U.S. and Japanese trade negotiators reportedly met three times during Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) talks in Guam on the issue of access for American rice. Healthfulness Confusion The exploitation of consumer ignorance about agriculture and food production practices and healthfulness continues. Jelly Belly, maker of gourmet jelly beans, announced that it would switch to all organic ingredients. A serving of jelly beans is basically 24-29 grams of sugar. In addition to implying the healthfulness of the product due to being organic, it is marketed as gluten-free and vegetarian friendly.Meanwhile, Yum Brands announced that it would remove artificial flavors and colorings from Pizza Hut pizzas and Taco Bell products. The company's popular P...
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.