Worldwide organic food and drink sales topped US$100bn for the first time in 2018 driven by greater availability, including via out of home channels. Global sales increased by 6% to US$105bn last year, according to a new report by Ecovia Intelligence, with North America and Europe accounting for around a 90% share. Rising consumer awareness…

The Vegan Society has launched a legal challenge to EU plans to ban the use of traditional names like burger and sausage for vegan and vegetarian foods, describing the measures as “irrational” and “motivated by economic concerns”. Earlier this month, the European Parliament’s agriculture committee approved a ban on producers using nomenclature usually used for…

The use of wild fish to feed farmed fish is threatening food security and risking a collapse of marine life, according to campaigners. A new report published by the Changing Markets Foundation and Compassion in World Farming claims that the practice of harvesting millions of tonnes of fish from the wild every year to produce…

Average fines for food safety and hygiene offences have increased by nearly £5,000 since new sentencing guidelines were introduced in 2016. The sharp increase was revealed in an impact assessment published by the Sentencing Council on the introduction of new sentencing guidelines for health and safety offences, corporate manslaughter and food safety and hygiene offences…

Around 15% of all emissions resulting from the typical diet of an EU citizen can be directly linked to deforestation of tropical forests, according to new research. The link between production of certain foods – such as palm oil, beef and soy – and deforestation has long been established. However, two new studies, from Chalmers…

Cross-border food fraud cases jumped from 178 in 2017 to 234 last year, according to the EU Food Fraud Network’s annual report. In 2016 there were 157 requests for cooperation between countries. Fish and fish products had the largest number of requests (45), followed by meat and meat products (41), fats and oils (29) and…

Starbucks and Hubbub have announced a £1m “cup fund” to help kickstart disposable cup recycling in the UK. At least 10 large-scale recycling programmes, with grants of between £50,000 and £100,000 each, will be created. The money comes from the 5p that Starbucks charges customers who use single-use cups. Hubbub, an environmental charity, said there…

Italian investigators have identified a huge food fraud scandal involving balsamic vinegar. Grape must and wine products worth €15m (£12.9m), as well as numerous documents showing how provenance and authenticity credentials were falsified, were seized, according to reports in the Grocer and the Guardian. The fraudsters are suspected of “using lower grade grapes to make…

Tesco has started collecting “unrecyclable plastics” for recycling in a trial at 10 stores. Customers will be able to return everything from pet food pouches to shopping bags and crisp packets, all of which are not usually recycled by local councils at the kerbside. Last week, the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee launched a…

“Urban munchers of veggie burgers and vegan sausages be damned,” is how Politico carried the news that EU lawmakers in the Agriculture Committee of the European Parliament (AGRI) this month voted in favour of proposals to ensure terms such as “steak”, “sausage” and “burger” should be reserved exclusively for products containing meat. Rapporteur and French…