Figs and The Mona Lisa

Well hello there, Food Junglers! January is almost over and the food industry is warming up its engines for a crazy election season. Let’s dig in.

This week:

🥩 Canada and the UK disagree over hormones in beef.

🤖 A Danish company introduces a new piece of cool tech.

🚜 Farmers are getting angry in Europe.

🍜 French protesters put on a show in Paris.

🇲🇾 Figs are being planted to save wildlife in Malaysia.

POLICY
UK AND CANADA BREAK UP

Negotiations between UK and Canada soured after Canadian farmers complained they were being cut out of the British market.

Ever since the UK left the European Union (“EU”), the country has been very picky about its trading relationships.

And when it came to Canada selling hormone-treated beef and cheese without high import taxes, the UK gave a big, fat “NO”.

On top of that, the British government was disappointed with a lack of access to Canada’s own agricultural market as, according to Canadian data, bilateral trade with Britain accounted for just 2.7% of ALL goods and services traded in 2022.

ZOOMING OUT: Whether this is good for the UK is up in the air. Yes, restricting the supply of hormone-treated beef is great for the health of the British consumer, but is it good for business?

BUSINESS
SAVING WASTE AND MONEY

Danish anti-food waste company, Too Good To Go (“TGTG”), will be rolling out its new AI-powered software in order to help automate the reduction of food wasted in supermarkets.

According to TGTG, manually searching for short-dated products and discounting them actually leads to incredible amounts of food being wasted.

This new software will consider things like customer behaviour and seasonality to estimate how likely a product is to sell in a store and then will automatically suggest discount rates as the item approaches its expiration date.

Collaborating with international supermarket, SPAR, the AI tool will also flag when food could be donated or sold at a steep discount through its app that has 85 MILLION users.

ZOOMING OUT: With inflation being a burden for many, this could be great for customers. Not to mention that it could potentially bolster the bottom lines for European retailers that lose around 1.6% in net sales because of food waste.

SUPPLY CHAIN
EUROPE’S FARMERS GO ON STRIKE

In a MOMENTOUS week for European agriculture, farmers blocked large stretches of motorways all across the continent to protest.

Here is a breakdown of the grievances:

• Prices for agricultural diesel are too high.

• Excessive regulation - by the EU - to make farming more sustainable has inflated the prices of products.

• Farmers have not been compensated for recent drought and water shortages.

• The introduction of Ukrainian grain to the European market has depreciated the price of grain in Eastern Europe.

So far, 70,000 French farmers have come out to protest. And that’s not including thousands of farmers in Germany, Romania, Poland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy and Spain.

ZOOMING OUT: While each country faces their own set of grievances, the overall character of the protests across the continent is broadly similar. And with elections coming up in ALL 27 EU states this year, getting farmers on-side will be VITAL.

CLIMATE
THE MONA LISA GETS SOUP-ED

A group of French environmentalists - known as “Food Counterattack” - threw soup at the Mona Lisa, calling for the right to “affordable, healthy, and sustainable food”.

The group was captured, exclaiming, “What is more important? Art or the right to healthy and sustainable food?”

And, while being escorted out of the museum, they called for a £128 food card to be given to citizens, each month, for good quality food.

ZOOMING OUT: This is not the first time the Mona Lisa has been used as a target for a broader political message. But is this different? Will the French government listen during a time of super inflated food prices?

THE BRIGHT SIDE
SAVING ANIMALS WITH FIGS

Malaysian wildlife veterinarian, Zainal Zainuddin, has one goal: restore and protect wildlife systems using fig trees in the northern Malaysian Borneo.

Through his NGO - Bringing Back Our Rare Animals (“BORA”) - Zainal produces fig trees for forest restoration and to enrich wildlife habitats on palm tree plantations and in logged forest reserves.

But why figs? Well, it turns out that fig trees are remarkably resilient and can survive in heavily deforested areas, such as some parts of the Borneo.

Not only that, but they can grow year round and are sources of food for orangutans, gibbons, fruit bats, dozens of bird species and MANY more animals.

Essentially, the fig tree can encourage natural reforestation ALL WHILE palm trees can still be planted!

While Zainal and BORA have made steady progress, they are yet to convince the WHOLE Malaysian palm oil industry. But until then, they’ve got our vote. Food Jungle approved ✅ 

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BEFORE YOU GO…

• Agriculture giant - Archer Daniels Midland - puts its CFO on administrative leave as it investigates accounting practices within the nutrition segment of the company.

• Wendy’s chooses PepsiCo veteran as its new CEO, effective February 5^th.

• Forsea Foods produces the first ever lab-grown freshwater eel meat.

• The UN declares that more than half a million people in Gaza face “catastrophic hunger”.

• Online booking platform – Resy – is set to close its UK arm later this year.

• Chipotle said it plans to hire 19,000 workers to keep up with what it calls “burrito season”.

• Director of regenerative agriculture at General Mills says the company is half way into its pledge to advance regenerative agriculture on 1 million acres of land by 2030.

TAKE A BREAK

Hi there everyone! If you’re interested in a little bit of escapism this holiday season, we would thoroughly recommend you check out CULTURE CURATED, written by our dear pal Neema Naficy.

From food recipes and art to cocktails and cool YouTube clips, Neema shares things from the creative world that are definitely WORTH listening to, trying out, and watching. Food Jungle approved ✅