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The Royal Welsh Agricultural Society (RWAS) Spring Festival in Builth Wells next weekend will host a series of short seminars with the heading ‘Profiting from Pigs’.
The new website will go live in the summer and will include an introduction to Welsh pork production, a directory of pig producers and case studies.
“This new website will form part of our plans to increase awareness of pork suppliers in Wales and the quality of their products,” said Melanie Hughes, HCC’s market development officer. “It will offer producers an opportunity to build their online presence and will be a starting point for customers who are looking to source locally produced pork.
“During the Spring Festival, we will be introducing the website to the industry and recruiting interested producers for the directory.”
Other HCC activities during the weekend will include a programme of seminars, delivered in partnership with Farming Connect and the RWAS. Also held in the pig shed, these sessions will be suitable for large and small-scale producers and will cover topics including pig health, artificial insemination and adding value through direct sales.
Luned Evans, HCC’s industry development officer, said: “The seminars are free to attend and will be an interesting source of information for anyone keen to learn about rearing pigs. Speakers with specialist knowledge of the sector have been invited and will be happy to share their expert advice.”
The Spring Festival will take place on 16 and 17 May at the Royal Welsh Showground.
In the UK since 1980, ice cream prices have fallen by 50 per cent, while fruit and vegetables have gone up by 199 per cent, ODI claims
British-based think tank the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) has recommended that emerging economy governments consider introducing taxes and subsidies to offset wildly differing price changes in junk food and healthy food.
People in newly-rich countries struggle to eat a healthy diet because some common processed foods like cakes and biscuits have become cheaper, while at the same time, the prices of fruit and vegetables have gone up, the ODI argues.
The ODI study, ‘The rising cost of a healthy diet’ which looked at relative food retail prices in Brazil, China, Korea and Mexico – the first of its kind in emerging economies – found that fruit and vegetables rose in price by up to 91 per cent between 1990 and 2012, a price hike higher than other any other food group. On the other hand, some processed foods, like ready meals, dropped in price by up to 20 per cent.
Report findings include: 
– In Mexico, where almost 70 per cent of adults are overweight and obese, ready meals have become cheaper and the cost of green vegetables has increased since 1990.
– In Brazil, where the prevalence of overweight and obese adults has doubled since 1980, crisps, biscuits, energy bars and sugary drinks formulated to be ‘hyper-palatable’ are much more widely eaten than previously.
– In China green vegetables have become twice as expensive over the last 20 years.
– In South Korea, the price of cabbage, a common ingredient of traditional dishes such as kimchi, has risen by 60 per cent.
– In the UK since 1980, ice cream prices have fallen by 50 per cent, while fruit and vegetables have gone up by 199 per cent.
ODI researcher and report co-author, Steve Wiggins, said: “In Brazil, the consumption of ‘ultra-processed’ ready-to-eat food has risen from 80kg per person per year in 1999 to around 110kg per person per year by 2013. Using the weight of the food as a measure, this is equivalent to each person eating an extra 140 Big Macs a year.”
The report’s authors said the rising cost of fruit and vegetables may be due – in part – to cutting-edge technologies that result in higher-quality vegetables that are cut, trimmed, bagged and washed, and available all year round.
Advances in food manufacturing and falling costs of transport and logistics could explain the drop in prices of some processed foods such as noodles, ice cream, crisps and cookies.
Wiggins added: “In January 2014, in an attempt to curb obesity, Mexico introduced taxes on sugary drinks and energy-dense food. Everyone is watching to see what effects these taxes have, as policy-makers in rich and poor countries struggle to respond to the looming health epidemic caused by changing diets.”
The report recommends that emerging economy governments consider introducing taxes and subsidies to offset these price changes.
Wiggins said: “Research in the UK in 2009 predicted that imposing a VAT-style 17.5 per cent tax on less healthy food and using the proceeds to subsidise fruit and vegetables would save between 3,600 and 6,400 premature deaths a year from diet-related disease.
“Even the lower estimate (3,600) is more than twice as many as the amount of people that die on the roads in the UK and a huge effort is put into road safety.”
Sales of fresh meat and poultry have dropped in both value and volume over the 12 weeks to 26 April 2015.
According to the Kantar Worldpanel’s Meat, Fish & Poultry Market Update, fresh primary meat and poultry value sales dropped by 4.3% compared to the same period in 2014, while volume sales fell by 1.1%.
Turkey was the worst-affected, seeing a 13.5% drop in volume sales and a 7.3% drop in value sales, followed by pork which saw a 12.1% in value and a 7% drop in volume.
Value sales of chicken fell by 4.2% but grew 0.3% in volume.
Lamb saw a surge in volume sales in the period due to Easter, increasing by 3.6%. However, promotional activity meant that value sales fell by 2.4% year-on-year.
On the processed side, the good weather in spring helped boost volume sales of burgers and grills by 13.3%, with value sales rising by 15.3%, which in turn grew the overall fresh processed meat and poultry sector sales by 1.6% in value and 3.1% in terms of volume.
An increase in price cut promotions in processed poultry has also led to “significant growth” of 7% value sales and 8.6% volume sales.
The Birmingham-based banana supplier has agree to supply containers to key Russian fruit exporter, Fruit Brothers
BanaBay has taken a leap forward with banana sales in Russia by securing a significant new customer following a successful product trial.
Having experienced BanaBay produce via the European spot market, Fruit Brothers, one of the leading fruit and vegetable exporters in Russia, approached BanaBay directly and will now be supplied with 12 to 15 containers of bananas per week to distribute to supermarkets in the largest Russian cities and other regions.
Vitali Donskoi, BanaBay’s business development manager responsible for Russia, said: “The Russian market is really huge and growing fast, so we will always be interested in any opportunities and challenges arising there.
“Now that we have had our first success, we are currently exploring how to start working directly with retailers as this is another fantastic potential customer base for us.”
Pat O’Doherty, of O’Doherty’s Fine Meats, from Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh, has developed a pork pie with truffles and mushrooms, and a pork pie with a herb pastry base, to coincide with the Oscar Wilde Festival, which will take place in the same town.
Wilde attended Portora Royal School in Enniskillen before studying at Trinity College in Dublin and Oxford University.
O’Doherty said: “The pig has long been the most important animal in rural communities like Fermanagh and it made sense to create new pork pie flavours to give visitors to Enniskillen an opportunity to enjoy pies with a difference as part of the tourism experience. Pigs were the mainstay of family farms for generations throughout Fermanagh.
“Oscar Wilde would certainly have enjoyed pork in pies and other dishes during his seven years at Portora Royal School. The pies can be eaten hot or cold and provide a tasty treat for visitors to Enniskillen.
”O’Doherty’s Fine Meats is a family-run business, which has provided meat to Enniskillen since the 1940s, and is the pioneer of the award-winning Fermanagh Black Bacon.
Invest Northern Ireland said the launch of the new pies was a further sign of the convergence under way in Northern Ireland between tourism and local food, with O’Doherty also behind the country’s only Black Pudding festival.
EVS2015: Wilco van den Berg of Fresh Produce Centre recommended a collective strategy in order to boost consumption of vegetables
The challenge of feeding a rapidly growing global population while at the same time promoting an increase in vegetable consumption was described as an “opportunity for the sector” at this week’s European Vegetable Strategies conference in Brussels, Belgium.
Wilco van den Berg, manager of market analysis at Dutch group Fresh Produce Centre, revealed that demand was expected to rise by 50% in the next 20 years.
The main task, he said, was to persuade consumers to eat more vegetables, and he recommended a collective communication strategy to promote changes in consumer behaviour.
Projects in the Netherlands such as Veggie Time and Canteen Change have had an impact, he said, as has forming alliances with other parties, including health care professionals.
“We also need to make vegetables more available, at nurseries, in the workplace, in schools, in restaurants,” he said. “Introducing people to vegetables early in their life is a stepping stone to a healthy lifestyle.”
A new project that aims for genetic improvement in the sheep industry is looking for rams for artificial insemination (AI).
The team behind the RamCompare project is looking for eight rams for the AI section of the project: two Texel, two Charolais, two Suffolk, one Meatlinc and one Hampshire Down.
The RamCompare project was announced earlier this year, with the aim of driving genetic improvement forward through the inclusion of commercial data in genetic evaluations.
Eblex explained that many of the potential AI rams have been identified, and semen that has already been collected from widely used sires is being used where possible. However, some rams are being sent for semen collection.
Samuel Boon, Eblex breeding services manager, said: “This is an exciting phase of the RamCompare project, as we seek to find the rams that will start off the initiative.
“We have been in touch with all registered performance recorded breeders and are confident that the project will move forward with some of the best rams available involved.
”The next stage will be to purchase 24 rams for use by natural mating within the single-sire mating groups in the first year of the trial.
Hema says the promotion is designed to increase sales and cut food waste
Netherlands-based supermarket Hema has come up with an innovative way of boosting sales of its rapidly expanding line of fresh products. The chain has launched a ‘happy hour’ offering customers a 25 per cent discount on products including fresh meat, baked goods and fruits and vegetables during the final hour of trading each day.
A spokesperson for Hema said the aim of the strategy was to highlight the company’s expanding fresh offering as well as to reduce food wastage.
“Customers are still not sufficiently familiar with the fact that we offer fresh produce and one of our strategic goals is to focus on fresh and honest food that we want to make more accessible to people,” the spokesperson said.
Last month Hema appointed Andrew Jennings, formerly boss at Karstadt, as its new chairman as part of a wider overhaul of its management. The value retailer, which operates 538 stores in the Netherlands, is expanding its overseas presence, opening a number of stores in Belgium, Germany, France, the UK and Spain last year.
The Butchers’ and Drovers’ Charitable Institution (BDCI) is to offer a £5,000 bursary through Harper Adams University in Shropshire.
The BDCI Bursary is open to all first- or second-year BSc or FdSc students whose course of study has a direct relevance for a future career in the meat and livestock industry.
At postgraduate level, the BDCI Bursaries will be awarded to students entering Harper Adams University to study for PgC, PgD or MSc courses which have direct relevance to the meat and livestock industry.
Preference will be given to those candidates who have family or employment links with the meat and livestock industry or who have an intention of seeking employment in the industry.
The successful scholarship recipients will receive a bursary of up to £5,000 per academic year of full-time study at Harper Adams University.
Ted Hoefling, BDCI treasurer, said: “These awards are a new initiative from BDCI. We hope they will help students who can make a difference in the industry. We are delighted to be working with Harper Adams this year.”
Closing date for applications is noon on 15 June 2015, with the successful applicants decided in July.