Food Industry United States

Anew world of food labeling is upon us, and supermarket shoppers are about to boldly go where no consumer has gone before. Under the first major new regulations in 20 years, those venturing into markets in 1993 will find more stringent--and truthful--claims, with healthful eating the priority. For example: * No more touting corn flakes as having "no cholesterol" when it never had any cholesterol to begin with.

General Mills Inc. is betting $10.5 billion that it can revive such sagging brand names as Green Giant and Old El Paso with the acquisition of the Pillsbury unit from British food and beverage giant Diageo. Continuing the rapid consolidation in the food industry, the marriage of cross-town Minneapolis rivals announced Monday would create a food powerhouse with $13 billion in sales that executives hope would grow faster than either company would on its own.

When Don Tyson travels to Washington for his pal Bill Clinton's inauguration later this month, he'll have to leave the Oval Office to do it. Tyson, the man behind the chickens that have become emblematic of the incoming President's Arkansas roots, operates from a replica of the White House Oval Office that he ordered built at the headquarters of his Tyson Foods in the late 1970s.

Dial Corp., maker of its namesake soap and Purex laundry detergent, might sell its Armour canned-meat unit, whose lagging results have hurt the company's shares, analysts and investors said. Armour, the top-selling U.S. brand of Vienna sausages, had an estimated $250 million in sales last year. Dial warned in March that first-half earnings will fall in part because of declining Armour sales. The food business generated 17% of Dial's U.S.

In an effort to make a score in the food industry, Lasorda Foods Inc.--the spaghetti sauce maker partly owned by Dodger Manager Tommy Lasorda--agreed Tuesday to become a wholly owned subsidiary of Discovery Capital Corp. of Denver. The transaction is expected to pump up to $4 million into Irvine-based Lasorda Foods over the next year, which company officials said would be used to expand its product line, including adding dry pasta, frozen pizza and Italian salad dressing.

Tyson Foods Inc., the nation's largest poultry processor, announced a $1-billion buyout offer for Holly Farms Corp. on Tuesday, hours after Holly Farms announced it had received unsolicited buyout proposals and had activated a takeover defense. Tyson offered $45 cash and a share of its Class A common stock for each of Holly Farms 18.1 million outstanding shares. Based on Tyson's closing stock price, the deal would have an indicated value of about $1 billion.

The newfound celebrity status of Arkansas and the chicken's dramatic ascendancy have focused attention on what some consider the dark side of poultry production: * Union organizers are trying to sign up the generally ill-educated workers in poultry factories, where the pay starts at $5.50 an hour and the work--though increasingly automated--can be hard and mind-numbing.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Philip Morris, the tobacco, food and beer company, emerged as one of America's most admired corporations in this year's list in Fortune magazine, giving Merck & Co., the pharmaceutical maker, a close run for first place.

The United States has begun preparing to fire another big salvo in its trade dispute with the European Community over Europe's move Jan. 1 barring imports of American beef from animals treated with growth-inducing hormones. In a move that could escalate the skirmish substantially, the Agriculture Department has sent a letter to major European governments questioning whether they have been maintaining proper standards in inspecting European meat that is being shipped to the United States.

A federal grand jury on Tuesday indicted three former executives of the giant agricultural company Archer-Daniels-Midland Inc. on criminal price-fixing charges, including Michael D. Andreas, who ran the company's daily operations, and Mark E. Whitacre, who taped conversations as an informant for the FBI in an antitrust investigation. A former executive of a Japanese company also was indicted.

It's fitting perhaps, in a time when investors are nervous about "new-economy" and "old-economy" stocks, that the food industry--which is basic economy--should be creating excitement. It's an excitement rooted in changing lifestyles and eating habits as much as industrial patterns. Less cooking from scratch, more prepared foods, warehouse stores, bigger supermarkets and home delivery all tend to make the world's leading brands more valuable than ever.

Brokerage Merrill Lynch on Thursday added fuel to speculation that the U.S. food industry is poised for more consolidation, naming cereal and beverage company Quaker Oats (OAT) and pet food giant Ralston Purina (RAL) as prime takeover targets for European shoppers. Merrill's report on potential food targets came on the heels of last week's $18.

A plan proposed by President Clinton on Saturday would require meat-product companies to test their factories for the deadly Listeria bacterium in an effort to cut the number of illnesses and deaths it causes in half by 2005. Listeria sickens about 2,000 people a year, about the same as the E. coli bacterium. But Listeria results in death in about 25% of cases, as opposed to about 5% for E. coli.

Long-dormant U.S. food companies are suddenly being appraised like so much fine wine. An $18.4-billion offer by international food conglomerate Unilever for Bestfoods, with brands including Skippy peanut butter, Hellmann's mayonnaise and Knorrs soups, has rekindled interest in the sleepy U.S. packaged food industry. Investors were so enthusiastic Wednesday at the proposition of a wave of food company takeovers that they bid up the stocks of virtually every well-known U.S. food company.

As part of an effort to create the nation's first official definition of "organic," the Clinton administration has decided to propose a ban on genetically engineered grains in any food labeled organic, according to people who have been briefed on the rules.

The food industry, which now decides when to recall tainted products, objected Saturday to President Clinton's push for government authority to force recalls of unsafe meat and poultry. "Congress should grant [the Agriculture Department] the authority to impose civil penalties and to order mandatory recalls of unsafe meat and poultry," Clinton said in his weekly radio address.

Philip Morris Cos., the international food and tobacco giant, is gobbling up some of Europe's fine chocolates and coffee. In a $3.8-billion deal announced Friday, it agreed to buy most of Jacobs Suchard AG of Zurich, the world's No. 3 coffee and chocolate company.

A group led by Minneapolis investor Irwin L. Jacobs announced Friday a long-anticipated proposal to buy Shaklee Corp., a marketer of foods, vitamins and personal care products, in a deal valuing the company at $528 million. Jacobs has been steadily buying shares in San Francisco-based Shaklee, and his investment group already holds close to 15% of the company's 13.2 million outstanding shares. In response, Shaklee has taken steps to prevent a possible takeover attempt.

A U.S.-European tiff that started with bananas erupted into a full-fledged food fight Monday as the United States threatened to slap punitive tariffs on nearly $1 billion in European food exports if Europe doesn't drop its long-standing ban on American beef treated with growth hormones. The flare-up is the latest sign of rising world trade tension, fueled in part by an ever-growing U.S. trade deficit that soared to an all-time high in January.

More than two centuries ago, a bold young sea captain named Jonathan Carnes set sail from Salem to Sumatra to secure pepper, nutmeg and enough contacts to propel America into the lucrative spice trade. Today, the spice business has lost some of its romance: brokers negotiate with sellers via faxes, airplanes are used instead of wooden ships, taxes are no longer payable in pepper, and spice traders have all but disappeared from the docks of Salem and other New England cities.