Food Financial News

Thousands of farmers are marching in Poland’s capital to protest European Union agricultural policies and imports of cheap food from neighboring Ukraine

A fact sheet for the Household Consumption Expenditure Survey (HCES) 2022-23 has been released by India’s statistics ministry. The full report with unit-level data is awaited. It covered roughly 100,000 urban and 150,000 rural households, implying that our urban population is two-fifths of the total.

government is looking at ways to give a big push to its Bharat staples brand, under which it sells atta, rice and pulses in the retail market at subsidised rates, ahead of the general elections in April-May. «The plan is to carpet bomb Bharat brand products in every assembly constituency before the elections,» said a senior official aware of the government's plan, adding that the mandate is to take it to as many consumers as possible. The three agencies — Kendriya Bhandar, National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India (NAFED) and National Cooperative Consumers' Federation of India (NCCF) — through which the Bharat products are sold have been asked to sell 300,000-400,000 metric tonnes of rice and atta every month, said the people cited above. Equal emphasis has to be given to pulses also, they added.

Mint was the first to report NewQuest’s interest in the company. The $100 million raised includes about $50 million in primary capital, $18 million in venture debt, and the balance in secondary investments. The company has so far raised nearly $120 million from investors such as Eight Roads Ventures, US investment firm NGP Capital, Qualcomm Ventures and Mirae Asset Naver Fund, and Flipkart.

NEW DELHI : Roche Pharma India, a subsidiary of the Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche, has launched monoclonal antibody drug, Ocrevus (ocrelizumab) in India for the treatment of multiple sclerosis. The company said Ocrevus is the first disease-modifying therapy (DMT) for both relapsing multiple sclerosis (RRMS) and primary progressive multiple sclerosis (PPMS) and targets 150,000-200,000 patients diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in India. The drug is being launched in India after almost seven years of it being approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for global use.

NEW DELHI : India will not grant permission to domestic rice exporters to participate in United Nations World Food Program (WFP) tenders, a senior official told Mint, a move that risks stoking global food security concerns. This is the first time New Delhi has taken such a measure, which is yet to be announced publicly.

Mark Zuckerberg, who is on a mini-Asia tour, is currently in Japan, exploring the heritage and food of the country. The Meta chief is likely to visit Seoul and attend the pre-wedding celebrations of Anant Ambani, the youngest son of Mukesh Ambani, in Gujarat’s Jamnagar. “Mark is in Japan for a personal trip and will also meet with a few key partners while he is here," Bloomberg quoted Meta Platforms' spokesperson as saying.

By James Davey

Shop price inflation fell from 2.9% at the start of the year to 2.5% in February, the weakest pace of increase in nearly two years, according to the British Retail Consortium and NielsenIQ's latest shop prices inflation index. Consumer confidence dips for first time in three months Helen Dickinson, chief executive at the British Retail Consortium, said easing input costs for energy and fertiliser had caused the month-on-month declines in the price of fresh food, including meat, fish and fruit. Regarding non-food, she said inflation for furniture, electricals and health and beauty p...

Varun Beverages Ltd. traded 3.26 per cent down in Tuesday's trade at 02:04PM (IST). Around 391,139 shares changed hands on the counter. The scrip opened at Rs 1532.8 and touched an intraday high and low of Rs 1532.95 and Rs 1475.3, respectively, in the session so far. Shares of the company of Varun Beverages Ltd. quoted a 52-week high of Rs 1560.3 and a 52-week low of Rs 633.3.

substitutes instead of real cheese in burgers and nuggets at a McDonald's outlet last week, the state of Maharashtra will be inspecting outlets of all global fast-food chains for food regulation violations, Reuters reported citing an official. The Indian state will run a check for misleading promotion of non-cheese items as containing cheese after mcdonald's crackdown and also inspect all McDonald's outlets in Maharashtra for the same, widening its scrutiny post crackdown by the state's Food and Drug Administration (FDA). «We are planning to check all outlets of McDonald's,» Abhimanyu Kale, the FDA chief told Reuters. «We will also take action on other well-known and frequently visited global fast-food chain outlets,» he added, but declined to identify the brands being targeted.

Jubilant Foodworks Ltd. traded 0.45 per cent down in Tuesday's trade at 01:39PM (IST). Around 38,443 shares changed hands on the counter. The counter opened at Rs 489.05 and touched an intraday high and low of Rs 492.2 and Rs 480.6, respectively, in the session so far. The stock of Jubilant Foodworks Ltd. quoted a 52-week high of Rs 586.35 and a 52-week low of Rs 412.2.

Following the government's capex-push led surge in infrastructure shares such as L&T, the stock market is likely to shift its focus to the consumption story, particularly in rural India. This shift aligns with the release of the National Sample Survey Office's (NSSO) delayed monthly household expenditure survey for 2022-23, which appears to support the Bharatiya Janata Party's narrative ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. The political narrative is expected to resonate within stock market trends as well, especially since the findings of the last survey for the year 2017-18 were discarded after results leaked to the press, showing a drop in consumption levels.

Mint in an exclusive interview. The company has been conducting trials at select cafes, such as adding new items to the menu, improving food and beverage presentation, and polishing cafe design and infrastructure, Chaayos's finance chief Pranav Dahiya said. It has also begun serving drinks in ceramic cups instead of the usual paper cups at Delhi's Cyber Hub cafe as a part of its premiumisation efforts.

Investing.com-- Japanese consumer inflation fell slightly less than expected in January, although core inflation remained near a two-year low as consumer spending slowed amid pressure from weakening economic conditions. 

Umang Dairies Ltd.(up 9.55%), Future Consumer Ltd.(up 5.56%), Prataap Snacks Ltd.(up 3.62%), Bajaj Consumer Care Ltd.(up 2.75%), Euro India Fresh Foods Ltd.(up 1.54%), Dabur India Ltd.(up 1.42%), Heritage Foods Ltd.(up 1.27%), Colgate-Palmolive(India)Ltd.(up 1.26%), Parag Milk Foods Ltd.(up 1.22%) and Godrej Consumer Products Ltd.(up 1.14%) were among the top gainers.

rural poverty declining to 7.2% from 25.7% in 2011-12 and urban poverty down to 4.6% from a decade ago period, according to the new Household Consumption Expenditure Survey data. SBI Researchers estimated the new poverty line or the basic level of consumption required was Rs 1,622 for rural areas and Rs 1,929 for urban areas. “Rural Poverty has thus staged a significant 440-basis point decline since 2018-19 and Urban Poverty a 170-basis point decline post pandemic….This indicates that many

₹789 and ₹967 respectively. The Fact sheet indicates that rural and urban inflation from 2011-12 to 2022-23 recorded compounded annual rates of 5.7% and 5.6%, respectively. Hence, rural and urban poverty lines for the HCES 2022-23 are ₹1,452 and ₹1,752 per capita per month, respectively.

₹1,430 back then to ₹2,008 now at 2011-12 prices (adjusted, i.e., for inflation), and in urban India, it went up from ₹2,630 to ₹3,510. At current prices, our rural MPCE was ₹3,773, and urban, ₹6,459 in 2022-23. Given the span of a decade-plus, the gains made have been slow, but there is no evidence of the stagnancy that some critics feared.

steady at 6.5 per cent for the sixth consecutive meeting on February 8, 2024, and also decided to remain focused on the withdrawal of accommodation. In its latest minutes-of-the-meeting, RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das said that the current setting of monetary policy is moving in the right direction, with growth holding firm and inflation trending down to the target. Also Read: RBI MPC Minutes: Job on inflation front not over, ‘last mile’ of disinflation can be sticky; 5 key highlights "At this juncture, monetary policy must remain vigilant and not assume that our job on the inflation front is over.

Paytm’s imminent exit from the employee benefits market, following the regulatory action against its payments bank and mobile wallet, is set to offer an opportunity to rivals like Pluxee (formerly Sodexo), Zaggle and banks to expand their business in this space. “With Paytm Payments Bank and its wallet service being asked to stop (services) after March 15, large corporations are looking for alternative options since meal benefits are a crucial aspect of their tax compliance,” said a senior fintech industry executive in the know.