Some 250 brewers jumped into the U.S. commercial beer market last year, bringing the tally to roughly 2,000, according to the Brewers Association.

This is great news for beer geeks, but a chilling development for the industry’s titans, Anheuser-Busch Inbev and MillerCoors. The rash of scrappy startups is siphoning off market share from the biggest brands in the business, as increasingly fickle drinkers opt for esoteric offerings like chocolate stout, double-hopped India Pale Ale and blood-orange Heffeweizen.

Last year, U.S. craft breweries — roughly defined as shops that brew less than 6 million barrels annually — sold 13 percent more beer and posted a 15 percent jump in revenue. They now control an unprecedented 6 percent of the market, according to the Brewers Association.

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By Kyle Stock – The Daily.   Sunday, April 1, 2012

More than 150,000 business people took part in the 86th China National Food, Wine and Spirits Fair held in Chengdu, provincial capital of Sichuan, which closed on Monday.

There was talk of the buoyancy of China’s wine market across the fair. Li Zhaowen, a merchant dealing French alcohol, for example, is expecting an increase in orders for fine alcohol products from Chinese sellers to meet surging demand.

In 2011, the Shanghai Wine Exchange opened to the public as a platform for trading wines in terms of futures and spot goods, marking the securitization of China’s fine wine market.

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The report pointed to the extent to which the world’s second most populous country faces a major challenge in making its food fit for consumption.

The FSSAI was set up only in 2008, under a new act that sought to bring various food safety laws under one umbrella. Its budget stands at $8 million, although the FSSAI hopes to quadruple that next fiscal year, which starts in April. The body also has about 2,000 food safety officers to implement India’s laws at a state level, compared to a target of about 6,000.

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Over the last decade, Brazil has doubled its confectionery exports, increased the number of markets reached and become the third largest producer of such products in the world.

According to ABICAB, between 2000 and 2010, the country’s confectionery, chocolate and peanut exports jumped from US$152m to $304m.

This growth was accompanied by significant investment and launches that combined new, traditional and Brazilian flavours. $400m was invested in modernising the national confectionery industry between 2009 and 2011, with new industrial plants and production lines opened, and improvements made to industrial processes and sustainability programmes.

Over the last 10 years, the number of countries buying Brazilian confectionery products has gone from 112 to 145.

Sales abroad have doubled in terms of value, with a corresponding 30% increase in volume, going from 105,000 tonnes to 133,000 tonnes over the last 10 years.

From January to October 2011, sales of confectionery abroad reached $280m, a growth of 12% compared to the same period in 2010.

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By Sean Weston, ABICAB

http://www.foodbev.com/report/brazil-doubles-exports-of-confectionery

Fans of Maple Leaf Gardens and Loblaws came to see how Canada’s most famous hockey arena looked now that it’s home to the supermarket chain’s newest urban grocery store.

They came from outside the city, from places like Malton, or from Toronto neighbourhoods, like Forest Hill and Riverdale. Ordinary citizens, hockey players and local politicians were among the first customers.

They weren’t disappointed.

The store, with its soaring ceilings, blonde wood, grey concrete and black tiles, forms a hip urban backdrop to a smorgasbord of fresh and prepared food the company hopes will cement its reputation as a leader in food retailing.

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By Dana Flavelle, thestar.com

http://www.thestar.com/business/article/1094867–customers-lined-up-as-loblaw-opens-upscale-gardens-store?bn=1

For the hunger-relief community, the arrival of the holiday season is when food banks receive a lot of their income and donations. However, with the recession still having an impact, monetary contributions have dipped.

And the seafood industry is no exception.

“Our seafood donors and industry remain very loyal, but corporations and foundations have reduced funding so dollars are hard for us right now. There’s always a portion we have to pay for donations —storage, trucking, packing. All donations include some sort of cost that we have to fund-raise for,” said Jim Harmon, executive director of SeaShare, a Bainbridge Island, Wash., nonprofit hunger-relief organization that links seafood companies to food banks nationwide.

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By SeafoodSource Staff

http://www.seafoodsource.com/newsarticledetail.aspx?id=13010

Researchers have found meat provides more energy when it’s cooked, leading them to believe cooking played a key role in human evolution.

Lead author Rachel Carmody, a Ph.D. candidate in the department of human evolutionary biology at Harvard University, and a team of researchers compared how different preparations can affect the energy value of food. Using mice as test subjects, they found that the energy the rodents gained was greater when their food was cooked than when it was pounded and consumed raw.

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By Wency Leung, Globe and Mail Update

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health/new-health/health-nutrition/nutrition-features/cooked-food-provides-more-energy-than-when-its-consumed-raw/article2233660/

Bottom line: Good food leaves a lasting impression. As many hotels have put more focus on their food and beverage concepts, it’s becoming more important to give potential guests a glimpse of what they’ll see, smell and taste when they check-in.

With thousands of restaurants and bars in its repertoire, Marriott International is hoping to keep hotel guests and locals in the hotel, thanks to new a food and beverage website just launched from the hotel company.

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By Melanie Nayer, 4Hoteliers

http://www.4hoteliers.com/4hots_fshw.php?mwi=6430

Following September’s extremely heavy rains — five feet of rain for the month — the “moderate” monsoon season has continued virtually unabated into this month, where it also coincided, last weekend, with the highest tides of the month.

The additional influx of salt water into agricultural lands will have even more negative impact on crops. As of mind October, flood waters have swept through 60 of Thailand’s 77 provinces. Already, the flooding has cost the nation an estimated 4 billion USD in agricultural revenue — more than double the cost of the nation’s 1993 flood, according to the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) .

The present Thailand flood is being called the “most expensive flood in history.”

By Michael Ricciardi, Planetsave.

http://planetsave.com/2011/10/19/thailand-suffers-most-costly-flooding-in-history-10-of-worlds-rice-crop-destroyed/

According to Vietnam News, Portunas is seeking opportunities to help the sustainable development of Vietnam’s fishery. Pálmi Pálmason, CEO of Portunas, said, “Vietnam has an annual output of up to 4 million tons of seafood. The figure can increase if the country applies fishing and processing technologies like Iceland’s.”

Other observers go further and predict that Vietnam could double its seafood production if it “instilled professional discipline” into the industry.

Vietnam’s fisheries industry is backward compared with Iceland’s and certainly would benefit by adopting at least some of that country’s methods. However, Portunas is undoubtedly looking to do more in Vietnam than just pass on Icelandic expertise.

-By Mike Urch. SeafoodSource Contributing Editor

http://www.seafoodsource.com/newsarticledetail.aspx?id=12249