Baby Food

Major baby-food makers such as Dole Food Co., Del Monte Foods Co. and Nestle's Gerber business are going to court Monday to determine whether they need to warn consumers of certain lead levels in their products. In a 2011 lawsuit, the Environmental Law Foundation alleged that some of the companies' foods and juices -- which included ingredients such as carrots, peaches, pears and sweet potatoes -- contained enough lead to warrant a consumer caution label under California's Proposition 65 toxins warning law. A non-jury trial in the case is set to begin Monday in state Superior Court in Oakland.

In 2011, Rob Spiro, Alon Salant and their team of techies launched a San Francisco-based start-up called Good Eggs . What was initially a software system for farmers to sell directly to customers turned into an online storefront that features picked- and prepared-to-order goods from numerous local farmers and food-makers.  With a mission to “grow and sustain local food systems” and a board of advisors that includes Alice Waters and Bi-Rite founder...

ANAHEIM -- Baby food is no longer just mushy, creamy, bland stuff in little jars. That couldn't be more apparent at the Natural Products Expo. Manufacturers are now promoting baby food enhanced with probiotics, vitamins and minerals and "hidden" vegetables. One maker of premier, healthy baby foods -- Happy Baby -- has grown from being in five stores three years ago to 5,000 today. Gerber, that old standby, has a line of certified-organic products such as organic brown rice.

Major baby-food makers such as Dole Food Co., Del Monte Foods Co. and Nestle's Gerber business are going to court Monday to determine whether they need to warn consumers of certain lead levels in their products. In a 2011 lawsuit, the Environmental Law Foundation alleged that some of the companies' foods and juices -- which included ingredients such as carrots, peaches, pears and sweet potatoes -- contained enough lead to warrant a consumer caution label under California's Proposition 65 toxins warning law. A non-jury trial in the case is set to begin Monday in state Superior Court in Oakland.

Swiss food and nutrition giant Nestle will shell out $11.9 billion to buy Pfizer's nutrition unit, which owns baby food brands such as SMA and Promil. The division is expected to reel in $2.4 billion in sales this year and gets 85% of its revenue from emerging markets, whose large and rapidly growing populations are a key target for Nestle. The Pfizer infant formula business is the fifth largest in the world, according to research group Euromonitor International, ranked behind Nestle, Mead-Johnson Nutrition Co., Groupe Danone and Abbot Laboritories.

The European Union banned imports of baby food containing Chinese milk. The 27-nation EU joined a growing list of countries that have banned or recalled Chinese dairy products because of melamine contamination, which has killed four Chinese babies and sickened 54,000.

The drop has occurred since complaints of glass in its baby food products began surfacing in mid-February, Chairman William L. McKinley said. "There's no question we have lost some sales and have spent a lot of money to reassure parents," McKinley told a meeting of investment analysts. Gerber, the nation's largest producer of baby food, will not know for several weeks exactly how the glass scare has affected sales in its fourth quarter, which ends March 31.

Police say a 15-year-old who put a straight pin in a jar of his family's baby food apparently did it to get some attention, solving the last of three food-tampering cases reported in the state within a week. There were no injuries in any of the cases. A Jacksonville family reported Monday that they had found a pin in a jar of baby food. Jacksonville Police Chief Thomas Weeks said Thursday that after investigators interviewed the family extensively, the 15-year-old son admitted placing the straight pin in the jar. The Jacksonville incident followed one in Springfield in which a baby-sitter trying to impress her employers said last Friday that she found pins in two jars of baby food.

Baby food and formula for infants whose families were left homeless by Hurricane Andrew will be collected today through Friday at Humana Hospital-West Anaheim. Hospital spokeswoman Debra Culver said American Red Cross officials in south Florida told them that they have a shortage of food for the hurricane's youngest victims. Donations can be dropped off in the hospital's cafeteria between 8:30 a.m. and 4 p.m., she said. Hurricane Andrew struck the Miami area almost two weeks ago.

Groupe Danone, the maker of Dannon yogurt and Evian water, aims to strengthen its baby food business, bidding Monday to buy Royal Numico for $16.8 billion. The addition of Numico would make French-based food giant Danone one of the world's largest players in the $24-billion baby food industry, which experts expect to grow 25% by 2010.

Pfizer Inc., the largest drug maker in the U.S., is planning to spin off its animal health unit into a separate company, named Zoetis, that will be partially owned by shareholders. Let's deal with the name first. Zoetis derives from the root "zo," which means "pertaining to life" and is found in words such as "zoo" and "zoetic," Pfizer said. The name is starting to draw comparisons to Mondelez, Kraft Foods' new name for its spinoff snacks unit. Both are kind of hard to say. Zoetis is pronounced "zo-AY-tis," while Mondelez, which means "delicious world," is "mohn-da-LEEZ.

General Mills Inc. will get rid of 850 jobs in an attempt to cut costs and boost productivity as items such as Cheerios cereal, Progresso soups and Hamburger Helper become costlier to make. The downsizing will affect 2.4% of the Minneapolis company's workforce of 35,000 people. Including employee severance, General Mills expects $109 million in pretax restructuring charges. Of that, $94 million will be recorded in the fourth quarter, which ends May 27. The company said the restructuring effort is meant to help “improve organizational effectiveness and focus on key growth strategies.” General Mills spokeswoman Kristie Foster said that the timing of the layoffs will vary, but that “most individual decisions will be communicated in the coming weeks.” About half of the cuts will come from the Minneapolis headquarters; across the company, administrative and support positions will be most affected.

Swiss food and nutrition giant Nestle will shell out $11.9 billion to buy Pfizer's nutrition unit, which owns baby food brands such as SMA and Promil. The division is expected to reel in $2.4 billion in sales this year and gets 85% of its revenue from emerging markets, whose large and rapidly growing populations are a key target for Nestle. The Pfizer infant formula business is the fifth largest in the world, according to research group Euromonitor International, ranked behind Nestle, Mead-Johnson Nutrition Co., Groupe Danone and Abbot Laboritories.

Remember chia pets? Rinsing your hair with beer? Food that's just food - no soy protein isolate, xanthan gum, red dye No. 40 or mystery ingredients from the Amazon rain forest? Well, chia is back, big time (the seeds, not the chia pets). And so is regular old food. We recently spent hours plodding the floors - along with 60,000 others - at the Natural Products Expo in Anaheim, the biggest health food trade show in the world. The overarching theme we saw: What's old is new again. Your grandmother would recognize a lot of these hot trends: Foods produced by local farmers.

Feeding young babies solid foods such as crackers, cereals and bread, which tend to be high in salt, may set them up for a lifelong preference for salt, researchers reported Tuesday. The study, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, suggests that efforts to reduce salt intake among Americans should begin early in life. It is even possible, the authors said, that infancy contains a "sensitivity window" in which exposure to certain foods and tastes programs the brain to desire them in the future.

ANAHEIM -- Baby food is no longer just mushy, creamy, bland stuff in little jars. That couldn't be more apparent at the Natural Products Expo. Manufacturers are now promoting baby food enhanced with probiotics, vitamins and minerals and "hidden" vegetables. One maker of premier, healthy baby foods -- Happy Baby -- has grown from being in five stores three years ago to 5,000 today. Gerber, that old standby, has a line of certified-organic products such as organic brown rice.

The Beech Nut Nutrition Corp. is voluntarily recalling 6,051 cases of mixed-cereal baby food because the cereal may contain lead paint chips, company officials said. The cereal--Beech Nut Stage 2 mixed cereal--is fed to infants between the ages of 6 months and 9 months. The federal Food and Drug Administration announced the recall Wednesday in Washington.

More than half the name-brand baby foods selected at random from stores in three cities contained small amounts of pesticide residue that could pose health risks to infants even though the levels are "well below" government limits, a report by two environmental groups said Tuesday.

Beginning today, women and children who receive food vouchers through the federal government's WIC program will be able to use them to buy fresh fruits and vegetables. "It's a really welcome change," said Gail Harrison, a public health professor at UCLA who was on the national Institute of Medicine panel that recommended the revisions to the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children - the first major change in the program since it began in the 1970s.

The European Union banned imports of baby food containing Chinese milk. The 27-nation EU joined a growing list of countries that have banned or recalled Chinese dairy products because of melamine contamination, which has killed four Chinese babies and sickened 54,000.