As the 28th United Nations climate summit (COP28) convenes in Dubai, sustainability and climate issues are the theme of the week, making it timely to look at the future of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). Virgin Atlantic Airlines, a long-time pioneer in renewable fuels, just made a demonstration flight from London to New York on 28 November using sustainable aviation fuel. There were no paying passengers, just company officials and guests. Virgin Atlantic has also flown planes powered by biodiesel in past years. The most recent flight was powered by a Rolls Royce engine built to use SAF, the feedstocks for which were used cooking oil, fats and grease, and synthetic kerosene made with corn. The situation: The use of vehicle tran...
What You Need to Know Today: Russia rejected calls for a ceasefire in the Black Sea, including a proposal to halt attacks on civilian shipping that could help restore grain flows from Ukrainian ports. Tyson Foods announced plans to permanently close its Joslin, Illinois, beef processing facili...
The big news in the cattle markets yesterday was Tyson Foods’ move to close two more beef plants. One of them, the Joslin, Illinois, plant was shuttered immediately after the announcement. The other, in Eagle Mountain, Utah, is a case-ready plant that does not slaughter cattle. Tyson also...
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released the Consumer Price Index (CPI) on Wednesday. In July, the CPI rose 0.1 percent, seasonally adjusted, and rose 3.4 percent over the last 12 months, not seasonally adjusted. The index for all items less food and energy, or the “core” infla...
From WPI Consulting
Communicating importance of value-added products
Facing increasing pressure to quantify the value of export promotion efforts to investors, a U.S. industry organization retained WPI to develop a quantitative model that better communicated the importance of exports. The resulting model concluded that value-added meat exports contributed $0.45 cents per bushel to the price of corn, increasing support for that sector’s financial support of WPI’s client. In addition to serving the red meat industry with this type of analysis, WPI has generated similar deliverables for the U.S. soybean and poultry/egg industries.