25 June 2016: China's plan to cut meat consumption by 50%
China's plan to cut meat consumption by 50% cheered by climate campaigners - New dietary guidelines could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 1bn tonnes by 2030, and could lessen country’s problems with obesity and diabetes by Oliver Milman and Stuart Leavenworth in Beijing Monday 20 June 2016 21.08 BST https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/20/chinas-meat-consumption-climate-change?Infographic - Less Meat, Less Heat from WildAid https://vimeo.com/170833983
Eat less meat to avoid dangerous global warming, scientists say - Research led by Oxford Martin School finds widespread adoption of vegetarian diet would cut food-related emissions by 63% and make people healthier too. Livestock-rearing is a major cause of greenhouse gases, in part because of the methane produced by the animals. Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images. BY Fiona Harvey 21 March 2016 https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/mar/21/eat-less-meat-vegetarianism-dangerous-global-warming
23 June 2016: McDonald's swaps margarine to butter, Nestle reduces sodium, sugars, trans-fat, total fat, calories or artificial colourings
It Took McDonald's 6 Months to Swap From Margarine to Butter—and That Was Fast by Leslie Patton June 22, 2016 -- The switch back to the original recipe (with butter) for the Egg McMuffin occurred in September, just before the national introduction of all-day breakfast... McDonald’s also recently changed its English muffins, now baked with unbleached flour instead of the bleached version.... “The change to butter was extremely fast. That’s probably the quickest change that we’ve made.”.... In late August, Grassland Dairy Products Inc. found out it needed about 2.4 million pounds of butter for the swap. The family-run operation started working overtime. The company’s three facilities went to seven days a week, up from six. And the dairy also had to push its cardboard-box supplier to make the McDonald’s packaging in just four weeks instead of the usual eight....
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-22/tweaking-mcmuffins-speeds-mcdonald-s-ahead-of-breakfast-rivals?
Big brands are pushing up on reformulations - Nestle reports for 2014 6,973 products with reduced sodium, sugars, trans-fat, total fat, calories or artificial colourings (up from 3,317 and 4,221 number of products changed in 2012 and 2013). Reducing sugar and fat in ready-to-drink products (product example: 54% total sugar reduction, 45% total fat reduction, 25% more protein), substitute partially hydrogenated oil with high oleic soybean oil (product example, 45% SFA reduced, 25,800 tonnes oil substituted and 9,900 tonnes trans fat removed), full fat ice cream case study (new mix recipe: -28% fat, increased protein content, no starch), instant noodle case study (15% sodium reduction whilst improving taste, 50% SFA reduction through pre-drying and oil blend optimization), micronutrients (example, biofortification of maize, cassava, what etc).
source: Nestle presentation, December 2015
