Kraft Foods

When You Gotta Go: Life can be tough for a dog with a full bladder. Unless there's a doggy door, the pooch has to bark, whine or repeatedly hurl itself into a wall to draw attention to its plight. But that's changing. Now there's Patio Park, a new canine portable potty that consists of a 2-by-4-foot piece of artificial grass with a small fire hydrant, set in a plastic pan. It's just one of many products going on display later this month at America's Family Pet Expo at the L.A.

portland, ore. -- A food industry group is voluntarily halting promotion of its nutrition labeling program after federal regulators said such systems may be misleading consumers, officials with the group said today. Industry leaders launched the "Smart Choices" program in August to identify foods that meet certain nutritional standards and then highlight them for consumers with a green label on package fronts. But the Food and Drug Administration said Tuesday that there were so many labeling programs with different criteria that they may mislead consumers about the health benefits of certain foods.

On holiday with my family this week on China's resort island of Hainan, one of the first things I did after checking in to our hotel room was ask the duty manager: What kind of milk do you serve? A few minutes later, a man named Jimmy from the hotel's food-service staff called. Don't worry, he said, the hotel serves only fresh milk. "We carefully check our supplier," he said. It may seem odd to be obsessing over dairy products, but that's now common for my family and many others living in China.

Just 18 months after acquiring Cadbury, Kraft Foods is breaking up. The Northfield, Ill.-based conglomerate, the world's second-largest food company, said it will divide itself into two publicly-traded companies next year: a $16 billion North American grocery business, and a $32 billion global snacking business. Both companies are expected to be based in Chicago. The division would establish Kraft's North American grocery business as a separate company, with brands like Kraft Macaroni & Cheese, Philadelphia Cream Cheese, Maxwell House coffee and Oscar Mayer hot dogs and meats.

First Lady Michelle Obama on Tuesday launched "Let's Move," a public awareness campaign aimed at conquering childhood obesity, and announced early support for her initiative from the food and beverage industry and the nation's pediatricians, among others. Obama, speaking from the State Dining Room surrounded by schoolchildren, said that 1 in 3 children in the U.S. are overweight or obese and that pediatricians are seeing more cases of high blood pressure, high cholesterol and Type 2 diabetes.

Kraft Foods Inc.'s $19.4-billion deal, reached Tuesday, to buy British candy giant Cadbury signals that big companies are gaining enough confidence in the economy to once again undertake major mergers. The uptick in mergers and acquisitions among large companies is an indication that the nascent economic rebound is gaining steam, as well as a welcome sight on Wall Street where investment bankers thrive on fat advisory fees, experts said. "It's an encouraging sign for the economy," said Peter Morici, an economist at the University of Maryland.

A few years ago, a lobbyist offered to help state Rep. Carol Donovan visit the big, four-smokestacked factory off Route 93, a few miles north of Boston. But when Donovan appeared as scheduled, she was told she would not be given a tour. All she saw was the inside of a conference room. "If there's nothing going on, why are they so protective, and why are they keeping everyone out, and why are they so suspicious?" she asked. "It makes me suspicious of what's going on."

It's not all doom and gloom in the U.S. economy. Some products are bucking the recession and flying off store shelves. Sales of chocolate and running shoes are up. Wine drinkers haven't stopped sipping; they just seem to be choosing cheaper vintages. Gold coins are selling like hot cakes. So are gardening seeds. Tanning products are piling up in shopping carts; maybe more people are finding color in a bottle than from sun-worshiping on a faraway beach. Strong sales of Spam, Dinty Moore stew and chili helped Hormel Foods Corp.

It's not just chocolate but memories that are made in this genteel company town founded when Victoria reigned. Take the Cadbury Flake, which for many Brits conjures up childhood images of an afternoon at the seaside, with a flaky spear of chocolate stuck into a dripping vanilla cone. Or Cadbury Creme Eggs, so rich and gooey they make your teeth hurt, now as much an Easter tradition in Britain as bonnets, bunnies and ham. Or the Milk Tray assortment, which gray-haired pensioners who remember Cadbury's wartime "Ration Chocolate" buy for their grandkids.