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Store prices are at the previous year's level
The purchase of edible fats and oils has not become a cent more expensive for German consumers in the course of the year to date. In a long-term comparison, the classic 250-gram packet of German branded butter is offered very cheaply, for which retailers only charge 86 cents on average across Germany. That's how little this half-pound pack cost in 2003, while in 2002 an average of 88 cents and in 2001 an average of 98 cents had to be paid.
The retail prices for sunflower margarine are also at a consumer-friendly level. As in the previous year, a 500 gram cup costs an average of 60 cents. That is only two cents more than the annual average in 2002 and four cents more than in 2001; In the mid-90s, you still had to pay between 70 and 75 cents for the same amount. A liter of pure vegetable oil in a plastic bottle is currently available for an average of 81 cents, which is also about the same price as last year.
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Only three cents per kilogram
The low prices on the egg market have prompted many laying hen farmers to have old animals slaughtered prematurely in recent weeks. The slaughterhouses were therefore working to capacity and kept lowering their prices for live chickens.
Producer prices for slaughter hens, 1.700 to 1.900 g, in Germany in EUR/kg live weight
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18th World Congress of Pig Veterinarians Presents "Glass Laboratory"
The number of laboratories with the European seal of quality is constantly increasing / the number of pigs being monitored is growing / imminent diseases are being recognized more and more quickly
Pigs are getting healthier. "Today we are able to monitor and specifically improve health through systematic observation and examination." This was the conclusion of Dr. Katrin Strutzberg-Minder, Managing Director of the Society for Innovative Veterinary Diagnostics Ltd. (IVD), in the "Glass Laboratory" at the 18th World Congress of Pig Veterinarians in Hamburg. Today's investigations are much less about confirming a diagnosis and much more about checking the health of the animals.
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Nutrition: who is to blame for overweight children?
In order to make at least a small contribution to the current discussion, the KVA made the eating habits of kids a special topic in 2004. The survey of the mothers yielded surprisingly positive results:
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or how an April Fool's joke almost comes true
Künast for higher VAT for unhealthy food. With this, this year's April Fool's joke by meat-n-more.info ["After eco-tax also organic tax on meat - Renate Künast reacts with tax proposal to foodwatch schnitzel report"] is almost caught up in reality. What happened this week and what we claimed on April 1st is here:
This week the "Bunte" published an interview with Consumer Minister Renate Künast. In it she comes out as a lover of various goat cheeses. So far not exciting. However, politicians sometimes say political, even visionary things in interviews. Renate Künast has been fighting obesity for over a year. Not with herself, she has that under control with iron self-discipline. No, obese children, sprawling adults and malnourished old people should be avoided. Campaigns alone may not be enough, when the opposition has also discovered the issue and is about to blame the government for hopelessly increased body weight. Good that Germany is a market economy, because the price regulates what is bought and what remains on the shelf. So you have to turn the price screw to keep fat producers out of the growing bellies. However, since this should not happen in favor of the provider, the tax screw remains. In the Bunte interview, Künast indicated that the halved VAT rate for "unhealthy" food would be wrong. Party friend Ulrike Höfken followed suit in the picture interview and expressly named currywurst, fries and sugared lemonades as fattening foods unfairly subsidized by the low sales tax rate.
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Presentation of the "Baden-Württemberg guideline for good hygiene practice in slaughterhouses, cutting and processing plants" as the first nationwide example
"I am pleased that with "our" guideline we have succeeded in filling out the regulations of the new EU hygiene regulations in such a way that our traditional Baden-Württemberg butcher's trade continues to be at the forefront of consumer protection," explained the Baden-Württemberg Minister for Nutrition and Rural Areas, Willi Stächele MdL, on Wednesday June 23rd in Stuttgart. In Stuttgart, Stächele presented the new "Guideline for good hygiene practice in slaughterhouses, cutting and processing plants" and symbolically handed over a printed guideline to a butcher's shop in Stuttgart-Weilimdorf in the presence of the guild.
The EU has reorganized European food law. An essential component of the new EU food law is the so-called "hygiene package". It will come into effect on January 1, 2006. Minister Stächele made it clear that this hygiene package would pose one of the biggest challenges for the butcher trade in Baden-Württemberg in recent years.
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Fast food makes you fat? So far, this question has not been easy to answer, because there are also slim young people who eat a lot of fast food. A cleverly designed study that was recently published in the American medical journal [JAMA] shows that the reservations often expressed about burgers, fries and the like are not unjustified - at least for overweight young people. It turned out that they react much more sensitively to fast food than their slim peers.
The data came from Cara Ebbeling and her team at the Boston Children's Hospital, where slim and overweight teenagers were allowed to eat as much (or as little) fast food as they wanted. All 13 to 17-year-olds ate significantly too much: on average over 1.600 calories with a single meal. What is particularly worrying is that this effect was much more pronounced in the case of obese young people. While the lean teens gave up around 1.460 calories (57% of their daily energy requirement), the fat teens managed 1.860 calories or 66.5% of their daily allowance.
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37 companies and 16 experts from abroad are represented in Kassel
The internationality of the quality competitions of the German Agricultural Society (DLG) is constantly increasing. This trend was also evident at this year's ham and sausage competition in Kassel. 2004 companies from abroad took part in this voluntary DLG performance comparison with their products - in some cases very successfully. For example, the meat products company Kostelecké uzeniny from the Czech Republic took part for the first time and convinced the DLG experts with its excellent quality products. They awarded the Golden DLG Prize five times. The Czech company immediately took first place among the foreign TOP TEN in the raw sausage category. This success will certainly encourage other foreign companies to take on the DLG competition in the medium term. Especially since DLG will in future increase its acquisition activities in the countries that are of interest to it. The first signs of success from these measures are already evident. In addition to the Czech Republic, meat products from Hungary, Canada, France, Italy, Austria, Switzerland and Japan were also represented. Some companies from Austria, Switzerland and a Japanese company have been successfully represented for more than five years. For this they were awarded the "Prize of the Best".
The biggest problem with the participation of products that are manufactured outside the EU is still the difficult import regulations for animal products. Here the DLG helps the companies to the best of their ability to overcome this hurdle as little as possible by bureaucracy by, among other things, maintains close contact with the import authorities. Due to the eastward expansion of the EU, however, this problem will arise to a much lesser extent in the coming competitions, so that new opportunities will arise here.
In addition to the proportion of foreign products, the number of foreign testers in the DLG quality competitions has also been increasing for years. The DLG also very much welcomes this development. 16 experts from abroad came to Kassel this year to use the exhibition as an international industry get-together.
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Extended DLG quality definition - increased communication - new services
The Market and Nutrition department of the German Agricultural Society (DLG), which is responsible for all questions relating to the quality competitions, has begun to strategically realign its work for the coming years. The focus is on the areas of quality, communication, new services, specialist work and reorganization. The aim of the measures that have already been started is to make DLG the number one service provider for the food industry in the medium term when it comes to improving competitiveness and profiling with neutrally tested quality.
A quality award must create real added value. This is only possible if the award-winning products have a clearly perceptible quality advantage and this is successfully communicated to retailers and consumers. The added value of a successful award is created in a value chain that starts with the consumer and ends with the producer. Our aim is to shape this value chain together. Redefine quality
An award creates added value if it meets the market's current expectations of exemplary products and processes. Under the term "New DLG Quality", DLG will set new, innovative and ambitious quality standards that also add value. To this end, the DLG will broaden its definition of quality and incorporate the market's holistic understanding of quality. In addition to the sensory quality, which ultimately describes the technical mastery in production and remains of central importance, product safety, information transparency and process quality will be given greater consideration in the future. These dimensions are attracting more and more attention in the market. Products that are supposed to stand out from the average in terms of quality must be exemplary in terms of microbiological and chemical quality and provide transparent and reliable information about their composition and origin. In addition, it is becoming increasingly important to meet certain expectations regarding the way food is produced. The aim is to include the objectives developed in the past few years with the DLG code strategy in the new concept. To this end, the DLG will, among other things, create interfaces to market-relevant quality management standards such as QS, BRC, IFS in order to integrate these into the DLG award without burdening the producers with multiple audits.
Dipl. oec. trophic Bianca Schneider has taken over the management of the "Convenience Food" area in the Market & Nutrition department of the German Agricultural Society (DLG). The "Convenience Food" area of responsibility includes the strategic and technical development of the business area and the organization of the international quality competition for convenience products.
The "convenience food" area at DLG, with the product groups frozen food, ready meals, delicatessen and self-service packaged fresh meat, covers a very heterogeneous spectrum with immense international growth and innovation potential both in product development and in processing technology.
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Representing the international feed industry in the fish sector for the first time - trout eggs from the USA
Fish is popular because there is great interest from the aquaculture sector in EuroTier, which takes place from November 9th to 12th, 2004 at the exhibition center in Hanover. The Deutsche Landwirtschafts-Gesellschaft (DLG), as the organiser, was able to register more registrations than when this area premiered two years ago. In addition to the well-known technology and outfitting companies, which were already there in 2002, the leading international feed suppliers in the fish sector as well as exhibitors from the processing and refining sector have registered for the first time. It is striking that American suppliers are very interested in the European market and its opportunities. The marketplace for aquaculture, inland fisheries and environmental technology at EuroTier is therefore presenting suppliers of trout eggs from the USA as well as suppliers of sturgeon-related products for the first time this year. The DLG concept of linking fishing interests to a professional agricultural exhibition is thus being further upgraded. General meeting of the Association of German Inland Fisheries at EuroTier
Aquaculture's first appearance at EuroTier 2002 was off to a good start and looked convincing. For the first time, this year's EuroTier will also be the venue for the general meeting of the Association of German Inland Fisheries. The marketing association "Forelle", the working group for trout advertising of the Association of German Inland Fisheries (VdBi), will also bring a "fresh breeze" to the coming EuroTier. The newly appointed working group has been working with professional marketing agencies for several months to develop a new advertising concept and a range of new advertising materials for trout producers. The Marketing Association is a participant in the Advice Center and uses the EuroTier platform to present the new advertising material to a large professional public with the aim of strategically positioning the quality product "Forelle" more successfully at the point of sale.
