Dark Fishing and Saffron

Welcome to 2024 Food Junglers! Despite the new number, the food industry has stayed RED hot. Let’s dig in.

This week:

🌸 Iran struggles to keep its saffron economy alive.

🛒 An American brand touches a nerve in France.

🎟️ Myanmar gets a little push from the United Nations.

🐠 A shocking truth is revealed in Africa and South Asia.

🍺 It turns out you can make beer from bread in the UK…

SUPPLY CHAIN
IRAN’S SAFFRON STRUGGLES

Iran produces more than 90% of the world’s saffron. Known as “desert gold”, the spice was used by ancient Persian rulers to improve their skills in battle and is used as a possible treatment for depression in the modern day.

It can take up to 170,000 individual flowers to produce just 1 kilogram of saffron. And, now, it has become even harder to produce.

Warmer temperatures, runaway inflation at 40%, and Western sanctions to stop Iran’s nuclear ambitions have all caused saffron supplies to dwindle and its price to skyrocket.

The price of premium saffron has surged to $1,400 per kilo domestically and around $1,800 overseas. That’s double what it cost in 2022.

ZOOMING OUT: While saffron isn’t critical to the Iranian economy, around 100,000 families, living in the saffron-rich desert areas, depend on it as a source of income. And with Iran’s potential involvement in the Israel-Palestine conflict, things don’t seem to be looking up anytime soon.

BUSINESS
CARREFOUR PULLS THE PLUG

French supermarket giant, Carrefour, has officially declared it will no longer sell products from PepsiCo after deciding that they have become too expensive.

The move impacts Carrefour’s 9,000 stores across four other European countries and accounts for about two-thirds of its  supermarket business.

For PepsiCo, the European market currently represents $9 BILLION of the company’s global revenue. So, the value of a relationship with one of Europe’s BIGGEST retailers should not be underestimated.

Unsurprisingly, many of Carrefour’s customers cheered the move. One French shopper wasn’t fussed, adding that these “are all thins we can avoid buying” anyway.  

ZOOMING OUT: This comes at tricky time for France. Food-price inflation surged to nearly 16% in March 2023 and farming strikes were commonplace. So, in attempt to save the price of French produce, it made sense that American snacks should be the first sacrifice.

POLICY
MYANMAR GETS A HELPING HAND

Muslim refugees from genocide-stricken Myanmar - the Rohingya people - will be receiving more food vouchers to accommodate their move to refugee camps in Bangladesh.

Starting on 1st January, the World Food Programme will be increasing the value of its food voucher from $8 to $10 per person. With this, the Rohingya refugees will be able to afford the essentials: rice, pulses, oil, garlic, spices, and potatoes.

Unfortunately, due to the UN’s funding gaps, this is still less than the $12 the Rohingya refugees received in 2022. On top of that, these updated food vouchers do not include any forms of protein.

ZOOMING OUT: As the tyrannical regime in Myanmar continues its eradication of its muslim population, more refugees are set to make their way to Bangladesh. And, despite help from non-profit organisations, 90% of the 1.2 million muslim refugees still struggle to eat a decent meal.

CLIMATE
FISHING GETS UNCOVERED

A new study, led by Global Fishing Watch, has found that 75% of the world’s industrial fishing vessels are not publicly tracked.

Researchers were able to uncover several hotspots of potential illegal fishing vessels using the first ever global map of the ocean’s industrial use. Vessels were seen encroaching on artisan grounds and other countries’ waters.

And these fishing vessels have been spotted in marine protected areas. For example, more than 20 undocumented vessels - per week - were found in the Great Barrier Reef: one of the most biologically important reserves in the world. 

ZOOMING OUT: Here’s the complicated part. The largest cases of illegal fishing were by fleets that did not use identification systems. And the problem is that not all boats are legally required to display their position at sea.

So, evidently, the next challenge will be to understand how to deter fleets from illegal fishing in the long-term without having the ability to track them.

THE BRIGHT SIDE
FROM BREAD TO LIQUID GOLD

For anyone yearning for a cool sip of beer to wash away those winter blues, we’ve discovered an incredible company that uses leftover bread to make BEER.

Humans waste around 44% of the bread they buy - not to mention the land, water, and energy that goes into making it. And if left to rot in a landfill, that bread would start emitting methane, a greenhouse gas FAR more potent than carbon dioxide.

And that’s where Toast Brewing comes in. Founded in 2016, the team had one purpose: convert leftover bread into beer. And so far, they’ve saved so many slices of bread that, if stacked up together, they would be over FOUR times the height of Mt. Everest!

The team buys excess bread and uses it to replace 25% of the malted barely in all their beer. The enzymes in the malt then transform the starches in the bread to simple sugars that can then be turned into alcohol. Food Jungle approved ✅ 

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BEFORE YOU GO…

• UK food inflation eased to its lowest rate since June 2022.

• Doordash is looking to expand into Luxembourg and focus on their grocery delivery after a stellar 2023 for the company.

• American egg-producer, Cal-Maine Foods, declares a loss of about 1.5 million birds in Kansas, due to a bird-flu outbreak.

• Blank Street Coffee introduces a new subscription plan which will aim to help customers pay less for coffee during a period of food-price uncertainty in many countries.

• The European Union announces a €50 million investment to help start-ups scale the production of alternative proteins.

READ MORE

Hi there everyone! It’s our pleasure to introduce another newsletter in the food space - BETTER BIOECONOMY - from a food technology enthusiast, Eshan Samaranayake.  

Like the team at Food Jungle, Eshan is doing his absolute best to advertise those who are making food healthier, cleaner, more sustainable, more animal-friendly AND accessible to all.

So, if you are interested in reading more on food tech, go check it out! Food Jungle approved ✅