6 AUGUST 2016 NEWS SNIPS Foodstuff’s Christchurch headquarters are being picketed by unions after claims some lower-paid South Island supermarket workers are turning to charities for help feeding their families Silver Fern Farms is New Zealand’s most trusted meat brand, according to the Reader’s Digest 2016 Most Trusted Brand survey Horticultural pioneer John Paynter (75) is this year’s recipient of the Pipfruit New Zealand Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Pipfruit Industry Wellington-based brewing company ParrotDog will launch an equity crowdfunding campaign to raise up to $2 million for its new Lyall Bay brewery. N E W S A new scheme to provide 1000 new jobs for unemployed Hawke’s Bay workers over the next three years is set to assist food and beverage manufacturers. Project 1000 is part of Matariki – Hawke’s Bay Regional Economic Development Strategy and Action Plan 2016, and has been launched by Social Development minister Anne Tolley and Maori Development minister Te Ururoa Flavell. “Unemployment in Hawke’s Bay is consistently higher than the national average, but there is a huge amount of activity in the region,” Tolley says. “Demand for exports in horticulture and viticulture are high. The manufacturing, infrastructure and food and beverage processing industries are thriving. This programme will provide skills training and job-matching to get local people into sustainable jobs.” Over the next three years, 700 Ministry of Social Development clients will be moved into employment in the horticulture, viticulture and infrastructure industries to support projected industry growth, with the remaining 300 jobs filled by Hawke’s Bay people not currently participating in employment. Governments and food companies globally are failing to protect children from the marketing of unhealthy food, according to a new study. Published by the World Health Organisation, the study found that no country or any of the 22 global food companies has fully implemented the recommendations laid out by WHO’s 2010 decrees, and that progress in general is slow and patchy. University of Auckland’s Professor Boyd Swinburn, one of the study’s authors, says “despite all the reports, resolutions and recommendations, progress on protecting children from marketing of the very products which are driving the childhood obesity epidemic has been painfully slow. It is very disturbing that despite all the fine commitments, most governments around the world seem reluctant to restrict the food industry’s exploitation of children in this way. I am afraid it speaks volumes about the power that the food and advertising industries have over governments, even as childhood obesity continues to rise.” Swinburn says in New Zealand, the government has yet to shift from a hands-off approach to an active approach. "At the moment, the advertising industry just makes its own rules on food marketing to children.” NIUE VANILLA ON THE TRADE AID MENU Niue Vanilla International is the first Pacific food product to be sold in Trade Aid stores, marking a return of interest by the not-for-profit organisation in Pacific Island-made products. Nuie Vanilla International’s managing director Stanley Kalauni, who established the family-owned company in 1991, says Trade Aid is expected to take on all six of his company’s brands across all 31 stores, starting with Auckland and Wellington. Pacific Island products were once the mainstay in Trade Aid stores four decades ago, but now account for less than one per cent. “We are bringing the Pacific back,” Trade Aid’s Geoff White says. “The Pacific is on our back-door-step and we have a desire to work with the Pacific.” The agreement has taken around three years of talking and relationship-building after the pair first met at a Pacific Trade Fair in Fiji three years ago. Pacific Islands Trade & Invest Trade Commissioner Michael Greenslade says Niue Vanilla has benefited from the Path to Market Programme.” Clearly the Trade Aid network could also work for some other of our clients. We will be watching this with excited anticipation.” FRUIT ROT FUNGUS FOUND A fruit rot fungus found in two containers of kiwifruit entering the Chinese Port of Tianjin in June has prompted Zespri International to temporarily halt kiwifruit exports to the country. A Zespri spokeswoman says the fungus, Neofabraea actinidiae, has no food safety implications and the company’s exports will resume shipping into China shortly, although the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ) has issued a risk notification and strengthened inspection and quarantine processes. “The information we have received indicates this is a technical issue and we are working to understand the situation more fully,” Zespri says. “We’re about two-thirds of the way through shipping with nine million trays still to ship to China from our total forecast volume of 24 million trays this season. Out of the 135 million trays we’re shipping this year, a very small percentage of this inevitably goes off and is lost. Zespri says the fungus had been found in a range of plants from other countries including Ecuador, the Netherlands, Australia and the United States. OFFER IS VALID FOR A LIMITED TIME ONLY! 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