This week in industry news, CP Kelco’s newest innovation, Nutrava Citrus Fiber, won the 2020 Ringier Technology Innovation Award for Creative Plant-based Product. Syngenta Seeds completed the acquisition of Sensako, a South African seed company specializing in cereals. Waitrose unveiled its 2020 Christmas range, while Corona teamed up with rapper Snoop Dogg to debut the fully integrated marketing campaign “La Vida Más Fina,” translated into English as “The Finest Life.”

In brief: Business acquisitions
Syngenta Seeds has completed the acquisition of Sensako, a South African seed company specializing in cereals. It has a prominent wheat market position in South Africa with additional sales in Namibia, Zambia and Lesotho. The acquisition will lay the foundation for growth and help accelerate Syngenta Seeds’ entry into the South African seeds market in wheat, corn and sunflower. Sensako is currently a distributor for Syngenta’s sunflower seeds. Syngenta Seeds also sells vegetable seeds in South Africa and Syngenta Crop Protection is a major player in that market. “Most importantly, we’ll have the opportunity to bring our leading Viptera trait technology to growers to address the permanent, rapidly spreading threat of Fall Armyworm in South Africa,” says Jeff Rowe, President Syngenta Seeds.

In brief: New product launches
Waitrose has unveiled its Christmas range for 2020, kicking off the countdown to the festive season. For the main event, Waitrose predicts the trend for alternative meats is set to move mainstream. Last year, demand for venison “rocketed” on the company’s website, with Waitrose Entertaining orders doubling compared to the previous year. Also, sales of venison were up more than 60 percent.

In brief: F&B Innovation
Supplier of natural ingredient solutions CP Kelco has announced that its newest innovation, Nutrava Citrus Fiber, has won the 2020 Ringier Technology Innovation Award for Creative Plant-based Product in the Food & Beverage Ingredients category. The award was officially presented at a ceremony held in conjunction with the Nutritious Food Functional Beverage Technology Summit in Guangzhou, China, recently. Nutrava Citrus Fiber is sourced from intact citrus peels, a byproduct of the juicing industry. CP Kelcos patented process converts the peels into a citrus fiber that enables stabilization, thickening, suspension, emulsion stability, water-binding capabilities and sugar/fat reduction efforts.

Genes that confer resistance to stem rust, a deadly fungal disease, have been successfully transferred from wheat into barley. In an advance that could lead to wider use of resistance genes from other wild relatives of elite crops, a team of researchers at the John Innes Centre used genetic modification techniques to fortify barley plants with genes proven to have defensive activity in wheat. The research is seen as a model for future efforts to protect crops against the growing threat of virulent fungal pathogens. In contrast to wheat wher 82 stem rust resistance genes have been found, only ten have been discovered in barley.

The plight of declining honeybee populations significantly threatens the world’s food supply. To better understand this phenomenon, SAS analytics is specializing in Internet of Things (IoT)-enabled beehives use streaming analytics to interpret hive data flowing from embedded sensors to help beekeepers better understand which units need help. Hive data is sent to a data cloud to allow for the continuous measurement of weight, acoustics (the hum of honeybees’ buzzing indicating health), flight activity and hive climate (temperature and humidity). 

A new £10 million (US$13.2 million) fund was announced by the UK government to help distilleries go green and cut emissions by switching to low carbon fuels such as hydrogen. The move gives backing to UK distilleries to harness energy sources such as low-carbon hydrogen, biomass and repurposed waste to power their operations. This funding was launched with the aim of helping prevent pollution equivalent to emissions from 100,000 cars from entering the atmosphere, contributing towards the UK’s legally-binding target to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

In brief: Campaigns
Corona teamed up with rapper Snoop Dogg to debut the fully integrated marketing campaign “La Vida Más Fina,” translated into English as “The Finest Life.” The company notes this marks a “refreshed take” on the Corona lifestyle and an “evolved, more optimistic tone” for the brand as it expands its offerings with the introduction of Corona Hard Seltzer and other innovations. Sales of Corona remain strong, the company highlights, with recent data revealing that sales have increased by more than 17 percent since March 

After 18 months of lowering prices, M&S Food is offering 240 of its grocery staples at “remarksable” everyday prices. Every product is price benchmarked against key competitors and upholds M&S’s quality point of difference, such as its Milk Pledge promise to pay dairy farmers a fair price, its DNA-traceable UK beef back to the farm and individual animal and its selec Farms sourcing from trusted farmers.

In brief: Miscellaneous
UK Fire and Rescue services are turning to freeze-dried food as a solution to the threats to food supplies through the current pandemic and beyond. Specialist freeze-dried food supplier Fuel Your Preparation – whose ingredients and meals come with a shelf life of up to 25 years in tins or seven years in pouches – is supplying a number of fire and rescue services as they seek to solve the issue of consistency of food for staff. The Fuel Your Preparation pouches are stable at room temperatures for up to seven years and can be quickly rehydrated by adding water. 

The current heatwave sweeping across Western Europe, coupled with the warmest UK spring on record has helped bring about a bumper crop of British watermelons. The first of the crop of 6,000 watermelons, produced by Cambridgeshire grower Oakley Farms, based in Wisbech, went on sale exclusively at Tesco stores recently. The extra heat has not only helped increase sweetness levels but also made these watermelons larger than normal, Tesco notes. 

Fonterra has appointed Teh-han Chow to the role of CEO of its Greater China business. Fonterra CEO Miles Hurrell remarks that since December 2019, Teh-han has been at the helm in an acting capacity, overseeing the co-op’s overall Greater China business, including Ingredients, Foodservice, Consumer Brands and China Farms. When does he start the role?

Kerry Group announced two changes to its Senior Leadership team. Gavin Caplis has been appointed Chief Strategy Officer for the Group and Malcolm Sheil has been appointed as Chief Commercial Officer of the company’s Taste and Nutrition business. Over the past 20 years, Gavin Caplis has held a variety of senior roles across Europe and North America, all focused on strategy, acquisitions and divestitures, before taking up his most recent role as Director of Business Development in 2009. Meanwhile, Malcolm Sheil has worked with Kerry for more than 30 years across three regions and has been leading the European Region as Regional CEO since 2016, having previously led the Latin America Region.