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Loss Affects Cost of Living: Increases Food Prices by 11%
An average family in Israel wastes $890 worth of food per year: equivalent to a month and a half of household food consumption expenditure
According to Report: Israeli households second most wasteful as compared to the EU-27 countries
Raanana, Israel – March 5, 2019: Leket Israel, in partnership with BDO, released its Fourth Annual Food Waste and Rescue Report. The report presents, for the first time in Israel, a detailed model for the estimation of food loss in the household consumption sector, its value and impact on households in Israel and how Israelis compare to other countries around the world.
The Food Waste and Rescue Report reveals that food loss in Israel this year amounts to 2.5 million tons (5.5 billion pounds) with a market value of NIS 19.7 billion (US $5.5 billion), 35% of all food produced. Almost half of this loss, 1.2 million tons (2.6 billion pounds), is rescuable and valued at NIS 7 billion (US $2 billion).
The findings of the Report show that the loss in household consumption in Israel amounts to approximately 880,000 tons (1,940 million pounds) of food, at a value of NIS 7.9 billion (US $2.2 billion). An average Israeli family throws out food worth NIS 3,200 (US $890) per year, equivalent to a month and a half of household food consumption expenditure. The majority of the wasted food are fruits and vegetables, with Israeli households wasting 23% as compared to the US at 28% and Europe at 19%.
The Report reveals the impact of food loss on the cost of living: the effects of loss at all stages of the value chain increases food prices by 11% and the loss of food impairs productivity in the economy due to production and labor loss.
To close the food insecurity gap in Israel, necessitates the rescue of 20% of food wasted worth approximately NIS 3 billion (US $834 million). Food rescue makes this possible at a cost of only NIS 830 million (US $230 million), 72% of the cost. This can be accomplished without even quantifying its environmental benefits.
According to Gidi Kroch, CEO of Leket Israel: “The Report brings to light that the average Israeli family is throwing away a month and a half’s worth of food consumption every year at a value of NIS 3,200 (US $890). Instead of providing a targeted solution, such as fighting the prices of cottage cheese and dairy products, the State of Israel must recognize the many advantages of food rescue and formulate a national policy, set goals and prepare a budget. The national plan should cover the entire food value chain – from agriculture to retail and marketing to household consumption. In October 2018, the Knesset acknowledged the multiple benefits of food rescue and approved the law, “The Food Donation Act.” It is the responsibility of the next government to formally adopt food rescue as the primary solution to eliminating food insecurity in Israel and to place this crisis as a central issue on its agenda – economic, social and environmental.”
According to Chen Herzog, Chief Economist at BDO: “The cost of food loss, ultimately directly impacts the consumers’ pockets and affects the cost of living in Israel, causing an 11% increase in food prices. In addition, food loss impairs productivity in the economy due to production and labor loss. Therefore, policy for food rescue and redistributing it to disadvantaged sectors of the population is an effective economic plan in Israel, where a large part of household expenditure is on food. Food rescue is a winning solution, which closes the food insecurity gap by a direct savings of NIS 2.2 billion (US $604 million). When quantifying the social and environmental benefits, it’s a saving to the economy of more than NIS 4.5 billion (US $1.2 billion).”
For Full Report, Report Summary and Complete Media Kit: https://foodwastereport.leket.org/en/
About Leket Israel: In 2018, Leket Israel rescued 2.2 million cooked meals from IDF army bases, hotels catering companies, and restaurants and 15.5 thousand tons (51 million pounds) of agricultural produce worth NIS 150 million (US $41.5 million). All this rescued food was then redistributed to 175,000 needy people weekly through Leket Israel’s network of 200 nonprofit agency partners throughout Israel. For more information, please visit www.leket.org/en.
Facebook לקט ישראל Leket Israel


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It’s a hectic shopping day and all you want to do is park your car and get what you need. You scurry aimlessly to find that open space, and you finally spot one.
You begin to turn the wheel as you inch closer, only to find a pint-sized Mini (it’s always a Mini, isn’t it?) hiding in the shadows of a behemoth SUV. You let out a stressful sigh, and the chase continues.
We’ve all been there. Simply finding a patch of concrete to put your vehicle shouldn’t be that stressful, but it often is. There are solutions out there, such as wireless ‘open spot’ sensors and interval counters, but they’re often inaccurate and unreliable.
A Houston, Texas-based startup called ParkiT is looking to change that by eliminating sensors altogether in favor of modern computer vision technology. Using a unique platform, ParkiT’s tech allows parking operators to monitor their lots in real-time, using a clean, web-based interface to keep vacancy information current. The software then sends information to an online app, and can even integrate with existing camera systems.
Founded in March 2013 by Rice University undergrad engineering students, ParkiT’s system will also allow operators to see how their lots are used historically, which could potentially streamline future designs.
“Our proprietary technology takes advantage of modern computer vision and machine learning techniques in order to deliver accurate parking operation data with over 96% accuracy and at one-hundredth the cost of competing solutions,” reads the group’s website.
ParkiT was accepted into the OwlSpark accelerator program for startups in 2013, where the group was mentored by entrepreneurs, professionals, and other experts on how to develop new ideas. ParkiT is currently working with Rice University and other businesses around Houston on the next step.
- Collapsing ‘robot’ could save you a parking space on Black Friday
- Smarter cities need smarter addresses. And you just need 3 words
- Would you swap your keycard for a microchip implant? For many, the answer is yes
- The best TVs under $1,000
- Elon Musk to unveil tunnel elevators and autonomous pods on December 18

domain: news


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Sony announces new gaming hybrid product
According to Reuters, Sony Corporation is planning to reveal a new game product called the "PSX." Expected for release in Japan this year, the machine will come with a TV tuner, hard disk drive, and DVD recorder to create a universal platform for games, music, and motion pictures. The news directly follows the announcement of Sony's new handheld hardware called PSP, which is expected to be shipped by the end of 2004. Concerning the PSX, the company stated, "The product will integrate games, pictures and music using advanced semiconductor technology, combining real-time game operating systems and fast DVD/hard-disk recorders."
Sony further commented that the PSP and PSX "will mark the beginning of a new series of products that will unite the most advanced electronics devices with the leading-edge semiconductor technology associated with the game sector." This news has especially hit Nintendo hard, with the companies stock shares taking a dramatic fall. The Playstation 2 has continued its success over both the Xbox and GameCube in the last several months, so news with this much impact may severely alter competition with next-generation consoles.
- USB 2.0
- MemoryStick support
- TV/BS Tuner
- Emotion Engine/Graphics Synthesizer (PS2)
- DVD-R +/-
- 120 GB HDD
- DVD Recorder
- HDD Recorder
5/27/2003 Matt Stensrud


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WASHINGTON, Feb. 18 (UPI) -- Clothing designer James Perse is recalling 6,700 men's and women's jackets that fail to meet U.S. flammability standards, a federal watchdog agency said.
The jackets, imported from China by New Live of Los Angeles, pose a fire hazard to consumers, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said.
The jackets are lined with Sherpa fleece. The men's garment involved in the recall is style number MV2156, a jacket with a five-button front, two side pockets and two breast pockets. The women's coats being recalled are style number WOY2443, which has a zip-front and a hood, and style number WOY2444, which has two side pockets and wide knit cuffs at the wrist.
The jackets were sold nationwide from July through December for $225 to $350.
Consumers were advised to stop wearing the jackets and return them to the retailer for a full refund.
Consumers can call 800-430-8559 for information.


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Have it your way at Penn Manor?
These days everyone is trying to cut costs and get more bang for their buck. Food is no exception. Surprisingly, fast food prices tend to be cheaper than our school lunch prices for many of the same items, but at least one local high school’s lunches are even pricier.
“I pack my lunch because the school prices are higher than I would like them to be,” said Penn Manor freshmen, Anthony Cozolli. “A lot of families apply for reduced lunches but make just a little too much to qualify,” Cozolli added.
Over 30 million students receive subsidized lunches nationwide.
Many fast food prices are lower than ours and many items available to Manheim Township students are cheaper as well.
For example our fries are $1.50 while Manheim Township’s are only $1.00. The same is true for the fries at McDonalds and Burger King.
Lunch prices rise almost every year, but is that increase in price justified?
Penn Manor cafeteria employee, Vonda Smoker, explained that it is costing the school a lot more to provide the same food this year.
U.S. Foods, Reinhart, and Feesers all supply the bulk of Penn Manor’s food, and some of them raised their prices this year, however; our school didn’t increase the price of main line lunches, Smoker said.
“You guys are getting an even better deal this year than last,” said Smoker, noting that the cost of food is higher but not the cost of lunch.
Some students think school lunch costs a little too much. One student is sophomore Ellen Blazer .When compared, Penn Manor’s hamburger, is listed at $2.oo a full dollar more than at McDonald’s.
“That is ridiculous,” said Blazer, “overcharged for poor taste”.
The lunch ladies, including 14 year veteran Lisa Caldwell, don’t agree..
“If kids take advantage of what they get then it’s a better deal,” said Caldwell. “Kids don’t get milk or fruit because they don’t want it and it ends up costing them more.”
Milk and fruit are cheaper in school than almost anywhere else.
Penn Manor’s prices exceed fast food prices and, in some cases, the prices of both Conestoga Valley and Manheim Township’s lunch. For example those two schools main line lunches cost $2.00, $2.05 respectively. Hempfield’s costs a whopping $2.85. Our main line lunch cost $2.15.
These prices may be driving some kids to steal.
“Yeah, (students are) stealing a lot,” Caldwell said with a grin.
Caldwell explained that once a student is caught stealing they are sent to the administration office for disciplinary action.
Packing and stealing just to avoid high lunch prices? Would Penn Manor be better off sending a truck out to McDonalds, buying bulk, and reselling it?
“It would be nice to have a dollar menu here,” said senior, Kyle Haines
Even if Penn Manor would buy their burgers from McDonalds for 1$, they could resell then for $1.40, which would still be less than the price of burgers on this cafeteria menu this year. They could do the same thing with nachos, which are only $1 at Taco Bell and chicken sandwiches only $1 at McDonalds.
By David Mohimani and Jake Shiner


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15462 Mon, 10/20/2008 - 12:08pm
HIGH POINT, N.C.–The fall High Point Market opened this morning, still looking for that rebound in the furniture market to kick in.
From all indications, that wait will be a little longer.
At an opening morning press conference, industry analyst Jerry Epperson of Mann, Armistead & Epperson said the furniture business continues to suffer from a tough one-two punch: first the slowdown in the housing market and second, the tightening of the credit market. Both affect the big-ticket furniture business more than any other home furnishings classification.
“The credit problem will be short-lived,” Epperson said, indicating he sees a freeing up by the end of the year. The housing market, however, will remain soft through 2010, he said, when a robust recovery is forecast.
“This is the most challenging time for the industry,” agreed Brian Casey, head of the Market Authority, which oversees the show, “and the level of buying will not be what it has been in the past.”
But Casey said this is still the market where most companies make their major product introductions. “High Point is here to stay,” Casey said.


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Private equity firm Vestar Capital Partners will purchase Nonni’s Food Group from Wind Point Partners, an equity firm based in Chicago, the companies announced Tuesday.
Oakbrook, Ill.-based Nonni’s produces biscotti and other Italian-inspired products under the Nonni’s, THINaddictives and La Dolce Vita brands. They’re distributed through a variety of retail channels, including club, grocery, mass market, foodservice and online retailing.
Brian Hansberry, who became ceo of Nonni’s in 2015, called the company’s partnership with Wind Point “extraordinarily successful,” and thanked the private equity firm for its support.
“We’re thrilled to be partnering with Vestar as we look to build upon Nonni’s growth and success,” he said. “The Vestar team’s deep consumer experience will be invaluable as we work to expand our customer relationships, enter new channels, and continue to introduce new and innovative products to the marketplace.”
Brian O’Connor, managing director of Vestar and co-head of its consumer group, agreed.
“We are excited to be partnering with Brian Hansberry, Chris Puma, and the rest of Nonni’s management team to pursue our shared vision for the company,” he said.
Terms of the transaction, which is set to close by the end of the year, were not disclosed.


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As Tropical Smoothie Cafe turns 20, the milestone is marked by steady growth, a new prototype, and dedication to digital technology.
By Katie Lee
When CEO Mike Rotondo took the reins in 2012, Tropical Smoothie Cafe operated approximately 329 units. Working with BIP Capital, which had invested in the brand in 2010 to spur growth, that number is now 561 units today. Last year the company opened 86 new locations — including its milestone 500th.
“It was a big event for us,” Rotondo says of the 500th cafe that opened last June in Westland, Michigan. “I think it was another eye opener because people think of it as a southeastern concept or a warm climate concept, but we’re successful in North Dakota, Michigan, Long Island, Indiana. Actually, Michigan is one of our top success markets. By the end of the year there will be at least 65 cafes in Michigan.” (Its 50th location in the state just opened in March in Portage, Michigan.)
This year, Tropical Smoothie Cafe plans to open at least 100 new restaurants, with a major push in Texas and California. Both are relatively new markets for the Atlanta-based brand. Rotondo says it had some presence in Texas prior to 2017 but now is “coming on strong” in the Lone Star State.
“We’re pushing hard in Texas right now,” Rotondo says. “We’ve opened up in El Paso, Lubbock, Brownsville, Padre Island. We have cafes in Dallas as well, but we really broke into these secondary and even tertiary markets in Texas, and they are just crushing it.”
California is another focus. “We have finally broken through in California,” says Rotondo. “We’re up to roughly 10 locations in the Orange County area.”
As it has done since inception, Tropical Smoothie Cafe grows by franchising. With only one corporate store and the rest 100% franchised, it’s a model that has worked for the brand since 1997. The original founders, Eric Jenrich and David Walker, aggressively sold area developer territories to help them advance the brand. With this strategy, the fledgling operation achieved positive growth. Also to advance the brand, the founders began to sell food to accompany its award-winning smoothies. It wasn’t until 2009-2010, however — during a recession — when food really became a focus. And yet, even with a focus on food, smoothies remain 60% of the company’s sales.
“People love our smoothies,” says Rotondo. “What we see is, as we’ve grown the food, the smoothies grow with it. We’re not selling more food and less smoothies; the model hasn’t changed to where now it’s 60% food and 40% smoothies. It’s still 40-60, but it’s a much higher number. Smoothie is our drink. They don’t want soda, they don’t want tea — they want a smoothie with their lunch at Tropical Smoothie. That has really elevated our sales: focus on the food, grow the food, and the smoothie comes with it.”
New Look & Layout
In addition to opening its 500th cafe in 2016, Tropical Smoothie began remodeling locations with the company’s new “relaxed coastal” design. The previous look had been bright and busy, an over-the-top tropical island theme with loud colors, Tiki huts, thatched roofs, Hawaiian shirts for the servers, and even a Jamaican-accented voice on the answering service.
“And it was great! It broke through and got us to where we were at that time,” says Rotondo. “But then we really wanted to evolve and be a brand that is more elevated. We went from this very heavy tropical island look to just a relaxed beach house anywhere by the water. Like a beachy Restoration Hardware: the worn metal, the wood, a very organic feeling. We went from blue, purple and yellow tiles to just a great white tile.”
The response from consumers was overwhelming — not just in the design, not just in the look but also in the layout. Before the redesign, food prep was more behind the scenes. There was a smoothie maker behind a window, so you could partially see your smoothie being blended, but you could not interact or see all the ingredients. In the new design, there is a smoothie bar front and center with fruits, vegetables, nuts, etc., all laid out for you to see and choose from. The entire kitchen is exposed, with the smoothie bar right up front. Customers can sit at the bar, see all the ingredients being scooped into the blenders, and can talk and interact with the smoothie maker.
Says Rotondo: “It’s so much more experiential when you’re communicating with the smoothie maker. It really has a very different feel to it. The consumers have responded overwhelmingly with their appreciation; they just love this new look and feel.”
Given a new layout that is much more centralized in the 1,500-square-foot space, operational efficiency from a labor standpoint naturally is higher — and so is the satisfaction of the consumer. Tropical Smoothie Cafe knows this because Service Management Group (SMG) handles the customer service surveys that print on customer receipts.
“We looked at that data and even though the service times from the old layout to the new layout were pretty comparable, the perception of the consumer is higher in terms of customer service,” says Rotondo. “They are more highly satisfied in the new prototype — the perception is that the service is faster and better because [customers] can talk to smoothie makers while they’re making their smoothie.”
Rotondo says the company hopes to have nearly all cafes remodeled with the new look by the end of 2017. “We made a lot of progress last year,” he says. “By the end of this year, we should be looking at 90-95% completely converted over to the new décor.”
From that point on, it’s full steam ahead as Tropical Smoothie Cafe is on track to nearly double its unit count by 2020. “By the end of 2020, we’ll have 1,000 units open,” says Rotondo. “And that’s real. When you look at our pipeline, we could stop selling franchise agreements today and we’d still get to 800 or 850. So we’ll continue to sell over the next couple of years and continue to open, and we will hit 1,000 cafes.”
It’s hard to have new growth without innovation and an adequately large support center to, well, support the aforementioned growth. Tropical Smoothie Cafe is growing quickly, adding new products, and always innovating. The company embraces new technology, allowing it to grow faster and bigger, with a solid network of digital support. One digital partner is Jolt, a software program that heightens operational accountability and communication in the restaurant space.
“Jolt has been great for us,” says Rotondo. “It was actually designed by a multi-unit franchisee that needed better accountability in his stores. Everything is captured in this software.”
For example, say your restaurant has an opening checklist that should be completed by 10 a.m. With Jolt keeping everyone accountable, if the checklist is not completed by 10 a.m., the franchisee or manager receives a mobile alert letting them know the checklist was not completed.
In addition to accountability, Jolt also can be used for communication. A franchisee can make a video about the “new promo starting Monday” and upload it to Jolt; when the employee clocks in the video will automatically scroll up and begin playing, reminding the employee about the upcoming promotion.
“It’s upping our game in communication to the hourly staff, and it’s really upping our game from an accountability standpoint,” Rotondo says. Before Jolt, accountability was handled via paper checklists and clipboards. “So a franchisee, especially a multi-unit franchisee, didn’t really have visibility to those things. Now he can log in to his account, look at his different cafes and see who’s completing tasks on time, who’s not, all those things. We went from Fred Flintstone to the Jetsons.”
Other digital programs propelling Tropical Smoothie Cafe into the Jetsons’ futuristic world are Olo and Level Up. Level Up is Tropical Smoothie’s loyalty partner and Olo handles online ordering. Both work in tandem in the Tropical Smoothie digital app. “We’re super proud of the app,” says Rotondo. “We have had over 1.5 million downloads. Our customers love it; they use it on a regular basis. The average transaction for people using the app is almost 10% higher than a typical transaction.”
The app, which fully launched system-wide 6 to 8 months ago, is increasing frequency, increasing average check, and now increasing its numbers on Order Ahead. People order and pay on their phones; then they simply walk into the cafe where their order is sitting on the counter with their name and their receipt. They pick it up and go.
“It’s really changing how we look at our business because we’re not just trying to keep up with the trends — what we see is that our brand, our core consumer, this is how they want to interact with us,” explains Rotondo. “There are other brands that have launched apps, but not with the type of results and not with the type of downloads that we are seeing. Our customers are loving it.”
To meet increased demand for technology, Tropical Smoothie Cafe has hired more people to work exclusively on digital innovation. Technology used to be more of a sideline than a focus; certain employees in Tropical Smoothie’s support center would tinker with digital and the app in addition to their regular job duties, but now the company has two (and soon to be adding two more) people that are solely dedicated to the digital space. The support center itself is also growing: In 2012 when Rotondo arrived, it had 15-16 employees. By the end of 2017, the company will have 75 employees in its support center.
“We are staffing it up,” says Rotondo. “We believe that is a big part of our future. We’re going to continue to evolve the way people interact with our brand through that mobile device.”
As Tropical Smoothie Cafe looks toward the future, digital technology will be a major cornerstone of its foundation. Existing franchisees are also a major cornerstone. More than half of all franchise agreements signed every year are with existing franchisees.
“I think that says a lot about the brand and where we’re going,” says Rotondo. “We’re growing in a way that is sustainable. Most of our growth is coming from transactions, not from checks. Other brands will raise prices on their menus, so they get some growth but they get it from check, from people spending more. The majority of our growth over the past 3 to 5 years has come from transaction, more frequency, new people coming in. That’s sustainable.”
— This article originally appeared as the cover story of the April 2017 issue of Retail & Restaurant Facility Business magazine. Email the editor, Katie Lee, at email@example.com.


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DORSET, Vt. (WCAX) After a three-year-long investigation, police say a Rutland County woman was arrested for stealing from the store she worked at.
Police say it all started back in 2016 when Hazel Prouty was stealing several hundred packs of cigarettes from the HasGas General Store in Dorset.
After more digging, they say the 56-year-old Pawlet woman played thousands of dollars worth of lottery tickets without paying for them.
She's also accused of stealing from the deli, gas and other items from the store while she was employed.
She was released and will be in court at the start of next year.


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Debenhams has appointed an Amazon executive to replace its outgoing chief executive as the department store focuses on the growth of its online sales.
Sergio Bucher, who has served as vice president of Amazon's fashion unit across Europe since 2013, will join Debenhams in October.
He replaces Michael Sharp, who announced last year that he would not renew his contract after five years in the top job following months of investor unrest about the retailer's flagging fortunes.
Debenhams, which has lost a fifth of its market value over the last year, is in the middle of a two-year strategic review to boost its waning profits.
The FTSE 250 company recently posted a 5.5pc rise in pre-tax profits...
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AsIAm Founder and CEO Adam Harris helped launch SuperValu’s Autism-Friendly Shopping project earlier this week in Lucan, Co. Dublin.
A new series of initiatives undertaken by the supermarket chain aims to make shopping experience easier and more comfortable for autistic shoppers and their families.
Mr Harris was joined in launching the project by Minister of State for Disability Issues Finian McGrath TD, the Middletown Centre for Autism’s CEO Gary Cooper and SuperValu’s Marketing Director Des O’Mahony.
SuperValu has held a series of autism-friendly evenings in 40 stores around the country, holding its first over two years ago in Clonakilty, Co. Cork. It has worked closely with autism advocates and experts from across Ireland in developing the project since then. An expert panel was appointed by the supermarket to consult and to ensure that the changes made were impactful, and relevant for families and workable for retailers.
Speaking at the launch, Adam Harris praised SuperValu’s initiative in making steps to become more autism-friendly: “At times when we talk about autism, we find ourselves caught in a constant discussion about services and therapies. These resources are vital but what we sometimes lose sight of is that without whole communities engaging in becoming more inclusive and accessible, we will never truly have equality for the autism community. SuperValu have shown leadership in recognising the difference they can make to autistic people and families by making small but powerful changes.”
Gary Cooper, CEO Middletown Centre for Autism echoed the sentiments saying: “I welcome the development of the inclusive environments that are being created in store for the autism community and commend the SuperValu team for their foresight and commitment to this world-class initiative.”
And SuperValu Marketing Director, Des O’Mahony added: “We began this journey 18 months ago with autism-friendly shopping times and the introduction of an Autism-friendly trolley in a small number of stores and the response was overwhelmingly positive.
One of the main features of the project are the inclusion of Autism Lifeskill Friend (ALF) trolleys. The trolley was designed in Cork by Tony and Theresa O’Donovan from Togher who have a 16-year-old son with autism with the aim of making supermarket shopping a more enjoyable experience for an autistic, while also giving them a lifeskill.
SuperValu has developed a series of initiatives with the Middletown Centre which it plans to roll out to its stores nationwide. More stores will have sensory-friendly times and families will be able to use store maps to pre-plan their visit.
The standardised beep sounds on tills will also be reduced in stores nationwide and staff will take e-learning modules to build up their awareness of autism.
There will be downloadable store sounds to de-stress the store visit and beep sounds on tills will be reduced and standardised. An online autism awareness educational programme that will be offered to all staff also outlines how the steps taken in the store will make a difference.
“It is exciting to see a retailer as big as SuperValu go on this journey” Mr Harris went on to say. “We hope it will trigger a conversation in communities around Ireland about how we can make all aspects of our villages, towns and cities more accessible.”
A dedicated webpage is available from the supermarket’s main website, detailing the various supports offered, as well as including images of a typical store’s layout and downloadable samples of expected noises heard on a busy shop floor.


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Mason Rose Assistant Director of Sales Promotion, and MICE Sales Executive Appointment
- Category: Appointments
- Created on Monday, 13 August 2012 15:47
Lisa, who has over 10 years’ experience in the luxury hotel market, joined Mason Rose in 2009 as Sales Manager targeting the C&I segment. Since then Lisa has been promoted to Senior Sales Manager, followed by Director of MICE Sales. In her new position as Assistant Director of Sales, Lisa will continue to manage and develop the groups market along with a new focus of day to day management of the Mason Rose sales team under Maria Pajares, Managing Director.
Mason Rose has also appointed Fiona Macpherson as MICE Sales Executive supporting Lisa in the groups and events market. Fiona joins from Principal Hayley where she worked as Sales Executive, and prior to this Fiona worked for the Malmaison group for four years.
In July 2012 Mason Rose announced a new partnership with Elite International Luxury Hotel Representation, with offices in New York and Los Angeles, in order to offer sales services in the US as well as the UK to Mason Rose clients.
More appointment news
- New Head Chef appointed at Hilton Dunkeld House
- Martin Boyle joins BESydney as Client Relationship Manager UK/Europe
- Hotel Métropole Monte-Carlo welcomes Claudia Venturini as Director of Sales & Marketing
- Ampersand appoints Kate Gibson as Sales Manager at ZSL London Zoo
- New hire for corporate events team at The Mere Golf Resort and Spa in the North West


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Backlash Against Google: An Ongoing Trend in 2021
Google. The world's most popular search engine turned technology company that pretty much seems to keep America and its consumers on top of everything. Google knows everything! But do we know everything about Google? What many people probably do not know about it is the entanglement of problems this company has gone through in 2021. To many people's surprise, the U.S. government has filed four antitrust lawsuits against Google in 2021, with its most recent one just this past month.
This time around, state attorneys are going after Google by claiming that the company took advantage of its power among app developers via its Play Store on Android. Specifically, this case focuses on the fact that the Google Play Store is quite parallel to Apple's App Store. As Feiner (2021) explains, even the Apple App Store has become consumed with legal challenges in the past years and attracted lawmaker questions over "whether it unfairly charges developers for payments through their apps by customers and whether it favors its own apps over those of its rivals" (Feiner, 2021).
State attorneys from exactly 36 out of the 50 states, including California, Nebraska, Iowa, Colorado, New York, and North Carolina (in addition to Washington, D.C.) are the established plaintiffs in this fourth and latest lawsuit. These states claim that Google has "used anticompetitive tactics to extract a 30% commission from consumers who purchase subscriptions and digital content on their Android phones" (Feiner, 2021). Ultimately, this leads to the bigger problem that app developers have no option besides to use Google's software for distribution because of Google's act of targeting competing app stores and also because Android is the only operating system available.
On the contrary, Google and its team defend their practices by stating that these state attorneys' actions against Google are "meritless" (Feiner, 2021). They also stand strong in their defense that their Play Store system provides much openness to consumers and that there are many options and choices for their consumers to use in comparison to others. However, the plaintiffs express that they will not settle until they achieve what they have set out for; to bring back competition and prevent Google from conducting similar problems in the future.
To read more about the previous lawsuits against Google in 2021, check out: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/07/states-bring-new-antitrust-suit-against-google-over-google-play.html
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High Nigerian pharmacists have warned that the current economic downturn in the country is affecting the operations of many pharmaceutical companies and is having a negative impact on the pharmaceutical sector.
According to the pharmacists, the difficult economic situation has not only crippled the operations of many pharmaceutical companies, but also forced some pharmaceutical companies to close their doors.
Pharmacists who spoke with PUNCH HealthWise in separate talks in Lagos, called for urgent government intervention to save the pharmaceutical sub-sector of the Nigerian economy from collapse, warning that such a development could put the health of Nigerians in dire straits.
Pharmacy leaders including the President of the Nigerian Academy of Pharmacy, Prince Julius Adelusi-Adeluyi; the National President of the Association of Industrial Pharmacists of Nigeria, Ken Onuegbu and the President of the Association of Pharmaceutical Wholesalers and Distributors of Nigeria, Ernest Okafor noted that the difficult economic situation has put the pharmaceutical sector in a difficult position. precarious and has made the availability of affordable quality medicines difficult.
The state of the Nigerian economy has been at the forefront of public discourse lately with inflation at an all-time high.
According to figures released by the National Bureau of Statistics, Nigeria’s headline inflation rate rose to 19.64 percent on an annual basis in July, the highest since 2005.
Federation Statistician General and NBS Chief Executive Prince Semiu Adeniran said so in the July 2022 Consumer Price Index released by the bureau last August.
Giving a breakdown of the report in a statement, Adeniran said the CPI measures the average change over time in the prices of goods and services consumed by people for daily living.
According to him, it is a basic macroeconomic indicator used in derivation of inflation rate for policy, planning and monitoring of an economy.
One might also recall that the Association of Professional Bodies of Nigeria recently lamented the astronomical increase in the cost of food in Nigeria, noting that the cost of things is becoming worrying and the country is rapidly degenerating into a land of hunger. .
The APBN is the umbrella body for practicing professionals in Nigeria. It is made up of lawyers, accountants, architects, bankers and other professionals from 32 different disciplines.
The APBN, which stated this at a press briefing in Lagos, said that in recent years inflation in Nigeria has risen by single digits to 20.52%.
The APBN lamented the erosion of the real value of the naira and the surge in prices.
He said the effect on Nigerians was that the masses were struggling to meet basic needs, which was now having serious effects on the socio-economic situation in Nigeria.
Talk with PUNCH HealthWiseAdelusi-Adeluyi, a former health minister, said pharmacy has been tough even though the profession has come a long way in the country.
Adelusi-Adeluyi, who is also a former president of the Nigerian-American Chamber of Commerce, said healthcare and pharmacy are going through a tough time in the country.
“Health and Pharma are going through a tough time with a health budget below the World Health Organization recommendation and even below the African Head of Government recommendation as agreed years ago,” Adelusi said. -Adeluyi.
He noted that even though there are now hundreds of pharmaceutical entrepreneurs in the country, the pharmaceutical sector is still struggling to play its role of providing quality medicines to Nigerians due to issues in the operating environment.
“What the situation demands now is teamwork. The pharmacy profession is not limited to pharmacists themselves. If we can work together as professionals to overcome our challenges, the pharmacy profession will be better off.
Also speaking to PUNCH HealthWise, National Chairman of the Industrial Pharmacists Association of Nigeria, Ken Onuegbu said the poor state of the Nigerian economy has crippled the operations of many pharmaceutical companies, noting that some pharmaceutical companies have already closed their doors because they are unable to cope.
He noted that the search for a solution to the impact of the economy on the pharmaceutical industry prompted the NAIP to organize the first series of biennial conferences on the theme “Dwindling Economy: What’s next for the pharma industry in Nigeria “.
“The poor state of the local and global economy has negatively impacted the pharmaceutical business in the country and affected the industry.
“This has caused drug prices to spike and made life more difficult for Nigerians.


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Continuing a recent trend of tech billionaires swiftly ascending the ranks of Asia’s wealthiest people, Sea Limited CEO and co-founder Forrest Li has been swept to the position of Singapore’s wealthiest person after a surge in his company’s stock. With a personal valuation of $19.8 billion, Li has steered Sea to a comparable status in the region as the most valuable company in Southeast Asia.
Co-founded by Li in 2009 as an e-commerce and online entertainment company, with its flagship Free Fire and Shopee apps pulling in billions of downloads on smartphones around the world, Sea now offers a diverse array of products in several international markets. The company has recently made inroads into the financial sector with its digital payments platform SeaMoney, which has seen its earnings more than double in the second quarter of 2021.
For his part, Li seems content to retain the shroud of privacy that has become his trademark during his remarkable rags-to-riches rise. Born in Tianjin and now a citizen of Singapore, Li has kept himself out of the spotlight even as Sea and his previous company, local gaming giant Garena, shattered one record after another for revenues and numbers of users.


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A study of card usage found that 88% of consumers were pleased by the ease with which they could find an automated teller machine.
But surprisingly, about a third of 600 Indiana residents surveyed was unaware that most ATM cards can be used at terminals all over the country.
And fewer than half of the respondents used ATMs as their first-choice source for cash.
The findings by Magic Line Inc., the largest regional electronic banking network in the Midwest, suggest that despite average annual growth of 15% in ATM transactions, financial institutions and networks could be doing a lot more to educate their customers.
Work to Be Done'
"I think some of the figures speak well for what we've been able to accomplish over the last few years with our marketing efforts, but they also indicate that there's still a lot of work to be done," said Thomas E. Hartman, manager of the Indiana portion of Magic Line's network.
Mr. Hartman noted that as recently as five years ago, only about half of ATM cardholders were aware that their cards were usable outside their local area.
"We've got to build on that local awareness," he said.
The way to achieve this is through marketing campaigns that instruct cardholders about where and how their cards can be used.
The information may be useful in goading consumers who do not use their cards to put them to use.
According to the Magic Line survey, about 30% of ATM cardholders use their cards less than once a month, which is in keeping with national averages, according to electronic banking consultants.
The Magic Line survey also suggested that bankers may improve their methods for getting cards into customers' hands.
Only 53% of the people in the Magic Line sample possessed an ATM card.
In a wider study, the financial institutions participating in Speer & Associates' 1993 Proprietary EFT Program survey reported that about 66% of their customers held ATM cards.
Increasing the cardholder base will be a crucial component of the continued growth of ATM transactions, experts said.
Many network and electronic banking executives believe that this task will become easier as younger, computer-literate consumers make up an increasingly larger portion of banking's customer base.
Effects of Consolidation
Mr. Hartman points out that expanding the number of cards will also benefit the nascent point of sale business.
"Consumers that use ATMs are pretty knowledgeable about other places their cards can be used," he said.
While the plethora of ATM and point of sale trademarks may confuse some consumers, discouraging use of the cards, experts said the consolidation of the electronic banking industry is reducing the confusion.
"The whole system of separate ATM and POS marks is not the most thoughtful approach to the business," said Richard Speer, chairman of Speer & Associates, which is based in Atlanta.
"But with all the mergers and gateway agreements between networks, people can use their cards all over the place now, and the marks are becoming largely inconsequential."


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Trip down the Amazon inspires Bexley couple to come up with boardgame
PUBLISHED: 07:56 20 December 2018
A new board game created by a Bexley woman and her boyfriend could take on the might of Trivial Pursuit.
Natalie Podd came up with the idea for the trivia game while travelling in South America two years ago, and decided to call it CONFIDENT?
She told us: “We were floating down the Amazon when my boyfriend Ceri Price asked me what the population of Brazil was.
“I answered between 100 million and 150 million people. We loved the idea of answering trivia question with a range and right there and then, we came up with the idea for a board game that used the range concept.”
As more and more games are switching to video consoles and computers, Natalie and Ceri, both management consultant, said they wanted to ensure board games are not dead.
She said: “Arriving home, we played it with friends and family and even got some feedback from board game designers
“The concept, rules and questions were developed adding fun elements to make it even more exciting. In June this year, we’d amassed such great feedback that we decided it was ready to get made, and we were ready to invest our own money in it. So along with working full time jobs in the city, we went about finalising the game to get it manufactured.”
She said: “The development was long and arduous. We spent lots of late nights coming up with unique questions and verifying the answers, with a huge spreadsheet of 1000 questions that we had to whittle down to just under 200 for the final game. We approached different manufacturers across the world to get quotes and to negotiate, and finally settled on a price with a well-regarded board game maker in Germany to manufacture the first batch which arrived in November and sent them out to Amazon.
“When they have sold out, we need to decide what to do next.”
Ceri, 29, is from Wales and they have already had the chance to show it off there by playing a few rounds on the BBC’s Good Morning Wales radio show.
The 28-year-old told us: “Consoles are all very well, but they are not really fully suited to a fun family game around the table where everyone can look and interact with each other.
“That’s why we came up with this, and it is already being warmly welcomes.
“Hundreds have already sold, but we are looking to make this a global brand.”
She said the brainwave happened about a year ago. Natalie said: “We spotted a gap in the board game market and decided to invest our own money to launch a new brand.
“It has been on sale for a few weeks now and we have already sold hundreds of copies.
“It has been getting amazing reviews and feedback from people who have been playing it.
“A bold statement we know, but we really believe it is good enough to be the go-to household trivia game - it’s the perfect family board game.”
Natalie had always dreamed of doing something like this. She said: “It’s not every day a local girl decides to launch her own product to the masses.
“The reception we’ve been getting from people across Bexley, Sidcup and wider Kent has been incredible; everyone wants to know more about how we came up with the ideas.
“It’s also the perfect family Christmas game, so it’s very timely for people looking to have some fun over the festive season.”
What of the game itself. She said it is quick to learn and fun to play.
Everyone plays every question so there’s no waiting around, and it’s really interactive - you can play as individuals and teams and you have special powers in the game to copy or swap other people’s answers!
Natalie said: “The feedback we’ve got has been overwhelmingly positive, and we can’t wait to see where CONFIDENT? goes.
If you value what this story gives you, please consider supporting the Bexley Times. Click the link in the orange box above for details.


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Few years back or pre-Twitter age, the media decided what people were going to talk about though the day, most times sensationalizing stores for no reason.
But over the past few years this has changed and now the media waits to see what people are talking about on the web to decide what to write about.
you might think, so what? but this phenomenon actually holds some of the answers as to where the media is or should go in the future and also poses the questions, what exactly is breaking news this days.
An earthquake would be breaking news but if one happened tomorrow and Apple announced it would replace all existing iPhones with a brand new iPhone 5, which story would get more attention?
From a web publishers perspective i can tell you that trending news will get you about three times the amount of visitors that a breaking news article will.
And this will help your website move up on search engine page rank in an organic way
The point here is if you want more people to read your stories don’t follow the media, follow people because they decide todays news topic and i think that’s great.


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Microsoft to cut 1850 jobs
What needs to happen before Australia has digital passports?
Telstra wins deal to run $180m national cancer register
US govt spending billions on ancient systems
Watchdog slaps Clinton over private email server
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SBS hires KPMG exec to lead broadcast tech overhaul
Dedicated focus on back end upgrades.
Apr 19 2016 9:53AM
Halting Optus' descent into ones and zeros
CEO Allen Lew doesn't plan to sit around as the telco becomes a pure utility, and says he's not afraid to take on the content providers at their own game.
Jun 19 2015 3:30PM
ABC, Telstra drones to capture NYE fireworks from 1000ft
Live-feed from above.
Dec 31 2014 12:23PM
Can technology save the ABC & SBS from deep cuts?
Shared services, pay-per-view streaming on the table.
Nov 19 2014 3:10PM
SBS celebrates World Cup streaming success
Web traffic records fall, but uptime rate stays on track.
Jul 11 2014 5:15AM
Hackers raid South Korean broadcasters, bank servers
Army on alert.
Mar 20 2013 10:41PM
Jim Hassell departs NBN Co
Heads back to Broadcast Australia.
Dec 6 2012 10:53AM
Rumblings from the copyright cloud
Optus' copyright case has implications for cloud providers.
Dec 16 2011 11:34AM
Optus contracts Loral to build Ku-band satellite
Breaks with previous naming convention.
Mar 21 2011 1:44PM
Switching fault crashes ABC broadcasts
MediaHub implementation blamed for ‘meltdown’.
Nov 2 2010 12:53PM
Jim Hassell joins NBN Co
Product development and sales role.
May 24 2010 6:47PM
Hostworks restructure complete
Only seven redundant, others resigned.
Jun 24 2009 2:08PM
Hostworks management gutted
Broadcast Australia subsidiary in two-day redundancy round.
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Hostworks COO, CFO to quit
Four key Hostworks executives resign in the space of two months.
Jun 12 2009 5:17PM
Interview: Hostworks chief, Paul Mullen
editor Brett Winterford discusses Broadcast Australia's plan for hosting specialists Hostworks with its newly-appointed managing director, Paul Mullen.
Jun 12 2009 6:19AM
Mullen appointed Hostworks MD
Broadcast Australia has appointed insider Paul Mullen as the new managing director of its web hosting subsidiary, Hostworks.
Jun 9 2009 4:13PM
Hostworks lands Jetstar win and former Sun MD
Former Sun Microsystems Australia boss Jim Hassell has been named as interim CEO at Hostworks after the departure of founder Marty Gauvin.
Apr 9 2009 2:25PM
Hostworks CEO quits, looks to cloud computing
Hostworks' founding CEO Marty Gauvin has quit his post, citing that running the large web hosting company was "not as much fun" since it was acquired by Broadcast Australia.
Apr 2 2009 6:00AM
Digital radio is coming in 2009
Digital radio is coming to Australia. The technology will allow broadcasters to offer a range of features, such as rewind and pause functionality and multi-channelling.
Jul 17 2008 1:23PM
Broadcast Australia completes $68.9M Hostworks purchase
Broadcast Australia has completed its $68.9 million purchase of managed
service provider Hostworks Group Limited.
Mar 12 2008 7:11AM
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Category: Opera Software
Today, Opera Software has reported Q2 2010 financial results. As you will see, results are mixed up, with total revenues down 2% (Q on Q) and 4% when comparing 1H vs 2H. On the other hand, desktop browser revenue has increased by 20-30%.
• Internet Explorer 9 Launching on September 15th
IE team has just announced the launch of Internet Explorer 9 Beta that will take place in San Francisco on September 15th.
• July, 2010 – Internet Explorer, Opera, Safari Share Up; Firefox, Chrome – Down
As we enter August, it is time to yet again, check the latest market share numbers.
• Leaked IE9 Screenshots: Download Manager, Speed Dial
Earlier this week, Microsoft has confirmed Internet Explorer 9 Public Beta launch for September.
Yesterday Opera Software has announced that on July 25, 2010, Opera Mini users have generated more than 1 billion page views.
Over the last few years, Opera Mini grew significantly, processing just about 100 million page views in June 2008, it now serves more than 910 million pages per day.
“Crossing one billion pages views in a day is further proof that people desire the best Internet experience, no matter where they live or what device they use.” said Jon von Tetzchner, the co-founder of Opera Software.
• Internet Explorer 9 to be the Fastest and Safest Web Browser
Microsoft’s Chief Operating Officer, Kevin Turner has made a bold statement, saying that Internet Explorer 9 will not only be the safest…
• Firefox 3.6.8 Released
Recently Mozilla has released one more update for Firefox 3.6.x branch web browser that fixes 1 bug.
• Mozilla Bumps Cash Rewards for Security Vulnerabilities Reports
In what appears to be a great benefit for Firefox users, Mozilla has recently bumped its cash rewards salary from mere $500 to $3000.
• Firefox Home App Approved by Apple
Few weeks ago, Mozilla has submitted Firefox Home to Apple’s App Store and today, it was finally approved.
• IE6 is “Safer” than Chrome or Opera
US Bank Chase has decided to stop supporting Opera and Chrome web browsers, implying security issues and low popularity.
• June, 2010 – Internet Explorer Gains Market Share; Firefox, Opera – Loses
As yet another month has passed by, it’s time to find out, how browsers market share has evolved over past 30 days.
In yesterday’s press release, Opera Software and Russian mobile operator MegaFon, has announced a new partnership, under which MegaFon’s “Unlimited Internet with Opera Mini” package will be made available to all Russian territories (that’s more than 53 million mobile subscribers total).
Back in September 2009, MegaFon signed a similar deal that provided unlimited mobile web access to Moscow region only.
However, as press release says:


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This was a fantastic year for the graphic-novel scene in London.
It saw exciting new releases from the likes of Diana Tamblyn (From the Earth to Babylon) and Marwan El Nashar (Jinn Warriors), as well as the launch of an undergraduate graphic-novel course at Brescia University College taught by professor and comic fan Dominick Grace.
Other creators with ties to London and Southwestern Ontario were also active: Jeff Lemire launched Trillium, a limited sci-fi series that was definitely a highlight of 2013.
While the mainstream comic companies seem to be locked in a slow slide to irrelevance, inventive young talents like Lemire show there is plenty of life left in the medium.
There were other things to get excited about.
For starters, this year saw the return of Astrodog, everyone’s favourite lunar crime-fighting canine (you can read his adventures on the website of SillWill Studios).
And one of the major selling points of True Patriot, an anthology of new Canadian superhero stories, was the chapter illustrated by Fanshawe College-trained artist Andy Belanger.
Just over the border in Michigan, David Petersen released what might have been the year’s best graphic novel, The Black Axe, which is the latest instalment in the Mouse Guard series.
And getting back to Grace, he finished the year by releasing another in his series of hard-cover interview collections with major Canadian graphic-novel creators, this one featuring profiles of Chester Brown. (More on that one in a future column.) An earlier one this year featured Dave Sim. Can a book devoted to Seth be far off?
The retail scene also thrived, with stores like Ü ber Cool Stuff moving to stock even more titles and, not to blow my own horn, but the monthly graphic-novel book club I moderate in the basement of L.A. Mood picked up several new members, injecting new life and ideas into our discussions.
Don’t let anyone tell you London is a boring place.
The Forest City is at the centre of the graphic-novel world and I’m betting it stays that way for a long time to come.
Is it possible 2014 could be an even better year?
I don’t see how, but I am excited to find out.


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Luminar, the global leader in automotive lidar technology powering the introduction of highway autonomy in series production, announced today it has entered the B Sample phase for its next-generation Iris technology as it executes towards 2022 series production, initially on Volvo Cars’ SPA 2 consumer vehicle platform. The first Iris units begin shipping this week to Luminar’s lead series production partner, Volvo Cars, from Luminar’s advanced manufacturing facility in Orlando, Fla.
The milestone marks the completion of engineering validation of its Iris sensor in preparation for auto-grade deployment in series production.
“It’s an exciting moment for us to be shipping the first units and is proving out that our industry-leading technology can be brought to the consumer vehicle platforms to enable next-generation autonomy,” said Jason Wojack, Senior Vice President of Engineering at Luminar.
Luminar’s next-generation of custom laser, receiver, scanning, and chips have come together for Iris, its third iteration


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As the Region Booms, Farmers Struggle to Feed Austin Locally
A lack of farmland preservation threatens a fragile food web
By Chad Swiatecki, Fri., Feb. 24, 2023
Erin Flynn and her husband, Skip Connett, are farmers, and they're being squeezed on many sides by the Central Texas boom. Their Green Gate Farms property in Northeast Austin, which they've rented for 17 years, shrunk from 10 acres to 4 – with only 1.4 acres in production – after a California developer purchased the property with plans to convert it all into housing.
The couple, and the community of supporters Green Gate has built over the years, succeeded in convincing that developer to preserve some of the land and construct a tiny home "agrihood," where residents could enjoy more than 100 varieties of fruit and vegetables grown nearby. A handful of volunteers interested in farming visits every Saturday to help pick or plant, and nearby residents come over to purchase kale, tomatoes, onions, and other organically grown produce.
Near Bastrop, where the couple owns 32 acres, the situation is more alarming. Gravel mines and Elon Musk's Boring Co. are among the commercial interests acquiring fertile farmland along the horseshoe bend in the Colorado River between FM 969 and Texas 71. Its good soils – a combination of Houston Black clay and silty loam that easily holds water – are far more productive for growing than much of the land around Austin (especially to the north and west) that's better for grazing. However, the proximity to good water from the river also makes that land attractive for aggregate mining operations.
Farmland prices have more than tripled in the area in recent years, with sales topping $40,000 per acre – a price that's far beyond growers who want to operate organically on small holdings rather than factory farming. Flynn is actively networking with local growers to combat loss of farmland. She talks passionately about the intricate web of issues she feels are being overlooked by Austinites who take their food for granted – food waste and the loss of organic material that has to be reintroduced to the soil as purchased compost or fertilizer; the increasing distance food has to travel to stores and tables in Austin; and the fragility of the local food system in natural disasters such as Winter Storm Uri or even this month's ice storm.
"The fundamental problem is a lack of farmland preservation in Austin: a lack of funding, a lack of awareness that we need to have farmland preserved because if you don't, it's all developed. People will say we can't have farmland because we need to have affordable housing. But what we're trying to show with this agrihood is that they're actually asking the wrong question," she says.
"If Austin is going to feed itself, and deal with climate change and food security, then we need to decide where our food is going to come from. Local policy does not set aside enough farmland within Austin, but if you go to other cities, they plan differently and will have a green ring around where people live so that the food production is close."
A $2.3 Billion Gap
Flynn's concerns may come as a surprise to Austinites used to the masterful logistics of retail giant H-E-B and the abundance of options at restaurants for locavore-minded customers. But less than 1% of the food consumed in Austin and Travis County is produced here, and we spend $2.3 billion a year bringing in the rest. There are only 10 food processing facilities in the five-county Austin metro area, compared to more than 100 in the Dallas-Ft. Worth Metroplex. Every day, Travis County loses 16.8 acres of farmland to development; that means every three weeks, an area equal to Zilker Park stops producing fruit, vegetables, or livestock.
The reality of fast-growing Austin is that local farms are disappearing and being pushed increasingly far away, which means longer trips on trucks to market or to production and packaging facilities elsewhere in the state. It's been on the mind of Edwin Marty, food policy manager for Austin's Office of Sustainability, who's spent much of the past year forming the team and process to conduct the city's first-ever five-year food plan. The 25-member advisory committee began meeting in late January; the final product should be presented to City Council in 2024.
The plan will cover a broad array of food-related issues, including farmland preservation, food access and security, and the resiliency of the local food system during times of crisis. Marty spent recent months presenting to city boards and commissions and fishing for members of the advisory committee, building awareness of the often alarming realities of Central Texas' fragile food system.
Part of the problem, Marty explains, is that Austin was planned and constructed as a much smaller city than it has become; while the metro area's population has grown tenfold since the 1960s, little attention has been paid to how all those people will be fed. In recent times, as the ongoing boom has created a housing crisis, the most productive farmland in the region, in the Eastern Crescent, is increasingly vulnerable to redevelopment.
Austin's ongoing boom and current rush to build more housing "has outstripped the typical things that a large municipal community would have infrastructurewise," Marty says. "We've certainly outstripped the capacity for public transit, those kinds of pieces. But the often [over]looked components are food system infrastructure. When you look at the substantial decrease in local food production over the last 10 years, and a widening gap between the food that's consumed locally and produced locally, you have to start looking at underlying causes. Obviously, land development is one of those."
He's concerned that Austin needs more commercial kitchens and food processing and packaging facilities, along with subsidies or other economic tools to help local farmers expand their land holdings or make other capital improvements to increase production. "If we had a better-developed food infrastructure, we would most likely see more small farmers being able to survive, scale up to midsize production, and really address the local market."
The plan will be informed by data from more than a dozen previous city studies and reports, most notably the Climate Equity Plan – also produced by the Office of Sustainability – that calls for the city to reach net-zero emissions in an equitable way by 2040. Karen Magid, who sits on the new advisory committee, said the challenge in synthesizing roughly a year's worth of community feedback will be deciding what outcomes will mean the plan was successful.
She said Austin and Travis County should already be addressing short-term problems with the local food supply, such as the effect of inflation on food availability for at-risk populations. "There isn't a perfect answer for what a perfect food system looks like," said Magid, who also serves as a member of the Austin-Travis County Food Policy Board. "We know some of the directions we want to go with addressing food insecurity and getting more local power into the food system. It's important to identify and have conversations about the things we should already be doing in the short and medium term while we develop a longer-term vision, without getting overwhelmed trying to put everything into one plan."
The Business of Good Food
Austin's food planning will need to fit alongside Texas' state agricultural policies, which local producers say are still rigidly tied to the "three Cs" of cattle, corn, and cotton. While there are other significant cash crops produced throughout the state, small farmers, community gardeners, and adventurous entrepreneurs feel overlooked in an agriculture economy that's dominated by centralized factory-scale production and logistics.
Flynn chuckles with frustration recounting the five-year fight to get a state agriculture exemption on the Bastrop acreage they bought 13 years ago; Connett jokes about wealthy dentists who can keep a handful of cattle on otherwise nonproducing farmland to qualify for the exemption, which can reduce their property taxes by 90% or more. Other priorities of Texas' business leaders and politicians can also easily sideline efforts to increase food production.
Nearly a decade ago, Elgin resident Sue Beckwith, who serves as executive director of the Texas Center for Local Food, started work to open the Elgin Local Food Center, a modest commercial kitchen to bring together growers and entrepreneurs. The 10,000-square-foot center, projected to cost $1.55 million in 2019, also would have featured two training kitchens for Elgin-area students and hosted rotating food trucks selling food made on the premises.
Beckwith moved ahead with plans to open the center in downtown Elgin, with the city receiving a $95,000 technical assistance grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the city's economic development corporation pledging $800,000 in matching funds. That money never materialized, Beckwith says, as potential investors turned their attention and dollars away from Main Street and toward the two highways on the edge of Elgin.
Plans for the ELFC have now gone the way of the heavily promoted Elgin Agrarian Community, which was planned for 80 homes adjacent to a 3½-acre farm on the city's northern edge, beginning in 2017. That property is now a brewery and farm, owned by Circle Brewing.
Beckwith said she'd hoped the kitchen space could ease some of the difficulties faced by growers in the Eastern Crescent, who face longer trips to points of sale as rising land prices force them to move farther from markets. "We still churn out a lot of farmers. They stay in business for a couple of years and then stop farming, and there's a whole lot of reasons for that, but one of them is a lack of storage and processing facilities," Beckwith said. "[ELFC] wasn't designed to be like a cannery or a huge bottling plant, but the idea was to be a catalyst for further business development in the Eastern Crescent, to service the farmers and the growing population. Houses out there are $300,000, and the median income per family is about $52,000. People are spending half their money on housing and transportation, and that doesn't leave much for food, insurance, health coverage, clothes, and all the rest of it."
Beckwith's food center would have met some of the needs identified in the 2019 Feasibility Study for a Central Texas Food Hub, conducted by the Austin-based Sustainable Food Center. In addition to finding ample need for a facility that would centralize the sale and some processing of goods from the area's small and medium-sized farms, the study said those growers need greater access to farmland and labor and more planning support to coordinate planting and pricing levels to meet the needs of larger buyers.
That study laid out a path forward that included opening the Elgin facility, establishing aggregation nodes, improving support from federal farm programs, and, over a five-year span beginning in 2023, researching the potential for an area food industry cluster. Marty says pandemic challenges and regional food distributor Common Market's move into the Austin area sapped some of the ambition and enthusiasm behind the food hub.
But the demand still remains, he says, for large-scale coordination of local agriculture products so companies and organizations with large campuses throughout the area – including Austin ISD – can reliably buy simple items like organic, ethically produced chicken from local suppliers. "We've been talking for years about this mythical 6-ounce boneless skinless chicken breast. If we could get one that was grown in Texas, certified organic, certified animal welfare, certified fair labor, we know that there's a huge market for that product," Marty says.
"But it doesn't exist yet, so in part, what we need is a food hub to help negotiate that, and tell the potential chicken producers, 'This is the product that we're looking for, this is the way the institutions would need that product, and this is the price point. Now how do we help you get your system to a point where it can produce that product?'"
Cameron Molberg would certainly like to do his part to solve the chicken breast problem. Business has been good for the co-CEO of Greener Pastures Chicken, with the Elgin-based company expected to reach a 22,500 birds-per-week threshold by the end of the year. Demand for the certified organic meat products from Greener Pastures has been so strong that Molberg is weeks away from opening a new $13 million facility in Elgin that could process 25 birds per minute. That's large for an independent producer, but Molberg points out it's still less than one-tenth the capacity of a single line in a giant Tyson Foods plant, the nation's largest poultry producer.
To meet long-term demand for 45,000 birds per week, Molberg and his business partners will need more land. Elgin is feeling the land price pressure spilling over from Austin, so the company will have to look farther south and east, to farther-flung towns like Cameron and Dime Box – 50 or so miles from Austin – to be able to afford its next expansion.
Molberg said he's glad to have acquired the land he did to allow the company to serve the demand in the area, but he joins others in voicing frustration over the lack of attention paid to the region's food network, especially after it buckled and left many hungry during Winter Storm Uri. "It's always been concerning to know that we only have two to three days' supply of food for our community. We have a strategic oil reserve, so we can run our automobiles and other gas-guzzling infrastructure, but we can't feed ourselves," he said.
"We can't be reliant on these isolated institutions and these mega-factories where, if one of them goes out, next thing you know half the state of Texas doesn't have beef for eight months or a year or even longer. I've often thought that we need to diversify and have smaller production facilities and more localized distribution channels."
Going Where the Need Is?
The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in spring 2020, and Winter Storm Uri in February 2021, led some local food providers to change their entire operational models to keep meals moving toward those in need. That included Good Work Austin, a nonprofit originally formed to provide education and business resources to early-stage restaurateurs, which pivoted with COVID to use its members' idle kitchens to prepare meals for school districts, nonprofits, shelters, community centers, and other gathering places.
Three years later, restaurants continue to take on city contracts for meals needed throughout the community. Kevin Lawler, GWA's executive director, quickly and loudly offers his support of an Austin-area food hub to improve access to local products and help fill the gap in preparing badly needed meals.
"If the city or other partners had a central hub, we would certainly want to be a partner and want to support that," he said, noting that the growing distances traveled by suppliers have created regular problems with procuring ingredients. "We would really like to see the farmers, ranchers, the people growing food supported. Obviously so many of our restaurants are good supporters of local farms and there's a lot of benefit to having a strong network of local producers supporting not just our restaurant community, but the community at large."
If that hub or improved coordination among local producers ever materializes, Michelle Akindiya said it's unlikely to change many of the entrenched inequities that make local farming inaccessible to middle- and low-income residents. Worse, the economics of ethically sourced local products – grown on increasingly expensive land using fairly paid laborers and lacking economies of scale enjoyed by factory farms – mean that even if local food production greatly increased, much of that food would be too expensive for poorer residents who typically subsist on subsidized, mass-produced, imported food.
As education director for Farmshare Austin, a big part of Akindiya's job involves making those harsh realities clear for newcomers interested in taking up farming and participating in the more robust fair food system Food Share wants to create. The imbalanced economics of local food production mean Akindiya's students typically can't get food to the people they often most want to help, once they go through the time and expense of getting a new farm up and running.
"You almost have to be privileged to be able to farm," Akindiya says. People "getting into farming now, doing small-scale farming, [who] want to pay people a living wage and want to pay themselves a living wage, are forced to sell into a really high-end market. They're selling to restaurants and at specialty farmers' markets at a high price, because that's what it costs to grow and to be able to make a living. There is a market for that, because Austin is a foodie town and there is a population here that can afford to pay those premium prices for really good produce. But how do we make it more accessible to more of our neighbors?"
Akindiya sees potential in programs such as the Working Farms Fund, which purchases at-risk farmland and leases it to beginning farmers for up to five years, with an option to buy. That fund, which operates in Chicago and Atlanta, has reportedly examined making Austin one of its next regions. She hopes the reality of food access will come into clearer focus if energy and commodity prices continue to increase.
"People aren't as shell-shocked as they were, when you went to the grocery store during COVID or during the winter storm [and saw] a lot of empty spaces instead of there being food all over the place," Akindiya says. "But if we were to look at the landscape with the mindset of, 'How do we feed our population?' we would be planning much differently for the development that's coming in. It would be really interesting to understand where the prime farmland is for different kinds of farming and say, 'Here's the best place to grow food, so let's not put condos here. Let's not put a golf course here. Let's actually put a farmer here.'"
Got something to say? The Chronicle welcomes opinion pieces on any topic from the community. Submit yours now at austinchronicle.com/opinion.


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I Need My Space
In November, amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos launched an unmanned vessel near El Paso, where he has been buying thousands of acres for Blue Origin, his personal space program. Although the cone-shaped craft reportedly reached an altitude of only 285 feet, Bezos' Web site says it's designed to carry a "small number of astronauts on a suborbital journey into space."
There's something about entrepreneurs and space. Bezos is one of a small group—Microsoft's Paul Allen, PayPal's Elon Musk, Virgin Atlantic's Richard Branson, and John Carmack, creator of the game Doom, for starters—building spaceships or developing private space programs.
Some are convinced the well-heeled are itching for a moonride. Others see a market for satellite launches or a way to harness resources from other planets. Last year, the Federal Aviation Administration approved seven commercial launches. "Our overarching goal is to reduce the costs of human space transportation," says Musk, who's spent $100 million on rockets to launch satellites for his El Segundo (Calif.) company, Space Exploration Technologies. Branson has 200 reservations for suborbital flights on Virgin Galactic, launching in 2010 at $200,000 each.
Not everyone is starry-eyed. Says space analyst John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org.: "The best way to make a small fortune in space is to start out with a large fortune." It's hard for mere earthlings to disagree.
Edited by Jeremy Quittner


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Clinton Hill restaurant hosts mac-and-cheese contest
Everyone's heard of the hot dog-eating contest on Coney Island, but a Clinton Hill restaurant hosts a cheesier contest for people to sink their teeth into.
Mac Shack hosted its second annual mac and cheese-eating contest on Saturday.
The competition was divided into age groups, with contests for kids, teens and adults. Competitors got to choose which dish they wanted to chow down on: meat macaroni and cheese or vegetarian.
Owners say they started the contest last year to say thanks to the community for its support.
The winners received gift cards and more free mac and cheese.


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The company reduced from three to two the number of flat-panel iMac models. It also cut the price of the high-end model to $1,799 from $1,999 and the new entry-level model to $1,299 from $1,499.
At the same time, the high-end eMac dropped to $1,299 from $1,499 and the starter system to $999 from $1,099. The eMac line was originally intended for the education market, but several months later Apple began selling it more.
"Apple is getting aggressive, to try and get back some market share," said IDC analyst Roger Kay. "That's pretty aggressive pricing."
Still, looked at another way, the Cupertino, Calif.-based company is raising the bar for budget-minded shoppers looking for a flat-panel iMac. Before the changes, the lowest-priced model, while less powerful than its replacement, sold for $1,199.
NPDTechworld analyst Stephen Baker praised the high-end iMac, which comes with a 1GHz PowerPC G4 processor, 17-inch widescreen flat-panel monitor, 256MB of double data-rate (DDR) SDRAM, an 80GB hard drive, a 4X DVD recording drive, 64MB GeForce4 MX graphics, a 56kbps modem, 10/100 networking, USB 1.1, FireWire and Mac OS X 10.2.
"When you think of that high-quality 17-inch monitor, that's a pretty good configuration for $1,799," Baker said. "That's a lot of value."
The repricing and simplification of the consumer Mac line couldn't come any sooner for Apple, which was stung by Windows PC competitors during the fourth quarter. During that three-month period, Apple's share of the worldwide PC market dropped to 2 percent, compared with 2.3 percent during the preceding quarter, according to IDC. In the United States, Apple's share declined to 3.1 percent from 3.8 percent.
ARS analyst Toni Duboise doesn't believe the pricing changes have come soon enough. "In order for Apple to stay competitive in this market, Apple has to pull back" on its policy of keeping prices high to boost margins, she said.
For Apple, Tuesday's move was a response to consumer preferences.
"Part of our thing is, how do we keep our product line simple?" said Greg Joswiak, Apple's vice president of worldwide hardware product marketing. "What are customers voting with their pocketbooks? There seem to be two products that customers want. So the question was, how do we build our line around those two models and make them more affordable?"
IDC's Kay noted the value in that reassessment, which trims Apple's consumer product line from six major models--two eMacs and four iMacs--ranging from $1,099 to $1,999.
"This kind of takes Apple back to their original iMac, for which there was only one configuration," he said. "Apple has pruned back the product bush to what are the best-selling products."
But Baker regarded the move as risky, particularly considering "the pretty huge gap" between the $1,799 and $1,299 iMacs.
"Basically, Apple is saying there is a lot of value in the $500 price difference, and, sure, you could make a pretty good case for that," he said. "But that's an aggressive stance. That's a pretty big delta for people to make, and you have to convince them it's worth it."
Joswiak said the price difference offers "a clear delineation" between the value of the two models. "We don't want to confuse our customers, like some of our competitors do, by offering a smear of overlapping price points."Assessing value
The flat-panel iMac comes with either a 15-inch or 17-inch flat-panel monitor, which pivots off a swinging arm attached to the computer's dome base. The larger model, which also comes with a DVD recording drive, is Apple's best-selling consumer Mac.
"The 17-inch (model) became a big hit for us," Joswiak said. "We've sold more of that 17-inch since its introduction than any other consumer model we have. If we look at the second-most successful, far and away above the rest was the 15-inch combo (drive model)."
Kay said he's not surprised the 17-inch iMac is a top seller. "If you're in the 'gaga' design business, you stand to sell a lot of high-end stuff," he said.
About 50 percent of buyers choose to move up to a DVD recording model, according to Apple. Under the new pricing structure, consumers looking for a Mac with DVD recording capabilities could get an eMac for as low as $1,299 but spend no more than $1,799 for the high-end iMac. Still, Sony's Vaio Digital Studio PCV-RS100, which also packs a DVD recording drive, sells for even less than the eMac, coming in at $799 without a monitor.
"This is going to be a home run for Sony," Duboise said. "Sony is Apple's No. 1 competitor, so far as PCs go."
In fact, the Vaio PCV-RS100 is priced at the sweet spot of the market, which at retail is around $750 right now. "For the last four months, the average selling price has been under $800 every single month," Baker said.
"Our value is about having everything you need in that system, so that you can work better than on any competing system," Joswiak said. "We make things so they work very well together. Certainly our friends over at Sony have made strides in that direction. But only Apple is in the unique position to not only make the operating system (and) the hardware but also the key digital applications."
The repricing comes about a week after Appleon new Power Mac G4 computers by more than 40 percent. Power Mac is Apple's line of computers aimed at creative professionals, content creators and businesses.
On Friday, Apple alsoits iLife digital media suite, which includes iDVD 3, iMovie 3, and iTunes 3. The suite ships free on all new Macs, but otherwise costs $49.
"Adding to those two releases a revived iMac line would put Apple in a much stronger position as it tries to lure Windows users to the Mac," said Richard McPike, a Mac user and college student at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.
The iMac, along with iBook and the iPod digital music player, have anchored Apple's "switchers" campaign, which seeks to woo Windows users over to the Mac. Reducing prices and beefing up configurations would be very important for making Macs, which long have been perceived as costing more than PCs, more appealing to potential switchers.Inner beauty?
McPike described Macs as "gorgeous from the outside" but desperately "in need of an upgrade on the inside. I bought the top-of-the-line machine last January, when the new systems were announced, and since then Apple has yet to make any changes that would entice me to upgrade."
But the new top-end iMac meets McPike's wish list. "A new iMac line, with 1GHz G4 chips, AirPort Extreme compatibility, built-in Bluetooth and FireWire 800, at the same or lower price points, would be a much-needed refresh," he said, before learning about the upgrades.
Besides the faster processor, up from 800MHz in the older model, the new 17-inch iMac moves up to DDR SDRAM, doubles the graphics memory, and adds support for Bluetooth and 802.11g wireless capabilities--or what Apple calls AirPort Extreme. Bluetooth costs an extra $50 and AirPort Extreme an extra $99.
The entry-level iMac comes with an 800MHz PowerPC G4 processor, a 15-inch flat-panel monitor, 256MB of SDRAM, a 60GB hard drive, a CD-RW/DVD combo drive, 32MB GeForce2 MX graphics, a 56kbps modem, 10/100 networking, USB 1.1, FireWire and Mac OS X 10.2. But the 800MHz system supports 802.11b wireless, which at 11 megabits per second (mbps) is a fair bit slower than 802.11g wireless' 54mbps.
The eMac configurations are unchanged from earlier models. The entry-level model comes with a 700MHz PowerPC G4 processor, 128MB of SDRAM, a 40GB hard drive, a CD-RW/DVD combo drive, 32MB GeForce2 MX graphics, a 56kbps modem, 10/100 networking, USB 1.1, FireWire and Mac OS X 10.2. The $1,299 model bumps up to an 800MHz processor, 256MB of SDRAM, a 60GB hard drive and a DVD recording drive. Both eMacs are built around a 17-inch cathode-ray tube (CRT) monitor.
Overall, Apple is moving in the right direction, but it's not enough, Duboise asserted.
"They need to join the party," she said. "To join the party, you have to increase the performance and reduce price."


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The 2006-2007 Bering Sea red king crab season wrapped up its second year under the IFQ system in November. This year���s fishery operated under a 100 percent retention policy adopted by the fleet in response to problems (and a quota reduction) associated with high grading during the 2005-2006 season. Post-season reports indicate fishery managers were pleased with retention rates for this season.
The industry has been adjusting to a new world king crab market. As reported in the October bulletin, large volumes of king crab have been harvested from the Barents Sea, substantially increasing world supply. The result has been low retail prices for king crab in domestic and export markets, widely reported in the trade press. One report identified supermarket retail prices in Seattle as low as $6.99 per pound for small king crab legs and $9.99 to $11.99 per pound for large legs. Slow harvests from the Barents Sea in recent months have reportedly helped strengthen king crab markets in Japan, the primary export market for Alaska king crab. However, large inventories of Barents Sea king crab in U.S markets have kept domestic prices low.
The 2006-2007 Bristol Bay king crab fishery ended with the last delivery November 28. The harvest totaled nearly 13.9 million pounds, about 86,000 pounds short of the quota and a significant decline from the 2005-2006 season harvest of 18.3 million pounds in the Bristol Bay fishery.
The preliminary average ex-vessel price from fish tickets for the Bristol Bay red king crab fishery is $3.60 per pound, down significantly from the average price of $4.52 in the previous year���s fishery. However, it should be noted that price data for the current season is incomplete and that prices vary based on type of crab IFQ, on processor and on post-season sales activity.
Japan purchase prices reported in the trade press are $8.15 per pound C&F for brine-frozen no.1 product and $8.50 per pound for no.1 blast-frozen product. Buyers in Japan have reportedly purchased two-thirds of Bristol Bay red king crab production,
Domestic market prices for red king crab are similar. According to one trade press report, FOB Seattle value of frozen red king crab 9-12 count leg & claw ranged between $8.35-$8.85 per pound from October to December 2006. Price for the same product a year ago ranged between $9.25 - $11.25 per�� pound with November and December 2005 prices (after the Bristol Bay red crab season) at the low end of the range.


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News / Latest air freight data reveals growth in American markets – 'but at a price'
WorldACD has published another set of data, asking whether the pessimism over the air cargo ...
News / Clouds may be gathering to darken the heady days of air freight growth
Forwarders, scarred by 2017’s heady demand, may be block-booking air freight space for the second ...
News / Air freight market holding a steady course, but fuel hikes start to bite
While some of last year’s heat seems to have evaporated from the air freight market, it ...
Comment / The price is right for GSAs, but could they do better?
Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, authors of the best-selling book, Freakonomics, would have smiled at the ...
Recommends / Boost to air freight from re-stocking cycle has run its course
Lack of inventory re-stocking and a softening of global trade has seen air freight grow ...
Recommends / First-quarter air cargo volumes on the up, but yields struggle
Air cargo volumes rose 4.8% this year in the first quarter, according to the latest data ...
News / Strong start for air freight market, but trade wars and fuel price cast a shadow
As first-quarter numbers start to emerge, it looks as if air cargo has had a ...
Recommends / Air freight volumes rise 7% at top 20 airports
Air freight volumes at the top 20 cargo airports grew 6.8% last year – with ...
News / Strong start for air freight, but trade wars could start a downdraught
Growth, growth, growth. The start of 2018 has been strong in air cargo – but there ...
- 1.Panalpina shareholder hits out over decision to reject DSV takeover bid
- 2.Grab some popcorn and watch the Panalpina-DSV-Agility soap opera
- 3.Arrival of first gearless containership a turning point for DRC supply chains
- 4.Supply chain radar: don't wake me up right now – 'DHL Global Forwarding, Freight + DB Schenker being considered'
- 5.Fire-stricken APL Vancouver Singapore-bound after general average is declared
- 1. firstname.lastname@example.org on Flexport expands air network to Chicago as it looks to raise another $500m
- 2. Alex Lennane on Manston row escalates as consultant slams potential for profitable freighters
- 3. Bannerman62 on Manston row escalates as consultant slams potential for profitable freighters
- 4. Andrew on US developer's latest bid to buy Manston Airport just a 'sponsored land grab'
- 5. Ramsgate Resudent on US developer's latest bid to buy Manston Airport just a 'sponsored land grab'


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Freight Market Update: October 25, 2023
North America vessel dwell times and other updates from the global supply chain | May 17, 2023
Trends To Watch
- [Ocean - TPEB] Beginning in November, the Panama Canal Authority will further restrict the number of daily transits to 31 from the normal 36. This will bring with it the likelihood that container services will begin to see delays which they’ve been able to previously avoid. Expected delays would be in the 2-3 day range. Even with the delays, this timeline is still faster than shipping via Suez services for most Asia ports of loading. Heavy and time-critical cargo should consider routing via the U.S. or Canadian West Coast or utilizing rail or trucking services.
- [Ocean - LATAM] Brazil: The water levels in the Amazon River at its critical passage points have reached an unprecedented level, making it impossible for container vessels to access the Manaus port. Due to the unpredictable river conditions, we cannot provide a concrete forecast at this moment when Manaus will be accessible again. Ocean carriers are closely monitoring the river conditions and will communicate promptly when safe operations can resume. Moreover, the Port of Navegantes has been closed since October 4th due to adverse weather conditions while ZIM announced a GRI for all cargo from East Coast South America (including Brazil) effective November 1 at a quantum of $450/ctr. As of Oct 21, some carriers have reopened with some draft restrictions. Despite these challenges, Brazil continues in its peak season. Guatemala: The ports of Puerto Barrios and Santo Tomas de Castilla have reopened after weeks of protests caused roadblocks. Conversely, the Port of Puerto Quetzal remains closed.
North America Platform Demo | Weds, November 8 @ 12:00 pm PT / 3:00 pm ET
North America Freight Market Update Live | Thurs, November 9 @ 9:00 am PT / 12:00 pm ET
From Supply Chain Gaps to Growth | Thurs, November 16 @ 16:00 pm CET / 15:00 pm GMT
Flexport Freight Market Update Live EMEA | Tues, November 21 @ 16:00 pm CET / 15:00 pm GMT
The Week In News
Port of Long Beach Marks Its Busiest September on Record
The Port of Long Beach moved 829.4K TEUs in September, an increase of 11.8% from the same month last year, which marks the Port’s first monthly year-over-year cargo increase in 14 months. This suggests rising consumer confidence amid the holiday season and bodes well for cargo volume to rebound through the end of this year as the Port of Los Angeles also saw an increase in volume in September, with 748.4K TEUs moved––marking a 5.4% increase from the same month last year.
Strike Shuts Down Vital St Lawrence Seaway Freight Corridor
A strike has shut down the St. Lawrence Seaway freight corridor after 361 Unifor workers walked off the job Sunday, October 22, after failing to reach an agreement on wages. The St. Lawrence Seaway serves as a vital maritime trade corridor that links Montreal with the Great Lakes. The strike is expected to impact over 100 ships along the route and primarily disrupt movement toward Canadian provinces.
Forwarders Warn of Delays as Israel Air Cargo Disruption Continues
The Israel-Hamas conflict is impacting airfreight and express shipments to and from the region, leading to potential service disruptions. Multiple airlines have suspended direct flights to Israel, and most carriers are not accepting bookings for these affected routes. This situation has left goods that are already in transit stuck until further notice.
Ocean Cargo Losses: Why the Recent Increase?
Cargo Insurance: Key Factors to Consider When Selecting a Policy
Overcoming Supply Chain Transparency Hurdles With Technology


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Sungai Petani, 21 December 2020 – BiteRider, The 1st Kedah’s food delivery service provider, recently concluded it’s first expansion exercise in Malaysia. Today, the food delivery service players serve millions of foodies across major cities and major townships across the nation, while creating more jobs opportunities for local residents and local businesses alike.
BiteRider’s aims to assits more businesses across the nation to solve their delivery issues, become a strategic partner for those local businesses.
BiteRider services previously available in selected areas in Sungai Petani, Sungai Lalang, Semeling and Bedong the expansion now sees BiteRider reaching foodies in Penang Island, Bukit Mertajam, Simpang Ampat, Nibong Tebal and Kuching! At the same time, BiteRider hopes to work together with local businesses in each of these cities to make delivery much more conveniently accessible.
Through BiteRider’s platform, smaller businesses, especially in the outer-city areas are now able to accelerate their businesses. With the introduction of BiteRider in these new cities, we hope to help even more businesses nationwide, while giving users convenient access to their local and international favourites. We hope BiteRider success in becoming one of the preferred food delivery services in Malaysia is our commitment to continuously enhance BiteRider’s services to meet more users’ needs while helping businesses to grow.


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Renowned investor Jim Rogers tells how he saw China change over de past decades, and how US states like California or Massachusetts are now more communist than capitalist China, he tells at Stansberry Research.
Category Archives: intelligence
China has been checking its weaponry for the ongoing trade war and stopping the export of rare earths has been one of them. But China will have to be very selective in using this weapon, otherwise it might hurt itself more than the US, says economist Arthur Kroeber, according to CBS.
China’s leadership is still trying to figure out how to deal with US president Donald Trump. Making sense out of Trump has been harder than expected, says political analyst Victor Shih, author of Factions and Finance in China. in an extensive interview in the New Yorker.
China’s retailers, with Alibaba’s Hema at the helm, are leading the AI revolution in online and offline space. Consumer expert Ashley Dudarenok explains how AI, online and offline retail combine at a dazzling pace, at CFOinnovation.
After decades of promises for China’s economic and financial opening up, foreign companies have been careful before they start cheering. But veteran economist Arthur Kroeber, author of China’s Economy: What Everyone Needs to Know®, optimistic about the latest changes, he tells in an interview for the China Daily.
Chinese surveillance technology, especially social credit systems and facial recognition, is seen by Western media as a final end to privacy. But Tencent watcher Matthew Brennan sees this innovation works differently on the ground, in China, he explains in Metro.
The main reason for the current tech winter in China was the flush of money that has hit the industry, especially by the government, says VC veteran William Bao Bean to the BBC. A re-structuring of China’s start-ups’ scene is long overdue and that is good news for investors, he argues.
Facebook is struggling to remain relevant for its users and had a good look at China’s WeChat where group interactions are more private than the chaotic mess Facebook offers. But business analyst Ben Cavender wonders if the Chinese approach works at Facebook, he tells the South China Morning Post.