Hot Right Now: Qatar dairy firm heads named in lawsuit, new Coca-Cola products, India dairy adulteration and more trending on social media
Heads of Qatar’s largest dairy firm named in lawsuit amid jihadist funding allegations
The Chairman and CEO of Qatar’s largest dairy firm Baladna have been named in papers filed in the British High Court, which alleges they helped fund the al-Qaeda affiliated al-Nusra Front, a Syrian jihadist organisation.
According to the court documents seen by FoodNavigator-Asia, Moutaz Al-Khayyat and Ramez Al-Khayyat were listed as the first and second defendants in a claim made by eight Syrian citizens via the High Court of Justice, Queen’s Bench Division in London.
‘Stress-free’ investment: Coca-Cola Japan to enter local ‘relaxation drink’ market hemp-venture
Coca-Cola Japan has set its sights on the local ‘relaxation drink’ market with a recent investment in newly-established beverage company Endian and its unique hemp-containing drink Chill Out.
Chill Out was originally developed by Japanese beauty technology company I-ne, but Endian will be taking over the product as an independent company during the upcoming fall season in Japan, backed by both Coca-Cola Japan and I-ne.
“This [initiative] is purely focused on the Japanese market.” a Coca-Cola Japan spokeswoman told FoodNavigator-Asia.
Healthy China: Ambitious plans to cut dietary oil, salt and sugar intake nationwide by 2030
China’s national health strategy guidelines, dubbed the ‘Healthy China Movement’, has announced ambitious goals of cutting dietary oil, salt and sugar nationwide by 2030, in tandem with the overarching ‘Healthy China 2030’ initiative.
Directors from the Healthy China Movement committee revealed that the goal was to cut salt consumption by some 50%, oil consumption by 30% to 40%, and sugar consumption by at least 17% from 2012 numbers.
This would mean a daily consumption of 5g salt per person in 2030 vs 10.5g on average in 2012, 25g-30g oil per person in 2030 vs 42.1g previously, and not more than 25g sugar per person in 2030 vs 30g previously.
Made for ‘slashers’: Coca-Cola Hong Kong targets younger, multitasking consumers with new energy drink
Coca-Cola Hong Kong has launched a new energy drink specifically targeting younger consumers with a tendency towards multitasking, deemed the ‘slasher’ generation.
According to the company, ‘slashers’ are young consumers that are not satisfied with performing just a single job function, have a thirst for freedom, and are willing to stray beyond the confines of a stable income.
“Slashers commonly have many jobs and constantly multitask, which means that they have multiple ‘slashes (/)’ in their job title,” said Coca-Cola Hong Kong.
Dairy is ‘huge problem’: Punjab tops India adulteration list despite food safety crackdown
Punjab has topped the list of adulterated and/or misbranded food items in India despite active efforts by the local food safety department to eradicate this, according to official government numbers.
Speaking at the Rajya Sabha (India’s Council of States), Minister of State for Food Processing Industries Rameswar Teli said that 3,403 food samples in the state were found to be adulterated, the highest absolute number found amongst all the states in India.
“Across the country, over 94,000 samples of food were analysed in the year from 2018 to 2019. From this, 26,077 failed [the checks] and 3,403 of these were from Punjab. [This was] the highest in the country,” he said.
