The UK Food Standards Agency has set new targets for salt reduction which, predictably, the food industry warns will be hard to achieve.

Microbiologists at Oregon State University have developed a new technology to detect illness-causing bacteria – an advance that could revolutionize the food industry, improving the actual protection to consumers while avoiding the costly waste and massive recalls of products that are suspected of bacterial contamination but are perfectly safe.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon plans to urge world leaders on Tuesday to immediately suspend or eliminate many price controls and other agricultural trade restrictions in an urgent appeal to bring down soaring food prices.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said during a spring planting inspection in the northern Hebei Province on Saturday and Sunday that the Chinese people were fully capable of feeding themselves.

Asia has built much of its success on cheap, plentiful rice. But the supply of the region's most important food crop is declining steadily, and prices are going up - putting a strain on the region's poor. However, rice researchers say the situation is not hopeless, as Claudia Blume reports from VOA's Asia News Center in Hong Kong.

Although food prices rose 4.8% last year, eating nutritiously is still well within reach of the American family, according to the latest U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) statistics. Analysis done by USDA's Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion (CNPP) indicates that families could, in fact, spend even less on food than what they currently spend and eat a healthier more nutritious diet.

According to researchers at the University of Minnesota, the food industry has made progress in reducing the trans fat content in its products since a 2003 labeling mandate by the Food and Drug Administration, but consumers should still read labels to be certain the products are trans fat-free.

A supermarket chain says it will not allow genetically-modified (GM) food in its home brand range in South Australia, because an overwhelming number of customers are opposed to GM foods.

Peanut husks, one of the biggest food industry waste products, could be used to extract environmentally damaging copper ions from waste water, according to researchers in Turkey. Writing in the Inderscience publication the International Journal of Environment and Pollution, the team describes how this readily available waste material can be used to extract toxic copper ions from waste water.

In the light of growing concerns about the separation of producers and consumers in our food system and the power of big supermarkets, new research funded by Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) provides valuable insights into the motivations and practices of consumers and producers involved in ‘alternative food’ networks, which include schemes as varied as organic vegetable boxes, community gardens and farm animal adoption.

Food scientists and material scientists agree that the primary purpose of food packaging is to protect the food. Once that is accomplished, the package has to protect sensory quality.

Wendy's International Inc.'s representatives said on Monday that it is exploring a possible sale of the company, the nation's third-largest hamburger chain, as it warned that profits for the year would fall short of Wall Street expectations.