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Boar’s Head Hit With Consumer Lawsuit After Deli Meat Recall Over Listeria Concerns
Boar’s Head Provisions was hit with a proposed consumer class action lawsuit in New York federal court on Thursday, a day after it expanded its recall to more than seven million pounds of deli meats and other products over concerns that they are contaminated with potentially deadly listeria bacteria.
In the lawsuit, filed in Brooklyn, Boar’s Head customer Rita Torres says she purchased one of the recalled products but would have avoided it had the company warned consumers about the possible contamination. The lawsuit appears to be the first proposed class action filed in the wake of the recalls, according to court records.
Torres, who is seeking to represent a nationwide class of Boar’s Head customers who purchased the recalled products, is seeking unspecified monetary damages.
Representatives for Boar’s Head did not immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did attorneys for the proposed class. Boar’s Head, a family-owned company founded in 1905, sells products in grocery stores nationwide and outside the U.S.
Soda Tax Associated With Drop in Children’s Weight
Young people living in four Northern California cities that began taxing sugar-sweetened beverages had lower body mass index (BMI) percentiles compared with young people living in cities without the tax, a new Kaiser Permanente study in JAMA Network Open shows.
The researchers studied more than 390,000 children and teens (aged 2 to 19) who were Kaiser Permanente members between 2009 and 2020. They compared four cities with sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) taxes — Albany, Berkeley, Oakland and San Francisco — with 40 California cities without SSB taxes.
They found youth in the cities with SSB taxes had an overall 1.64 percentage point lower average BMI percentile after tax approval. BMI percentile is a calculation that takes into account a child’s weight and height, compared with others of their age and sex.
Examining Corporate Influence Over Food and Farm Bill
The Union of Concerned Scientists recently released a report analyzing the influence of lobbying on food and agriculture systems. The report finds that agribusinesses, industry associations, and other interest groups have spent more than $500 million to influence legislation, including the Farm Bill, from 2019-2023.
The Farm Bill is an omnibus bill that covers issues across food and agriculture systems including financial credit for farmers, resource conservation and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. It is renewed approximately every five years by Congress. The current Farm Bill, which expired in September 2023, was extended for an additional year.
Over the last five years, agribusiness annual lobbying expenditures “have risen 22 percent, from $145 in 2019 to million to $177 million in 2023,” the report states.
Big Food Pays Dividends to Wealthy Investors After Price-Gouging Customers
New analysis from government watchdog Accountable.US revealed today major food chains Starbucks and Kraft Heinz increased spending on shareholder dividends and stock buybacks while raising prices on millions of American customers.
These brands saw overall earnings decline as customers continue to push back against excessive price hikes. Earlier this month, the Consumer Price Index report confirmed that even as inflation cools, price gouging in the food industry remains a major driver of high costs.
Starbucks, which has increased prices at least three times since October 2021, increased stock buybacks by 81% and dividends by 6% in the first three quarters of its FY 2024, when it saw net income fall by nearly 2% — including an 8% drop in Q3 2024 net income.
Despite Kraft Heinz — which has raised prices by an average of 8.1 percentage points over the past three years — seeing its net income decrease 51% for the first six months of 2024, the company has spent $969 million on dividends and $537 million on stock buybacks so far this year, with buybacks increasing 1,313% from 2023.
Insect-Based Pet Foods Get Thumbs up From Pet Owners
Some 62% of cat owners and 52% of dog owners believe that insect-based pet foods are an effective alternative to traditional pet foods, particularly when sustainability considerations are taken into account, a new study has found.
The study, “Assessing Pet Owners’ Willingness to Embrace Insects in Pet Food,” was authored by researchers at Ghent University, and published in the Journal of Animal Physiology and Animal Nutrition.
“Alternative diets for pets have gained attention in recent years due to concerns about sustainability and environmental impact,” the authors stated in their abstract.
“One emerging option is the inclusion of edible insects in pet food. This study aimed to survey dog and cat owners regarding their willingness to feed insect‐based pet food to their pets and to identify potential motivating factors.”
Eating More Processed Red Meat Is Linked to an Increased Risk of Dementia, Study Suggests
A diet rich in processed red meat is linked to an increased risk of dementia, according to new research presented Wednesday at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference in Philadelphia.
The findings, which have not yet been peer-reviewed, are the result of a four-decade study of more than 130,000 adults that looked at the link between diet and cognition.
“This is one of the most robust studies I’ve seen that’s associating processed meat consumption and dementia, because they actually followed individuals for decades,” said Dr. Maria Carrillo, the chief science officer of the Alzheimer’s Association.
The researchers found that the people in the study who ate at least two servings per week of processed red meat (such as bacon, bologna or hot dogs) had a 14% increased risk of dementia, compared to those who ate less than three servings per month, after the 43-year follow-up period.
