBAIJAN

400

10.000

10.400

800

800

18.000

18.800

1.600

GEORGIA

800

16.000

16.800

1.200

1.200

14.000

15.200

1.400

USA

500

9.800

10.300

600

600

13.800

14.400

600

TURKEY ITALY

SPAIN OTHERS WORLD TOTAL

0

9.000

9.000

0

0

11.250

11.250

0

450

12.150

12.600

900

900

12.150

13.050

1.350

16.850

412.950

429.800

88.200

88.200

382.950

471.150

WORLD CONSUMPTION (SUPPLY - ENDING STOCK)

34.050

341.600

437.100

Estimated World Hazelnuts Production. In Shell Basis. Metric Tons COUNTRY

2010/2011

2011/2012

BEGINNING STOCK

CROP

TOTAL SUPPLY

ENDING STOCK

BEGINNING STOCK

CROP

TOTAL SUPPLY

ENDING STOCK

TURKEY

20.000

630.000

650.000

160.000*

160.000*

510.000

670.000

30.000

ITALY

10.000

87.200

97.200

10.000

10.000

125.000

135.000

30.000

AZERBAIJAN

1.000

25.000

26.000

2.000

2.000

45.000

47.000

4.000

GEORGIA

2.000

40.000

42.000

3.000

3.000

35.000

38.000

3.500

USA

1.250

24.500

25.750

1.500

1.500

34.500

36.000

1.500

SPAIN OTHERS WORLD TOTAL

0

20.000

20.000

0

0

25.000

25.000

0

1.000

27.000

28.000

2.000

2.000

27.000

29.000

2.000

35.250

853.700

888.950

178.500

178.500

801.500

980.000

71.000

WORLD CONSUMPTION (SUPPLY - ENDING STOCK)

710.450

909.000

* 140,000 MT (in shell) of old crop at TMO. Source: INC

Turkey’s Hazelnut Exports by Product.

2009/2010 Season

Natural / 59% Source: Hazelnut Promotion Group

Processed / 41%

Turkey’s Hazelnut Exports.

2009/2010 Season

EU Countries / 74%

Other European Countries / 11%

Other Countries / 15%

Source: Hazelnut Promotion Group

Month July Year 2011 || The The Cracker Cracker

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July 2011 | The Cracker

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GLOBAL STATISTICAL REVIEW

Pine Nut · Piñón · Pignon · Pinoli · Pinienkerne · Çam Fistigi The Chinese pine nuts taste disturbance phenomenon has led a price drop from US$29,000/MT in October 2010 to US$17,000/MT in May 2011 for quality grade A Red Pine. The China Chamber of Commerce of Imports/Exports of Foodstuffs, Native Produce and Animal ByProducts (CCCFNA) released the brochure “Chinese Pine Nut Kernels Specifications (Grade A Quality for all Varieties)” during the 30th World Nut and Dried Fruit Congress, held in Budapest, Hungary, from the 20th to the 22nd of May 2011. This new brochure provides the official names, growing areas, color, shape, size counts, suggested usage, and specifications for Grade A for all 8 varieties of Pine Nut Kernels that are currently processed and exported by China.

The varieties Pinus armandi and Pinus massoniana must not be exported to the EU for direct consumption, either single or blended. In fact, the last session of the Codex Committee no Pesticide Residues, held in Beijing, China, 4-9 April 2011, amended the Classification of Tree Nuts and agreed to exclude Pinus armandi and Pinus massoniana from the list of Tree Nuts, on the basis that these nuts cause a taste disturbance and are not fit for direct human consumption.

Estimated World Pine Nuts Production. Kernel Basis. Metric Tons COUNTRY

2010/2011

2011/2012

BEGINNING STOCK

CROP

TOTAL SUPPLY

ENDING STOCK

BEGINNING STOCK

CROP

TOTAL SUPPLY

ENDING STOCK

160

7.500

7.660

500

500

14.000

14.500

5.000

0

4.000

4.000

1.000

1.000

5.000

6.000

2.000

RUSSIA

50

3.000

3.050

200

200

4.000

4.200

2.000

DPR Korea

30

1.000

1.030

100

100

3.000

3.100

1.000

240

15.500

15.740

1.800

1.800

26.000

27.800

10.000

SPAIN

0

1.200

1.200

0

0

1.730

1.730

n/a

PORTUGAL

0

3.000

3.000

0

0

1.450

1.450

n/a

TURKEY

0

700

700

0

0

600

600

n/a

ITALY

0

150

150

0

0

200

200

n/a

TOTAL MED.

0

5.050

5.050

0

0

3.980

3.980

n/a

240

20.550

20.790

1.800

1.800

29.980

31.780

10.000

FAR EAST (Pinus Chinensis): CHINA PAKISTAN

TOTAL FAR EAST MEDITERRANEAN (Pinus Pinea):

WORLD TOTAL CONSUMPTION (SUPPLY - ENDING STOCK)

Source: China Tree Nuts Association and other INC sources.

8 70

The Month Year The Cracker Cracker || July 2011

18.900

21.780

July 2011 | The Cracker

71

GLOBAL STATISTICAL REVIEW

Walnut · Nuez · Noix · Noce · Walnuss · Ceviz World production of walnuts is forecast at 1,091,000 MT in 2011/2012, down 3% from the previous season.

CHINA Chinese in-shell walnut production has been estimated at 480,000 MT, slightly down from the previous year. The estimated Chinese production in 2010 was revised upwards to 490,000 MT during the 30th World Nut and Dried Fruit Congress, held in Budapest, 20-22 May 2011 (up 11% from the previous forecast of 440,000 MT).

USA Favorable weather conditions, increasing acreage and heavier yields led to an increase in the estimate for the 2010/11 crop, up to 455,000 MT. The 2011 California walnut production is forecast at 445,000 MT, slightly down from the previous season. According to the US Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Statistics Service, pollination was underway in walnut orchards by end May 2011. Shipments through May 31st, 2011, reflected a 45% increase in inshell exports and a 13.69% increase in shelled exports vs. 2009/10. The Walnut Objective Measurement Report will be released September 2, 2011.

Estimated World Walnuts Production. Kernel Basis. Metric Tons COUNTRY

2010/2011

2011/2012

BEGINNING STOCK

CROP

TOTAL SUPPLY

ENDING STOCK

BEGINNING STOCK

CROP

TOTAL SUPPLY

ENDING STOCK

0

210.700

210.700

0

0

206.400

206.400

0

14.461

195.650

210.111

16.770

16.770

191.350

208.120

15.910

TURKEY

860

28.380

29.240

430

430

26.660

27.090

430

CHILE

430

13.760

14.190

430

430

15.480

15.910

430

FRANCE

860

13.760

14.620

0

0

12.900

12.900

0

INDIA

860

12.470

13.330

430

430

10.750

11.180

430

ITALY

430

6.450

6.880

430

430

5.590

6.020

430

17.901

481.170

499.071

18.490

18.490

469.130

487.620

17.630

CHINA USA

WORLD TOTAL CONSUMPTION (SUPPLY - ENDING STOCK)

480.581

469.990

Estimated World Walnuts Production. In Shell Basis. Metric Tons COUNTRY

2010/2011

2011/2012

BEGINNING STOCK

CROP

TOTAL SUPPLY

ENDING STOCK

BEGINNING STOCK

CROP

TOTAL SUPPLY

ENDING STOCK

0

490.000

490.000

0

0

480.000

480.000

0

33.630

455.000

488.630

39.000

39.000

445.000

484.000

37.000

TURKEY

2.000

66.000

68.000

1.000

1.000

62.000

63.000

1.000

CHILE

1.000

32.000

33.000

1.000

1.000

36.000

37.000

1.000

FRANCE

2.000

32.000

34.000

0

0

30.000

30.000

0

INDIA

2.000

29.000

31.000

1.000

1.000

25.000

26.000

1.000

ITALY

1.000

15.000

16.000

1.000

1.000

13.000

14.000

1.000

41.630

1.119.000

1.160.630

43.000

43.000

1.091.000

1.134.000

41.000

CHINA USA

WORLD TOTAL CONSUMPTION (SUPPLY - ENDING STOCK)

Source: INC.

72

The Cracker | July 2011

1.117.630

1.093.000

July 2011 | The Cracker

73

GLOBAL STATISTICAL REVIEW

Date · Dátil · Datte · Dattero · Dattel · Hurma World dates production is forecast at 6,576,000 MT, 2 % down from 2010/2011. Libya and Egypt present the biggest reduction, by 47% and

10% respectively. Saudi Arabia becomes the main producing country with an estimated production of 1,100,000 MT, similar to 2010/2011.

Estimated World Raw Dates Production. Metric Tons COUNTRY

2010/2011

2011/2012

BEGINNING STOCK

PRODUCTION

TOTAL SUPPLY

ENDING STOCK

BEGINNING STOCK

PRODUCTION

TOTAL SUPPLY

ENDING STOCK

SAUDI ARABIA

70.000

1.090.000

1.160.000

80.000

80.000

1.100.000

1.180.000

85.000

IRAN

40.000

1.045.000

1.085.000

45.000

45.000

1.085.000

1.130.000

50.000

EGYPT

150.000

1.100.000

1.250.000

125.000

125.000

990.000

1.115.000

80.000

UAE

40.000

780.000

820.000

35.000

35.000

820.000

855.000

38.000

ALGERIA

30.000

620.000

650.000

10.000

10.000

600.000

610.000

8.000

PAKISTAN

16.000

430.000

446.000

8.000

8.000

440.000

448.000

10.000

SUDAN

18.000

320.000

338.000

14.000

14.000

320.000

334.000

15.000

IRAQ

17.000

310.000

327.000

16.000

16.000

305.000

321.000

15.000

OMAN

16.000

260.000

276.000

12.000

12.000

240.000

252.000

11.000

TUNISIA

1.200

174.000

175.200

5.000

5.000

170.000

175.000

4.000

CHINA

7.000

125.000

132.000

7.000

7.000

125.000

132.000

6.000

LIBYA

12.000

180.000

192.000

8.000

8.000

95.000

103.000

4.000

6.000

80.000

86.000

4.000

4.000

82.000

86.000

4.500

ISRAEL

300

19.000

19.300

200

200

19.000

19.200

180

USA

500

15.000

15.500

600

600

15.000

15.600

700

MOROCCO

OTHERS WORLD TOTAL

22.000

160.000

182.000

25.000

25.000

170.000

195.000

24.000

446.000

6.708.000

7.154.000

394.800

394.800

6.576.000

6.970.800

355.380

CONSUMPTION (SUPPLY - ENDING STOCK)

6.759.200

6.615.420

Source: INC.

Dried Apricot · Orejón · Abricot Sec · Albicocca Secca · Getrocknete Aprikose · Kuru Kayisi World production of dried apricots in 2011/12 is forecast at 199,000 MT, up 33% from the previous season due to the significant increase in Turkish crop. Turkey’s production has been predicted at 137,000 MT, up 61% from the 2010 estimate, which suffered heavy freeze damage. Weather

conditions during bloom have generally been very favorable, providing record yields similar to the 2005 crop. Iranian production has been estimated at 23,500 MT, slightly up from the previous season. The two countries represent nearly 80% of world’s estimated production in 2011.

Estimated World Dried Apricots Production. Metric Tons COUNTRY

2010/2011

2011/2012

BEGINNING STOCK

PRODUCTION

TOTAL SUPPLY

ENDING STOCK

BEGINNING STOCK

PRODUCTION

TOTAL SUPPLY

ENDING STOCK

TURKEY

n/a

85.000

85.000

n/a

n/a

137.000

137.000

15.000

IRAN

n/a

24.000

24.000

n/a

n/a

23.500

23.500

n/a

CHINA

n/a

5.500

5.500

n/a

n/a

5.700

5.700

n/a

USA

n/a

2.500

2.500

n/a

n/a

2.600

2.600

n/a

SOUTH AFRICA

n/a

1.500

1.500

n/a

n/a

1.550

1.550

n/a

AUSTRALIA

n/a

600

600

n/a

n/a

650

650

n/a

OTHERS

n/a

30.000

30.000

n/a

n/a

28.000

28.000

n/a

WORLD TOTAL

n/a

149.100

149.100

n/a

n/a

199.000

199.000

15.000

CONSUMPTION (SUPPLY - ENDING STOCK) Source: INC.

74

The Cracker | July 2011

149.100

184.000

GLOBAL STATISTICAL REVIEW

Dried Fig · Higo Seco · Figue Sec · Fico Secco · Getrocknete Feige · Kuru Incir World production of dried figs in 2011/12 is forecast at 104,800 MT, slightly down from the previous season. Turkey’s production represents 52% of world’s production, with a forecast of 55,000 MT. This estimate would represent a 6% decrease from the 2010 Turkish crop estimated to

total 58,662 MT. According to the Aegean Dried Fruits Exporters’ Associations, Turkey exports 48,000 to 60,000 MT of dried figs annually, being the European Union Member States the major importers with a market share of 70-75%.

Estimated World Dried Figs Production. Metric Tons 2010/2011

COUNTRY

2011/2012

BEGINNING STOCK

PRODUCTION

TOTAL SUPPLY

ENDING STOCK

BEGINNING STOCK

PRODUCTION

TOTAL SUPPLY

ENDING STOCK

TURKEY

n/a

58.662

58.662

n/a

n/a

55.000

55.000

n/a

IRAN

n/a

22.500

22.500

n/a

n/a

22.500

22.500

n/a

USA

n/a

10.000

10.000

n/a

n/a

9.500

9.500

n/a

GREECE

n/a

7.500

7.500

n/a

n/a

7.800

7.800

n/a

SPAIN

n/a

5.000

5.000

n/a

n/a

5.800

5.800

n/a

ITALY

n/a

3.500

3.500

n/a

n/a

3.800

3.800

n/a

OTHERS

n/a

400

400

n/a

n/a

400

400

n/a

WORLD TOTAL

n/a

107.562

107.562

n/a

n/a

104.800

104.800

n/a

CONSUMPTION (SUPPLY - ENDING STOCK)

107.562

104.800

Source: INC

Prune · Ciruela Seca · Pruneau · Prugna Secca · Backpflaume · Kuru Erik · Pruna Seca The US National Agricultural Statistics Service estimated the 2011 California dried plum crop at 110,700 MT (122,000 short tons), down 4% from the 2010 California crop estimated at 113,400 MT. Cool, wet weather conditions delayed bloom and affected pollination. In addition, some growing

areas were damaged by frost and hail, but according to NASS the biggest impact was a 5% decline in bearing acreage following the 2010 harvest.

Fruit quality and size are expected to be good. The carryover is expected to be 64,500 MT, down from last year’s 76,980 MT.

Estimated World Prunes Production. Metric Tons COUNTRY

2010/2011

2011/2012

BEGINNING STOCK

PRODUCTION

TOTAL SUPPLY

ENDING STOCK

BEGINNING STOCK

PRODUCTION

TOTAL SUPPLY

ENDING STOCK

USA

76.980

113.400

190.380

64.500

64.500

110.700

175.200

n/a

CHILE

12.000

56.000

68.000

6.000

6.000

65.000

71.000

n/a

ARGENTINA

12.400

25.660

38.060

10.000

10.000

60.000

70.000

n/a

FRANCE

25.400

42.000

67.400

19.000

19.000

43.000

62.000

n/a

ITALY

240

1.250

1.490

240

240

1.300

1.540

n/a

AUSTRALIA

n/a

4.000

4.000

1.000

1.000

2.000

3.000

n/a

SOUTH AFRICA

50

1.720

1.770

n/a

n/a

2.500

2.500

n/a

WORLD TOTAL

127.070

244.030

371.100

100.740

100.740

284.500

385.240

n/a

CONSUMPTION (SUPPLY - ENDING STOCK)

270.360

385.240

Source: INC.

July 2011 | The Cracker

75

76

The Cracker | July 2011

July 2011 | The Cracker

77

GLOBAL STATISTICAL REVIEW 2009 IMPORTS OF RAW CASHEW NUTS THROUGH DIFFERENT PORTS IN INDIA PORTS COCHIN TUTICORIN MANGALORE OTHERS

MT 375.467 238.310 112.610 264.467

Cochin 38% Tuticorin 24% Mangalore 11% Others 27%

EXPORTS OF CASHEW KERNELS FROM INDIA YEAR 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009

120.000

MT 118.805 117.325 115.240 112.113 107.497

100.000 80.000 60.000 40.000 20.000 0

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

INDIAN EXPORTS OF CASHEW KERNELS BY DESTINATION

AMERICA WEST EUROPE WEST ASIA S.EAST & FAR E. ASIA AFRICA OCEANIA EAST EUROPE TOTAL

2005 50.946 39.950 15.187 7.419 700 1.304 3.299 118.805

2006 46.464 41.177 18.108 6.237 981 1.386 2.972 117.325

2007 44.344 34.179 21.714 7.651 1.753 2.927 2.672 115.240

2008 40.129 31.996 24.565 8.980 2.399 2.629 1.415 112.113

2009 33.106 29.879 28.025 10.208 2.973 1.788 1.518 107.497

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

60.000 50.000 40.000 30.000 20.000 10.000 0

America

West Europe

West Asia

S. East & Far E. Asia

Africa

Oceania

East Europe

INDIAN EXPORTS OF CASHEW KERNELS BY COUNTRY

USA UAE NETHERLANDS JAPAN UK SAUDI ARABIA FRANCE SPAIN OTHERS TOTAL

16 78

2005 43.149 8.274 18.736 4.685 6.238 2.827 3.470 2.648 28.778 118.805

2006 46.245 9.523 19.360 4.279 4.715 3.357 3.558 2.457 23.831 117.325

The Cracker | July Month Year 2011

2007 42.694 12.692 13.627 5.114 3.758 3.422 4.033 2.831 27.069 115.240

2008 36.565 14.100 13.608 4.908 3.495 3.278 3.843 2.434 29.882 112.113

2009 30.804 18.161 10.314 5.633 4.477 3.827 3.814 2.782 27.685 107.497

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

50.000

40.000

30.000

20.000

10.000

0

USA

UAE

NETHERLNADS

JAPAN

UK

SAUDI ARABIA

FRANCE

SPAIN

OTHERS

WORLD INDUSTRY NEWS

NPSA HOLDS MARKETING COMMITTEE ELECTION MID-WINTER MEETING ATLANTA – Five members were elected or re-elected to serve on the NPSA Marketing, Promotion and Research Committee during the NPSA Mid-Winter Meeting, Feb. 17-19 in New Orleans, LA. Ernesto Lozano Gonzalez of Procesadora Palma S.A. de C.V.; Jim Hamilton of Hamilton Ranches, Inc.; David Salopek of David Salopek Farms, LLC; and Bruce Caris of The Green Valley Pecan Company were re-elected to new twoyear terms. Tim Adams of San Saba Pecan, LP was also elected.

• Consultant Douglas Freeman, formerly with the USDA’s Foreign Agriculture Service, said that the demand for pecans outside the U.S. continues to expand thanks in part to an industry-wide international marketing effort.

The Marketing, Promotion and Research Program is the industry’s initiative to expand the market for pecans by promoting their health benefits, great taste and versatility.

The National Pecan Shellers Association (NPSA) is an international trade association dedicated to preserving, representing and promoting the interests of the pecan industry, in a strong and unified voice, to government, media, food industry, health professionals and consumers. For more information, contact NPSA Headquarters at 404-252-3663.

At the Mid-Winter Meeting, attendees heard from experts on a wide range of topics: • Jorge Garcia-Pratts, Section Head of Fruits, Vegetables & Specialty Crops at USDA’s National Agricultural Statistical Service (NASS), shared data on pecan bearing and non-bearing acreage in the U.S. and Mexico.

• Dr. Gerald Swanson, professor of economics at the University of Arizona, explained how the Great Recession unfolded and when the economic climate may begin to improve.

Contact: Jon Krueger 404.252.3663 jkrueger@kellencompany.com

Phone: (562) 3437246 Fax: (562) 2236870 Fidel Oteiza 1941 of.701 Santiago - Chile e-mail: dryfrut@dryfrut.cl www.dryfrut.cl

July 2011 | The Cracker

79

WORLD INDUSTRY NEWS

NAME CHANGE:

NUTRITIONAL WORK HEADLINE GROUP’S EFFORTS

The organization formerly known as the Western Pistachio Association has officially changed its name to American Pistachio Growers (APG). The change became effective on July 21 and the organization’s new logo was presented to its membership at their Annual Grower Luncheon held in Visalia, California.

Visalia was chosen for its proximity to the majority of the pistachio acreage grown in the San Joaquin Valley of California. Approximately 80 percent of all pistachios grown in California are grown within the San Joaquin Valley.

The name, American Pistachio Growers, was chosen after several different names were tested with consumers and buyers of pistachios worldwide. “We found that the previous name did not resonate well with consumers” stated Richard Matoian, Executive Director of American Pistachio Growers. “Many consumers in the European Union thought Western Pistachio meant pistachios grown in Western Europe, while consumers in Asian markets often thought ‘Western’ referred to cowboys and western movies.” Consumer panel responses indicated that the term “American” found positive favor and the term “Grower” connected consumers with an individual that grew the food they consumed. Consumers, particularly in Asian countries trust food grown in America.

The consumer panels also reaffirmed the use of the name of “California” in marketing pistachios worldwide. California continues to enjoy very favorable images with consumers. As such, APG will utilize an origin logo in international markets to denote American quality product grown and shipped from California. Of the total production of pistachios grown in America, 98.5 percent are grown in the state of California. “The new name makes sense in all of our markets” said APG’s Director, Global Marketing, Judy Hirigoyen. She added, “California is known around the around the world for its beaches, mountains and healthy living and California grown pistachios are a part of the allure of our great state.”

The APG will launch its new marketing and PR campaign beginning with the new pistachio crop year, starting on September 1.

In the area of nutrition research, the American Pistachio Growers and Paramount Farms International (the largest grower and processor of pistachios in California) are partnering on a nutritional study titled, “Effects of pistachio intake on insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes mellitus” that is being conducted in Spain with Mònica Bulló Bonet,

80

The Cracker | July 2011

BSC, PhD., Main Researcher and Jordi Salas-Salvadó, MD, PhD; Patricia Cozar, BSC and Martí Juanola, BSC, Human Nutrition Unit, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Institute d’ Investigacio Sanitaria Pere Virgili, Rovira i Virgili University, Reus, and CIBERobn Fisiopatología de la Obesidad y Nutrición, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Madrid, Spain.

This study is a randomized crossover clinical trial that includes 50 subjects with “pre-diabetes.” The two year investigation will compare the effects of a pistachio-rich diet versus a low fat diet on various markers for diabetes, inflammation and cardiovascular disease and antioxidant levels.

The study researchers have extensive experience in epidemiological and clinical studies related to type 2 diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular disease. They have been involved in two large clinical trials, PREDIMED and REDIGEN. Specifically, PREDIMED looked at the effect of a Mediterranean diet enriched with nuts or olive oil compared to a low-fat diet on cardiovascular mortality.

NEW UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO STUDY PUBLISHED ON PISTACHIOS AND BLOOD SUGAR Another APG funded research study was published online in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition the first week in March 2011.

This study gives consumers yet another reason to reach for pistachios.

This study’s results suggest that pistachios, when enjoyed with some

WORLD INDUSTRY NEWS high carbohydrate foods, limit the blood sugar response in the body. These findings reinforce that pistachios may be a smart snack choice for the prevention of diabetes and heart disease. The title of the study was: “The Impact of Pistachio Intake Alone or in Combination with HighCarbohydrate Foods on Post-prandial Glycemia”

can simply adding pistachios to dishes such as pasta and rice to help reduce the rise in blood sugar due to ingestion of higher carbohydrate foods.

In all, 10 males and females participated in 2 studies. Study one assessed the dose-response effect of 1, 2 and 3 ounces of pistachios eaten alone or with white bread. Study two looked at the effect of 2 ounces of pistachios on blood sugar levels after a meal when eaten with commonly consumed carbohydrate foods, including rice, pasta and mashed potatoes. The study affirmed the following results: • Eating pistachios in 1, 2 and 3 ounce amounts had a minimal effect on blood sugar due to pistachios’ low carbohydrate content • Eating pistachios with white bread resulted in a dose-dependent reduction in blood sugar responses, i.e., the more pistachios eaten, the lower the rise in blood sugar • Eating pistachios with common carbohydrate foods significantly reduced their relative blood sugar responses The bottom line is that the study suggests pistachios may limit the rise in blood sugar after a meal when eaten with high carbohydrate foods.

Therefore, for those who have concerns about their blood sugar levels

“Representatives of the U.S. pistachio industry meet to review comprehensive study on pistachios at the Human Nutrition Unit, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Institute d’ Investigacio Sanitaria Pere Virgili, Rovira i Virgili University, Reus, Spain. Left to Right: Francesc Vidal Marsal, Director, Institut d’Investigacio Sanitaria; Kelly Plowe, Registered Dietician, Paramount Farms International; Mònica Bulló Bonet, BSC, PhD., Main Researcher, Institut d’Ivestigacio Sanitaria; Richard Matoian, Executive Director, American Pistachio Growers; and Constance Geiger, PhD., Nutrition Consultant, American Pistachio Growers”.

July 2011 | The Cracker

81

WORLD INDUSTRY NEWS

NUTS AND DRIED FRUIT:

NUCIS GERMANY CONTINUES TO EDUCATE ABOUT NUTS

Nucis Germany participates not only at major national congresses but also at regional events to increase awareness about tree nut consumption. In April this year, Nucis attended an advanced medical training program organized by the German Association for Nutrition (DGE) and the Physician Chamber for Northern Germany in Oldenburg.

The target groups included interested physicians, Nutrition advisers, Nutrition Students and journalists. The themes were food quality from a scientific view, food for elderly people, food security and consumer protection and nourishment information in the supermarkets.

Nucis provided information on the high nutritional and health value of nuts and explained that nuts are a safe food due to careful examination before and after import and during the production process.

VDD Congress, May 06th – 07th in Wolfsburg targeted at scientists and nutrition advisers attracted about 1400 visitors. Nucis provided information on the high nutritional value of nuts at its booth.

Nucis also introduced two new brochures. This new teaching material consists of one brochure exclusively designed for nutrition

82

The Cracker | July 2011

WORLD INDUSTRY NEWS advisers/physicians and one targeted at the consumer. The advisers are provided with written material to hand out to their clients after consultation.

A highlight of the congress was a lecture that discussed diabetes and nut consumption. Many listeners visited after the lecture at the Nucis booth to get more information and to ask additional questions.

Gateway to the German Market Work hand in hand with the nuts & dried fruits import and marketing experts.

Palm Nuts & more · Nuss und trockenfrucht GmbH & Co. KG lindenstrasse 17 · D-21244 Buchholz · Germany telefon: +49 4181 9091- 0 · Fax: +49 4181 9091- 80 e-mail: mail@palm-nutsandmore.de · www.palm-nutsandmore.de July 2011 | The Cracker

83

Fresh from Our Farm to Your Table

The Green Valley Pecan Company treats every customer like a relationship to be treasured, not simply an order to be filled. From planting to processing, each employee takes pride in producing and delivering a premium product to our customers by adhering to the highest standards in the world for food safety.

Green Valley Pecan Company is the largest supplier to Europe and the first pecan processor in the world certified by the BRC. Each pecan passes the industry’s strictest quality control standards, kept frozen in the shell until state-of-the-art pasteurization, electronic shelling and sorting process. Your specifications are carefully monitored, from continuous online inspections to use of modern storage facilities, and we ensure efficient delivery through unitized bulk package shipping and container-sized export quantities.

GreenValleyPecan.com 84

The Cracker | July 2011

Telephone: (520) 791-2852 Fax: (520) 791-2853

Cracker The

ADVERTISERS IN THIS ISSUE For more information on Green Valley Pecans please contact your representative: Keith Roberts Partnership United Kingdom p: 44-1702-589958 f: 44-1702-587075 Gemperli Zurich, Switzerland p: 41-44-368-2020 f: 41-44-361-4511 Jas Trading The Netherlands p: 31-20-643-6412 f: 31-20-643-2127 Max Kiene Germany p: 49-40-309-6550 f: 49-40-309-65520

BELGIUM

Quality Marketing Belgium p: 32-3-711-0895 f: 32-3-711-0879

SPAIN

Page

Best N.V............................................13

Borges S.A........................................62

Visys NV Sorting Systems................97

Joan Escoda S.A...............................81

CHILE

Jose Borrell S.A......Front Inside Cover Maseto, S.L......................................27

Voice Vale France, S.A.R.L. p: 33-140502-480 f: 33-140502-488

Exportadora Anakena LTDA...........26 Exportadora Dryfrut LTDA..............79

SWITZERLAND

Tanto Corporation Japan p: 81-3-4360-5336 f: 81-3-4360-5794

Valbifrut S.A....................................19

Café Gourmet LTD. / Swiss Gourmet... 10

CHINA

TURKEY

Sino Jet International . ....................3

Hazelnut Promotion Group..............4

FRANCE

UK

Eurobroker......................................24

Bühler Sortex Ltd............................50

Somercom.......................................17

Kenkko Commodities PLC..............31

GERMANY

USA

Eurofins..........................................51

Blue Diamond Growers....................7

Palm Nuts & More KG....................83

Cablevey Conveyors........................79

ITALY

Campos Brothers Farms.................11

Palm Trading Denmark p: 45-45-82-1610 f: 45-45-82-1613

Phone: (520) 791-2852 Fax: (520) 791-2853 P.O. Box 7 • Sahuarita, Arizona 85629 U.S.A. e-mail: sales@greenvalleypecan.com www.greenvalleypecan.com

GVPC00265.indd 1

Page

TO ALL INC MEMBERS, ADVERTISERS AND SUBSCRIBERS:

10/18/10 5:13 PM

THE NEXT PUBLICATIONS SCHEDULE FOR THE CRACKER WILL BE...

NOVEMBER 2011 • MARCH 2012

Connect S.R.L..................................21 V. Besana S.P.A.................................14

JAPAN

Chico Nut Company........................94 Crain Walnut Shelling, INC............31 Fisher Nut Company.......................16 Grower Direct..................................55

Delta International Co., LTD..........23

Hilltop Ranch, INC..........................56

Tanto Corporation..........................12

Hughson Nut, INC...........................59

MOROCCO

Mariani Packing Company............33

Santis S.A.R.L. ................................29

Primex INTL........ Back Outside Cover

NETHERLANDS Catz International B.V.. .................25

Satake USA, INC..............................93 Setton INTL. Foods...... Back Inside Cover Green Valley Pecan CO...........84 & 85 Vicam..............................................22 Young Pecan Company...................89

Detailed information will be sent and posted to our website: www.nutfruit.org July 2011 | The Cracker

85

NEWS FROM THE NUTRITION RESEARCH & EDUCATION FOUNDATION

At the recent XXX World Nut and Dried Fruit Congress in Budapest a symposium titled, “Nuts and Dried Fruits on Health and Disease,” highlighted the various areas of research that are currently being conducted on nuts and dried fruit. Good, quality research is so important when it comes to making changes to nutrition recommendations and public policy around the world. The session was co-moderated by Professor Jordi Salas, Salvadó, from Rovira i Virgili University, Spain, and myself, and featured four speakers including: Dr. Emilio Ros, Clinic Hospital of Barcelona, Spain; Dr. Linda Tapsell, University of Wollongong, Australia; Dr. Daniel D. Gallaher, University of Minnesota, USA; and Dr. Nancy Emenaker, National Cancer Institute, USA. A synopsis of each presentation is below: and will be completed this year after an average follow-up of 6 years. The final results on outcomes of hard cardiovascular events and cancer will be in 2012. What has been found so far favors the two Mediterranean diets over the low-fat diet for beneficial effects on a number of intermediate outcomes, including body weight, blood pressure, insulin resistance, blood lipids, lipid oxidation, and systemic inflammation. Two seminal reports of sizable PREDIMED sub cohorts include a reduced prevalence of the metabolic syndrome by the Mediterranean diet supplemented with nuts after 1-year follow-up and a reduction of incident diabetes associated with the two Mediterranean diets after a 4-year follow-up.

NUT CONSUMPTION AND ENERGY BALANCE Professor Linda C Tapsell, PhD, FDAA, Director, Nutrition Research, Illawarra Health and Medical Research Institute and Food and Health/Smart Foods Centre, School of Health Sciences, University of Wollongong, Australia

NUTS AND CARDIOVASCULAR RISK FACTORS: THE PREDIMED TRIAL Emilio Ros, MD, PhD, Director, Lipid Clinic, Endocrinology & Nutrition Service, Hospital Clínic, Barcelona, Spain The landmark Prevencion con Dieta Mediterranea (PREDIMED) study is a multicenter, randomized, primary prevention trial of cardiovascular disease, funded by The Spanish Ministry of Health. Participants in the study (nearly 7,500 persons at high cardiovascular risk) were randomized to three intervention arms: a Mediterranean diet supplemented with virgin olive oil, a Mediterranean diet supplemented with mixed nuts (one half of them walnuts) and a control low-fat diet. The study began in 2003

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With the increasing prevalence of overweight in populations, many dietary guidelines today are emerging with the message to balance food intake with energy expenditure and choose nutrient-dense foods. Nuts are a nutrient dense-food, providing fatty acids, protein, vitamins, minerals and important nutrients, but the fat in particular contributes to their calorie value. To consider how nut consumption might be considered in light of energy balance, this presentation asked three questions: Are people who consume nuts overweight? Do people who eat nuts put on more weight than those who do not? How might nuts help with energy balance? The questions were addressed with reference to the evidence based report recently published in support of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

Large observational studies of population dietary patterns in Spain (the Sun study) and in the USA (the Nurses Health II study) found that people who ate around two servings of nuts per week were at lower risk of weight gain and obesity. Dietary intervention studies found that those who included nuts in a calorie controlled or Mediterranean diet pattern appeared to lose more weight, but if the nuts were added on top of usual eating patterns this would not be the case. Metabolic studies show that nuts may support energy balance by helping reduce calorie intake (because

they are satisfying) and there may also be some advantages in increasing energy expenditure. Thus we can conclude that nuts are a nutrient-rich food that fit naturally into a healthy well balanced-diet, but maintaining energy balance has implications for all foods consumed in a dietary pattern. There may be advantages to achieving energy balance from choosing nuts over other foods in the diet

POTENTIAL HEALTH BENEFITS OF DRIED FRUIT CONSUMPTION Daniel D. Gallaher, PhD, Professor, Department of Food Science and Nutrition, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN USA Dried fruits are a nutrient-dense food. They are particularly good sources of dietary fiber, potassium, and phenolic compounds; these latter have been linked to a number of health benefits such as decreased risks for heart disease, diabetes and certain types of cancer. Further, being plant foods, they are low in sodium and contain no cholesterol or trans-fats.

Dietary fiber consumption has several well-established health benefits. For example, it promotes laxation and lowers serum cholesterol.

Improving laxation is a major concern for many people, as demonstrated by the high volume of sales of over-the-counter laxatives. Contrary to popular belief, dried fruit (including dried plums), has at most a modest effect on laxation in normal people. However, in the only clinical study of dried fruit (as dried plums) on laxation in constipated individuals, dried plums were more effective than the commonly used fiber laxative, psyllium (MetamucilÂŽ), in relieving constipation. The effect of dried fruit on blood cholesterol seems to be dependent on the type of dried fruit. Dried plums have been found to reduce LDL cholesterol in hypercholesterolemic men, and were found to reduce atherosclerosis in an animal model. However, raisins and dates had no effect on serum cholesterol, although one date variety (Hallawi) was found to reduce serum triglycerides, a positive finding, as high serum triglycerides are a risk factor for heart disease.

Osteoporosis is a major public health problem. One dried fruit, dried plums, has been found to increase bone density in animal models of osteoporosis. Further, in a recently published clinical study, both dried apple and dried plum were found to increase bone mineral density in postmenopausal women, who normally are losing bone density. This suggests that at least certain types of dried fruit may prevent the development of osteoporosis.

NUTS AND CANCER: WE NEED MORE EVIDENCE Nancy Emenaker, PhD, RD, Program Director, Nutritional Science Research Group, Division of Cancer Prevention, National Cancer Institute, NIH, USA While cancer incidence is projected to increase over the next few decades, global evidence suggests as much as 30-40 percent of all cancers may be linked to our individual dietary habits. The “Greek-type� Mediterranean dietary pattern is widely acknowledged for its potential health benefits. This dietary pattern is rich in fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds, olive oil, fish and lean meats. It also emphasizes moderate meal portion sizes, daily exercise and other healthy lifestyle habits to reduce disease risks ranging from cardiovascular disease to cancer. Nuts are rich in diverse nutrients and contain many bioactive food components that may modify several cancer processes, including inflammation and tumor cell growth. Epidemiological evidence suggests increased nut consumption may have potential beneficial effects on reducing proliferative breast disease (a marker of increased breast cancer risk), cervical, colon and prostate cancer risks. While these findings are intriguing, additional research is needed to better understand which nuts and in what amounts they may be needed to potentially reduce the risk of cancer in human populations.

Consumption of certain dried fruits have been shown to have important health benefits, such as improving laxation, reducing serum cholesterol, and reducing the risk of osteoporosis. However, there is a need for studies of the effect of consuming dried fruit for other potential health benefits, and for studying other types of dried fruit.

INC NREF NUTS AND DIABETES STUDY One study that was briefly mentioned in the nuts and dried fruit symposium was the INC NREF-funded diabetes study. The research was conducted by Drs. David Jenkins and Cyril Kendall at the University of Toronto. The manuscript was recently accepted for publication in the leading diabetes journal, Diabetes Care. Publicity surrounding the publication will take place this summer and includes distribution of a press release (see side bar), meetings with New York magazine editors and media pitching to national and international broadcast, print and radio outlets.

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NEWS FROM THE NUTRITION RESEARCH & EDUCATION FOUNDATION

NEW USDA FOOD ICON RELEASED Following the release of the 2010 U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Americans, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) just unveiled its new food icon, MyPlate, to serve as a reminder to help consumers make healthier food choices. MyPlate is a new generation icon with the intent to prompt consumers to think about building a healthy plate at meal times and to seek more information to help them do that by going to www.ChooseMyPlate.gov. The new MyPlate icon emphasizes the fruit, vegetable, grains, protein and dairy food groups.

ChooseMyPlate.gov provides practical information to individuals, health professionals, nutrition educators, and the food industry to help consumers build healthier diets with resources and tools for dietary assessment, nutrition education, and other user-friendly nutrition information. For example, by clicking on the protein section of the plate you will be taken to a list of protein foods including nuts. Mixed nuts, along with a number of individual nuts, are listed with links that show a picture of a one-ounce serving. In addition, users are shown a list of selected tips including: “Choose unsalted nuts and seeds to keep sodium intake low.”

INC NREF is already at work preparing for the 2015 U.S. Dietary Guidelines. While nuts are included in the 2010 Dietary Guidelines and the new MyPlate icon, there is definitely room to highlight them further. All of the

NEW STUDY SHOWS TREE NUTS MAY PLAY AN IMPORTANT ROLE IN THE HEALTH OF PEOPLE WITH TYPE 2 DIABETES DAVIS, CA, June 2011 – The largest study to date on nuts and diabetes was published today in Diabetes Care, showing that approximately two ounces of nuts a day, as a replacement for carbohydrate foods, can improve glycemic control and blood lipids in those with type 2 diabetes.

Researchers from the University of Toronto and St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, Canada, found that tree nuts (almonds, Brazils, cashews, hazelnuts, pecans, pine nuts, pistachios, macadamias and walnuts) and peanuts improved blood lipid levels and blood sugar levels in individuals with non-insulin dependent diabetes.

The study was a 3-month parallel design with 117 non-insulin dependent adults with diabetes (men and women with a mean age of 62 years) who were all being treated with oral hypoglycemic medications.

The subjects were randomized to one of three diets for three months. The first diet included a supplement of 75g (~2½ ounces or ½ cup) of mixed nuts; the second diet included 38g (~1⅓ ounces or ¼ cup) of mixed nuts and half portion of muffins; and the third diet contained a full portion of muffins. Each supplement provided approximately 475 calories per 2,000 calorie diet. All of the diets contained roughly the same number of calories but the nuts provided more unsaturated (i.e. healthy) fat and less carbohydrate.

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new nut research that comes out in the next few years will certainly help promote the health benefits of nuts and their importance in a healthy diet.

For more information on any INC NREF project please contact Maureen Ternus at maureen.ternus@gmail.com.

The goal of the study was to determine if nuts improve glycemic control in non-insulin dependent diabetes, as assessed by HbA1c (a marker of blood sugar control over the previous three months) and to ascertain whether these outcomes relate to improvements in cardiovascular health.

“Our findings revealed that the full dose nut group had significantly reduced LDL and total cholesterol levels compared to the full dose muffin group,” stated David Jenkins, MD, PhD, DSc, with the University of Toronto and St. Michael’s Hospital. “And, there was a significant reduction in HbA1c in the full dose nuts compared to the other two diets.”

According to Cyril Kendall, Ph.D., co-investigator of the study, “The improvements in blood glucose control that can be achieved by dietary and lifestyle changes are significant and could make a substantial contribution to the treatment of those with Type 2 diabetes. Nuts are a healthy and flavorful option for individuals with diabetes.”

Numerous studies have shown that consuming tree nuts may reduce the risk of heart disease. In 2003 tree nuts received a qualified health claim from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) which states, “Scientific evidence suggests but does not prove that eating 1.5 ounces per day of most nuts, as part of a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol, may reduce the risk of heart disease.” Interestingly, individuals with Type 2 diabetes have a 2-4 fold higher risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) compared with nondiabetic individuals of similar age, sex and ethnicity.

According to Maureen Ternus, M.S., R.D., Executive Director of the International Tree Nut Council Nutrition Research & Education Foundation (INC NREF), “While we’ve known for years that eating nuts every day can help reduce the risk for heart disease, these new findings show that consuming nuts may now be helpful in controlling Type 2 diabetes as well.”

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HERSHEY:

COCOA POLYPHENOLS SHOW WEIGHT MANAGEMENT POTENTIAL

Scientists from the Hershey Center for Health and Nutrition and the Pennsylvania State University report that polyphenols from cocoa inhibited various digestive enzymes in a dose-dependent manner, meaning the more consumed, the greater the effect. “The present study provides the first evidence that cocoa extracts and cocoa procyanidins are potent inhibitors of key enzymes in the digestion of carbohydrates and lipids in vitro, and these inhibitory activities are related to polyphenol content in cocoa extracts,” wrote the authors in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

If supported by additional research, the findings suggest that cocoa polyphenols may find a role in the burgeoning weight management market, already estimated to be worth $7bn (€5.2bn) worldwide. With 50 per cent of Europeans and 62 per cent of Americans classed as overweight, the food industry is waking up to the potential of products for weight loss and management. The slimming ingredients market can be divided into six groups based on the mechanisms of action - boosting fat burning/ thermogenesis, inhibiting protein breakdown, suppressing appetite/ boosting satiety (feeling of fullness), blocking fat absorption, carbohydrate blocking, and regulating mood (linked to food consumption).

“The 1st report that cocoa polyphenols may aid weight management.”

The health benefits of polyphenols from cocoa have been gathering increasing column inches in the national media. To date studies have reported potential benefits for cardiovascular health, skin health, and even brain health. The majority of science into the potential benefits of cocoa have revolved around cardiovascular benefits of the flavanols (also known as flavan-3-ols or catechins), and particularly the monomeric flavanol (-)epicatechin.

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Led by Penn State’s Joshua Lambert, the researchers tested how cocoa extracts could affect the activity of enzymes associated with the digestion of fat and carbohydrates, including pancreatic lipase, secreted phospholipase A2, and pancreatic alpha-amylase. Three types of cocoa were tested: A cocoa extract that underwent regular processing; an extract that underwent minimal processing (also called Lavado) that is high in flavanols; and an extract that underwent minimal processing (also called Dutch-processed) that is low in flavanols. The researchers said that additional in vitro studies would examine if enzyme inhibition activity of the polyphenol-rich cocoa extracts would be related to other metabolic effects and whether such effects would be achievable at doses observed from the diet.

“Among three cocoa extracts, lavado (meaning ‘washed’ in Spanish) cocoa undergoes the least processing (without fermentation or Dutch-processing), and this extract exerted the highest inhibitory activity against all three digestive enzymes,” report the researchers. “By contrast, the Dutch-processed or alkali-treated cocoa, which is the most highly processed, showed the least inhibitory effect against the enzymes tested. “Because it is expected that the lavado cocoa extract is the highest in polyphenols and flavanols, followed by the regular cocoa extract, and the least would be found in the Dutch-processed cocoa extract, these results suggest that the inhibitory effects of cocoa extracts are related to their polyphenol content,” they added.

In a recent review led by Gary Williamson from the University of Leeds but with the Nestlé Research Center at the time of the review, it was explained that: “Chocolate and cocoa are two different terms and are not interchangeable. “Cocoa is the non-fat component of cocoa liquor (finely ground cocoa beans) which is used in chocolate making or as cocoa powder (commonly 12 per cent fat) for cooking and drinks. “Cocoa liquor contains approximately 55 per cent cocoa butter and together this comprises cocoa solids, often referred to on chocolate packaging.

Chocolate refers to the combination of cocoa, cocoa butter, sugar, etc. into a solid food product,” added the reviewers.

NUTRITION RESEARCH UPDATE

LABELS STILL PREFERRED FOR ALLERGENS A new international study has shed light on food allergy sufferers’ preferred formats for receiving information on allergens in food products, and indicated that novel intelligent communication technologies, such as hand-held scanners, are not suitable replacements for labelling but could be complementary.

Food allergy incidence has been rising in the EU, with around 3.9 per cent of children suffering from an allergy - although allergies often become less severe or disappear in adulthood. The 12 major allergens recognised in Europe are: cereals containing gluten, crustaceans, eggs, fish, peanuts, nuts, soybeans, milk, celery, mustard, sesame, and sulphur dioxide (at levels of over 10mg/kg).

Since the November 2005, when EU directive 2003/89/EC came into effect, food manufacturers in Europe have been required to list these allergens on product labels, regardless of the amount of each in the finished product. However while the directive is clear about the requirement to label allergens used as ingredients, it is not clear about precautionary labelling, when tiny traces of an allergen may end up in a final product due to cross contamination during the production process.

Food manufacturers, alert to potential legal action if cross-contamination with an allergen should lead a consumer to suffer anaphylaxis, often use the phrase ‘may contain [allergen]. According to the authors of the new study, “rather than helping the allergic consumer cope with their condition, such labelling restricts food choice further”. They also warn that there is evidence of consumers ignoring all precautionary labelling, of consumers misunderstanding labelling terms, and of allergen-information being overlooked due to small font size or the appearance of information in multiple languages on packs.

The aim of the study, which has been accepted for publication in the journal Food Quality and Preference, was to explore whether different methods for delivery allergy information - on the label, in an in-store booklet, and intelligent communication technology (ICT) solutions were useful to food allergy sufferers.

The study involved 287 participants from Germany, Greece and The Netherlands who filled out a web-based questionnaire on their preferred formats for receiving allergen information. The participants were all adults with real or perceived allergies, or adult carers of children with real or perceived allergies, and were recruited through

adverts in national newspapers and trade magazines and via the emailing lists of national allergy patient groups. The questionnaires were prepared in English then translated into German, Greek and Dutch.

The information provision scenarios investigated were a standardised label with symbols, a booklet with allergen information, and ICT such as a bar code on individual products which could be scanned with a device that emits a warning signal if the product contains ingredients to which the consumer is allergic, an information terminal, and an online shop.

The participants were shown pictures of the different scenarios and explanations of their attributes, and were asked to rank their liking on a 7-point scale. The researchers concluded that while ICT methods would not be suitable for replacing food labels entirely, but that they may be useful to provide consumers with supplementary information.

In general, most participants preferred a label, and the most popular format for labels was a box with standardised allergy information and a standardised symbol appearing on both the front and back of packaging. They were also in favour of labels showing the percentages of the allergens in the food product, as well as specific details about allergy management in the food chain. Participants preferred to have a telephone hotline given on the food label than a website address.

The use of a symbol could be used to improve mandatory allergen labelling, the researchers found, and would function as a clear warning to consumers, but would not replace the written information. The researchers found that ICT approaches could help solve the problem of multiple languages on packaging, as consumers using hand-held scanners would set them to their own language.

Some differences in preferences between the countries were observed. In Germany, for instance, a printed booklet was preferred over ICT - whereas for the Dutch and the Greek ICT was the second favourite format after labels. The Dutch were seen to be “significantly more positive about the all label attributes” compared to the Greek and German participants.

PISTACHIO DIET IMPROVES REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH The effects of Antep pistachios on International Index of Erectile Function (IIEF) scores was investigated recently at the Ataturk Teaching and Research Hospital in Ankara, Turkey. Used in the study was penile color Doppler ultrasound (PCDU) parameters and serum lipid levels in patients with ED. A total of 17 married male patients with ED for at least 12 months were included in this prospective study.

Patients were put on a 100 g pistachio nuts diet for 3 weeks. IIEF and PCDU were evaluated before and after the pistachio diet. In addition, plasma total cholesterol (TC), low-density lipoprotein (LDL), high-density lipoprotein (HDL) and triglyceride were measured before

and after dietary modifications from all subjects. Mean IIEF-15 score was 36±7.5 before the diet and 54.2±4.9 after the diet. Similarly, an increase in all five domains of IIEF was observed after the diet. Mean peak systolic velocity values before and after the pistachio diet were 35.5±15.2 and 43.3±12.4 cm s(-1), respectively (P=0.018). After the pistachio diet, TC and LDL levels decreased significantly, whereas HDL level increased respectively). The study demonstrated that a pistachio diet improved IIEF scores and PCDU parameters without any associated side effects in patients with ED. Furthermore, the lipid parameters showed statistically significant improvements after this diet.

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NUTRITION RESEARCH UPDATE

COCOA FLAVANOLS CAN IMPROVE EYE AND BRAIN FUNCTION A new study from researchers at the University of Reading claims that consumption of cocoa flavanols may improve aspects of eye and brain function. Cocoa contains a particularly high concentration of flavanols, and in recent years there has been an increasing interest in the health benefits of flavanol-containing foods.

Writing in the journal, Physiology & Behavior, the authors said their findings show that performance on vision tests in healthy young adults and some aspects of cognitive performance can be improved by the acute intake of cocoa flavanols (CF). Improvements in visual function were observed approximately 2.5 hours after CF consumption, added the team, which is based at Reading University’s School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences.

“As well as extending the range of cognitive tasks that are known to be influenced by CF consumption, this is the first report of acute effects of CF on the efficiency of visual function,” note the authors. They said that intake of CF has previously been shown to influence hemodynamics, increasing both central and peripheral blood flow. The researchers’ theory is that the acute effects may be explained by increased cerebral blood flow caused by CF, although “in the case of contrast sensitivity there may be an additional contribution from CF induced retinal blood flow changes.”

and a matched quantity of white chocolate, with a one week interval between testing sessions. Each participant was tested in a high CF condition and a low CF condition, reported the team.

In the high CF condition participants consumed 35 g of the commercially available dark chocolate - Choxi+ (manufactured by Prestat), which contained 178 kcal and 773 mg of CF and also contained 38 mg of caffeine and 222 mg of theobromine. In the control condition participants consumed 35 g of white chocolate (Waitrose own brand), which contained 196 kcal and only trace amounts of CF, caffeine, and theobromine, said the team. The researchers were blind to which of the two types of chocolate had been consumed but the authors said that participants knew which of the two chocolates they had eaten, and they conceded they “may conceivably have been influenced by this knowledge.”

The authors said the methodology used was a randomized, singleblinded, order counterbalanced, crossover design. The trial involved 30 healthy adults aged between 18 and 25, consuming both dark chocolate

PECANS ANTIOXIDANTS MAY AID HEART HEALTH Antioxidants in pecans may help contribute to heart health and disease prevention, according to new research. The study, published in the Journal of Nutrition, suggests that the high levels of antioxidants such as gamma-tocopherol and flavan-3-ol found in pecan nuts can double the levels of the antioxidant compounds in blood plasma, and reduce the oxidation of LDL cholesterol by a third.

“Our tests show that eating pecans increases the amount of healthy antioxidants in the body … This protective effect is important in helping to prevent development of various diseases such as cancer and heart disease,” said Dr Ella Haddad, associate professor in the School of Public Health at Loma Linda University.

The authors explained that pecans contain different forms of vitamin E (mainly in the form of tocopherols), in addition to other phenolic substances which may have antioxidant abilities. High blood levels of oxidized ‘bad’ LDL cholesterol are known to contribute to the process of plaque formation, in atherosclerosis, which can lead to blood vessel blockage, heart attacks, or stroke. As such, the more resistant LDL cholesterol is to oxidation, the less likely it is to cause such health problems.

Haddad and colleagues said that pecans are especially rich in gamma-tocopherols, which have been suggested protect fats, including LDL

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cholesterol, from oxidation. “[The] bioactive constituents of pecan nuts such as gamma-tocopherol and flavan-3-ol monomers show antioxidant properties in vitro, but bioavailability in humans is not known,” said the authors.

The new study examined post meal (postprandial) changes in tocopherols, catechins, oxidized LDL-cholesterol and plasma oxygen radical absorbance capacity (ORAC – a method for measuring antioxidants in blood) in response to a test meal containing pecans. The researchers analyzed biomarkers in blood and urine samples from 16 study participants between the ages 23 and 44.

The volunteers were randomly assigned to three sequences of test meals composed of whole pecans, pecans blended with water, or a control meal of equivalent nutrient composition, with a 1 week washout period between treatments. Participants’ blood was sampled at baseline and at intervals up to 24 hours post meal. Following the test meals composed of whole pecans and blended pecans, researchers found that amounts of gamma-tocopherols in the body doubled after eight hours, whilst oxygen radical absorbance capabilities (ORAC) increased by an average of 11 percent two hours after the meals. In addition, the wholepecan meal was found to lead to reductions in oxidized LDL cholesterol of up to 33 percent (after 3 hours).

Haddad and colleagues said that “the results show that bioactive constituent of pecans are absorbable and contribute to postprandial antioxidant defenses.” “This study is another piece of evidence that pecans are a healthy food … Previous research has shown that pecans contain antioxidant factors. Our study shows these antioxidants are indeed absorbed in the body and provide a protective effect against diseases,” said Haddad.

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NUTRITION RESEARCH UPDATE

PISTACHIOS DELIVER WEIGHT MANAGEMENT AND OTHER SUPPORT In a first-of-its-kind study with nuts, randomized controlled feeding research conducted by the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) found that fat in pistachios may not be completely absorbed by the body. The findings indicate that pistachios may actually contain fewer calories per serving than originally thought – further validating pistachios as one of the lowest calorie nuts with 160 calories per 30 gram serving (approximately 1 ounce). The study was presented at the Experimental Biology conference in Washington, D.C. The research measured the energy value of pistachios by feeding 16 healthy adults the nuts as part of a controlled diet and calculating the energy value from differences in energy excretion during the dietary treatment timeframe. The resulting energy value of one 30 gram serving of pistachios was 5.9 percent less than previous calculations.

PistachioHealth.com, the leading online source of information on the health and nutrition benefits of pistachios, reaches more than 20,000 visitors each month. The site is offered in 12 languages and includes research updates and educational materials for both consumers and health professionals. “Like” PistachioHealth.com on Facebook and follow @pistachiohealth on Twitter. For more information about the health benefits of pistachios, visit: www.PistachioHealth.com.

DARK CHOCOLATE:

BENEFITS FOR THE HEART?

“Existing scientific research indicates that fat from nuts is poorly absorbed through the gastrointestinal tract,” said lead ARS researcher David J. Baer, Ph.D., Supervisory Research Physiologist with the Beltsville Human Nutrition Research Center. “This study confirms that the fat from pistachio nuts, specifically, is not completely digested or absorbed, resulting in a lower energy value.”

If you can handle the fat and calories, there may be a health benefit to enjoying dark chocolate on occasion. New research suggests that the cocoa ingredient may lower blood pressure and cholesterol levels while preventing diabetes and improving the health of blood vessels. But, scientists aren’t sure whether the downsides of cocoa consumption -- such as potential obesity -- could outweigh the benefits.

Additional data from this study presented at Experimental Biology reinforced the heart-health benefits of pistachios. The ARS researchers found that when healthy individuals included 1.5 and 3 ounces of pistachios into their typical American diet, cardio-supportive results were shown. The new data demonstrating the potential calorie savings of pistachios builds on previous research showing that pistachios are a weight-wise snack. According to researchers at the University of California – Los Angeles, choosing to snack on pistachios rather than pretzels not only supports body mass index (BMI) goals, but can support heart health, too.

The research relied on mostly sugar-free dark chocolate, not the kind of chocolate normally found on the candy shelves. Participants who ate the chocolate, which contained cocoa rich in substances known as polyphenolic flavonoids, did better in several areas, including blood pressure.

Levels of bad cholesterol went down in those younger than 50, and levels of good cholesterol went up.

In a 12-week randomized study, 52 overweight and obese subjects were placed on a 500-calorie deficit diet and assigned to either a pistachio snack (about 75 pistachios providing 240 calories) or a pretzel snack group (two-ounces of pretzels providing 220 calories). The results showed that the pistachio group had better success with supporting their BMI goals compared to the pretzel group, showing pistachios can be included in a healthy diet, even for those managing their weight.

Additionally, pistachios – also known as the “Skinny Nut” – are shown to be a “mindful snack” in terms of taking longer to eat and requiring the snacker to slow down and be more conscious of what has been consumed.

According to behavioral eating expert, James Painter, Ph.D., R.D., Chair of the School of Family and Consumer Sciences at Eastern Illinois University, “Our research shows in-shell snackers eat 41-percent fewer calories than those who snack on shelled nuts. We also found that inshell pistachios offer a visual cue to help reduce intake. When leftover shells are cleared immediately, snackers eat up to 22 percent more compared to leaving left over shells as a reminder of consumption.”

Pistachios are also a good source of fiber and protein. Providing about 49 kernels per 30 grams (approximately 1 ounce) serving, pistachios offer the most nuts per serving when compared to other popular snack nuts – comparatively, almonds have 23 in a serving, walnuts 14 halves and cashews, 18.

The findings, which came from an analysis of data from 21 highquality studies that included a total of 2,575 participants were presented recently at an American Heart Association conference in Atlanta. Experts note that research presented at meetings should be considered preliminary because it has not been subjected to the rigorous scrutiny given to research published in medical journals.

It remains unclear, the researchers said, as to just why chocolate appears to have the effect that they found. It’s also not known how much people would need to eat to get the benefits. Then there’s the cocoa itself, another possible complication.

“The research looks at the benefits of cocoa and used a very specifically prepared cocoa,” said Lona Sandon, assistant professor of clinical nutrition at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas.

“Cocoa is an ingredient of chocolate. How the cocoa is processed makes a difference in whether or not the chocolate drink or bar it is contained in will have health benefits.” “In other words, not all chocolate or cocoa is created equal,” she said.

Though chocolate in moderation may be fine for many people, Sandon said, there are better and healthier ways to boost heart health. “Weight loss is king when it comes to preventing high blood pressure and improving insulin resistance,” she said. “I do not see cocoa having the power to overcome poor health habits.”

However, she said, there are ways to add cocoa to the diet that may keep fat and calories under control -- such as drinking hot cocoa with skim milk, adding dark cocoa powder to the top of a cappuccino and using cocoa powder in recipes.

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NUTRITION RESEARCH UPDATE

SATURATED FAT AND HEART DISEASE RISK:

EXPERT PANEL PERSPECTIVE Whole food guidelines should be used to explain the role of saturated fat in heart disease risk, says a global expert panel assessing the evidence linking saturated fat with cardiovascular disease.

A article published in the latest edition of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition reports areas of consensus reached by 17 scientists from around the world, who took part in a symposium held at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark last year, chaired by Arne Astrup of the university’s Department of Human Nutrition and Walter Willet, of the Harvard School of Public Health’s Department of Nutrition in Boston, Massachusetts.

They said that most dietary recommendations aim to reduce saturated fatty acid intake to less than ten percent of total energy but do not specify the replacement macronutrient. In Western dietary patterns, when people try to reduce saturated fatty acid (SFA) consumption, the replacement often tends to be carbohydrates – and often refined carbohydrates – but polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) are currently the only macronutrient with strong evidence for coronary heart disease (CHD) risk reduction when replacing SFAs, the authors said.

“The totality of evidence indicates that substituting PUFAs for SFAs is beneficial for lowering total and LDL cholesterol [low-density lipoprotein, or so-called ‘bad’ cholesterol] and for CHD prevention, but there is no evidence to support the benefit of substituting refined carbohydrates for SFAs,” they wrote.

They said that food based recommendations are more useful than nutrient based advice but there is limited evidence linking specific foods or diets with cardiovascular disease risk. In particular, they said that there is strong evidence that diets high in processed meats are linked to an increased risk of heart disease, but there is “no consistent evidence”

that a high intake of dairy products is associated with heart disease.

“There is increasing evidence to support that the total matrix of a food is more important than just its fatty acid content when predicting the effect of a food on CHD risk, eg, the effect of SFAs from cheese on blood lipids and CHD may be counterbalanced by the content of protein, calcium, or other components in cheese,” they wrote.

Some randomized controlled trials have provided evidence that substituting PUFAs for SFAs could reduce risk of coronary heart disease (CHD), but no benefits have been found for substituting carbohydrates for SFAs. However, the authors noted that the quality of the carbohydrates was not addressed.

They added that there is insufficient evidence to support the benefit of substituting monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFAs) for SFAs, mainly because of confounding factors, including the fact that dairy and meat are significant sources of MUFAs in the typical Western diet.

It has also been suggested that different saturated fatty acids may have different physiological effects, but the authors said it is not feasible to separate different saturated fats in terms of food choices, because foods tend to contain a combination.

“We do not yet have enough evidence to give dietary recommendations for individual SFAs, but the evidence is useful for advising food manufacturers, eg, stearic acid can be used as a replacement for trans fatty acids where appropriate, although the evidence is not sufficient to determine whether it is superior to other SFAs because multiple pathways may be involved and clear data on clinical endpoints are not available.”

Source: American Journal of Clinical Nutrition

FIBER IN NUTS LINKED TO LONGEVITY People who consumed higher amounts of fiber, particularly from grains, had a significantly lower risk of dying over a nine-year period compared to those who consumed lower amounts of fiber, according to a new National Institutes of Health study. Fiber, found in whole grains, beans, nuts, vegetables and fruits aids the body with bowel movements, lowers blood-cholesterol levels and improves blood glucose levels. Other studies have suggested that fiber may lower the risk of heart disease, diabetes and some cancers, but there’s been conflicting evidence on whether there’s any mortality benefit from consuming fiber.

Participants’ fiber intake ranged from 12.6 to 29.4 grams per day in men and from 10.8 to 25.8 grams per day in women. Current U.S. dietary guidelines recommended people consume 14 grams of fiber per 1,000 calories consumed per day—or about 28 grams a day for a typical adult diet of 2,000 calories. Over an average of nine years of follow-up, 20,126 men and 11,330 women died. More than half of the deaths were attributed to cardiovascular disease and cancer, based on an analysis of Social Security data and other sources.

The study involved about 388,000 people who are part of a larger NIH-AARP diet and health study who were between ages 50 and 71 years old when the study began. The findings which appeared in the June print issue of Archives of Internal Medicine. Researchers, led by the National Cancer Institute, concluded that “a diet rich in dietary fiber from whole plant foods may provide significant health benefits.”

Researchers divided study participants into five groups ranging from the lowest to highest dietary intake of fiber. Those who consumed the highest amount of fiber were 22% less likely to die over a nine-year period compared to people who consumed the least amount of fiber.

By gender, men with the highest fiber intakes had a 23% reduction in the risk of dying, while women had a 19% reduction compared to those eating the least amount of fiber.

Specifically, researchers analyzed data from 219,123 men and 168,999 women who had completed a detailed food questionnaire in 1995 and 1996 to figure out the amount of fiber consumed on a daily basis. People with diabetes, heart disease and most cancers were excluded at the study start. Researchers also excluded those who reported “extreme” intakes of fiber.

There were significant reductions in the risk of death from cardiovascular disease, infectious and respiratory diseases among both men and women, with the greatest benefit seen among those who consumed the largest amount of fiber. There was also a reduction in the risk of dying from cancer among men, but not in women. That may be because men have higher mortality rates of cancers of the head and neck,

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esophagus, liver, bladder and kidney—types in which the risk is lowered by eating a diet rich in fiber, says Dr. Yikyung Park, one of the researchers and a staff scientist at the cancer institute.

The study also looked at the type of fiber consumed and found that the most significant health benefits in both men and women came from whole

grains, as well as beans, although the benefits of beans was stronger for women than for men. There also appeared to be a benefit from eating vegetables, but improvements didn’t result in statistically significant increases in lifespan. Fiber from fruit had no impact on longevity. Researchers controlled for other factors that impact health such as smoking, exercise and body weight.

claim that states: “Scientific evidence suggests but does not prove that eating 1.5 ounces per day of most nuts, as part of a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol, may reduce the risk of heart disease.”

INC NREF MAKES THE CASE FOR TREE NUTS IN USDA SCHOOL LUNCH PROGRAMS In a recent letter to Chief of Policy and Program Development of the Child Nutrition Division of the US Department of Agriculture, Julie Brewer, the International Tree Nut Council Nutrition Research & Education Foundation (INC NREF), applauded USDA for including plant-based foods, such as nuts, in the meal patterns for the National School Lunch Program and the School Breakfast Program. “Including more of these foods in the diets of children may help to improve their overall health and reduce their risk for various chronic diseases,” said the letter. “Nuts are nutrient-rich and help reduce the risk of heart disease and diabetes, limit the rise in blood glucose when eaten with common high-carbohydrate foods, and are associated with a lower body mass index and better health outcomes.” Further comments follow: “Over 200 studies have been published in the last two decades, demonstrating that nuts are an integral component of a healthy diet. Tree nuts contain unsaturated fats (poly- and monounsaturated fats).

They also provide protein, fiber and important vitamins and minerals such as potassium and calcium—key shortfall nutrients in U.S. children and adults as identified by the 2010 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee. In addition, tree nuts contain a wide variety of phytochemicals, or plant compounds such as phytosterols (beta-sitosterol), carotenoids, flavonoids and proanthocyanidins, which may help protect against heart disease, the leading cause of death in the United States and the largest area of research on nuts and health.”

NUTS AND HEART DISEASE “Last year the most comprehensive study to date on nuts and blood lipids was published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, providing more evidence that regular nut consumption can reduce the risk of coronary heart disease. The pooled analysis looked at 25 studies conducted in seven countries with 583 men and women. Those who consumed roughly 67 grams (or 2.4 ounces) of nuts per day had an average drop in total cholesterol, LDL-cholesterol, LDL/HDL ratio and total cholesterol/HDL ratio of 5.1%, 7.4%, 8.3% and 5.6% respectively. The effect of nuts was doserelated and different types of nuts had similar effects on blood lipids.”

“The findings in this analysis support those from epidemiological studies which have consistently shown that nut consumption reduces the risk of heart disease. In 2003 the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), based on all of the evidence, issued a qualified health

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NUTS AND WEIGHT/SATIETY “Nuts may have a beneficial effect on other areas of health as well. Nearly 20 studies have shown that nut consumption is not associated with higher body weight. In fact, one study suggests nuts may actually help weight control (Bes-Rastrollo et al, 2009).

In a recent NHANES analysis nut consumers had lower BMIs than non-nut consumers (Fulgoni 2009). There may be several reasons for this: (1) Satiety value of nuts from unsaturated fats, fiber and protein; (2) incomplete fat absorption: the fat in nuts doesn’t appear to be fully absorbed; and (3) a potential increase in resting expenditure with chronic nut consumption may contribute to the less than predicted weight gain (Mattes et al, 2008).”

NUTS AND DIABETES “A number of epidemiological and clinical trials have suggested that nut consumption may also have a significant impact on diabetes. Nuts are low in carbohydrates, thus have a low glycemic index/glycemic load.

In the Nurse’s Health Study frequent nut consumption (≥5 x/wk) was associated with a 27 percent reduction in relative risk of developing diabetes, compared to those who rarely or never ate nuts (Jiang et al, 2002).

Acute feeding studies have demonstrated the ability of nuts, when eaten with carbohydrate (bread, rice and pasta) to depress postprandial glycemia (Jenkins et al, 2008; Kendall et al, 2011).”

NUT CONSUMPTION “All of this research points to the fact that nuts can and should be included in a healthy diet. However, in the 2001-2004 What We Eat in America/NHANES survey, 34% of those surveyed consumed nuts, but most ate ~ ¾ of an ounce—roughly half of the recommended amount (King et al, 2008). Approximately 60 percent of nuts consumed are as snacks and many people obtain roughly 25 percent of their calories from snacks (King et al, 2008). “Replacing snacks high in refined carbohydrates with nuts could have a positive impact on nutrient density and risk of chronic disease (King et al, 2008).”

Again, we support USDA’s efforts to include plant-based foods in the meal patterns for the National School Lunch Program and the School Breakfast Program. In the case of nuts, the growing body of evidence shows that they provide many health benefits and can certainly play an important role in a healthy diet.”

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