Articles By bmurray

bmurray

Barbara Murray began covering the food manufacturing industry for Hoover’s in 2001 -- and she’s been on a diet ever since. She suspects it’s possible to gain weight by merely reading and writing about food. That’s what she tells herself anyway.

Wrong name wrongs pork industry

by Barbara Murray, April 29, 2009, 10:33 am

The little piggy went where?
Eschewing going to market, staying home, having roast beef or none, this little piggy will make you sick, might even kill you.

This thought is what the pork industry is up in arms about. Calling the latest influenza outbreak  “swine flu” has pork farmers …

Nuts to this (list of recalled foods)

by Barbara Murray, March 31, 2009, 1:11 pm

OK, that last peanut thing was bad enough. In fact, it was very bad. Now, in case you haven’t checked the news within the last day or so, it’s pistachio nuts. The little puppies, at least those distributed by the California processor Setton Farms (a subsidiary of …

The USDA’s gone COOL

by Barbara Murray, March 25, 2009, 9:43 am

A COOL government agency?  Well, kind of.  They’re acronym-ing it up over at the Department of Agriculture.  You know, the folks in Washington who are in charge of the safety of our food.

COOL stands for “country of origin labeling”: a food labeling requirement that — …

Afraid of your food? You should be.

by Barbara Murray, February 9, 2009, 11:14 am

Consider: E. coli in green onions, spinach, and ground beef; melamine in infant formula and powdered milk; and salmonella in peanut butter and the myriad of other food products peanuts are added to.

What’s next — steel shavings in apple pie?  America’s food-safety net isn’t a net at …

Handbaskets and shopping baskets full of private-label products

by Barbara Murray, January 22, 2009, 1:39 pm

We’re collectively going on a diet dictated not by well-meant New Year’s Resolutions, groaning bathroom scales, or climbing cholesterol counts, but by our wallets. According to a report released by justfood.com (a UK outfit that holds forth on all things, you guessed it, …

Jason’s Deli changes sweets in its eats; maybe you should too.

by Barbara Murray, January 9, 2009, 2:55 pm

Let’s give a cheer for Rusty Coho. Mr. Coho is the co-founder and co-owner of Jason’s Deli , a chain of some 200 US sandwich shops. Surely you’ve dined there. Or at least driven by.

The enterprise, which was founded by Coho and Joe Tortorice Jr. in …

Here We Come A-Chocolating

by Barbara Murray, December 23, 2008, 1:59 pm

The latest news from the chocolate front:

Go Tell It On the Mountain!
This just in from some Danish researchers: “Eating dark chocolate may be an efficient way to keep your weight down over Christmas.” The researchers gave 16 men either dark or milk chocolate and the ones …

Are you forsaking your Coke?

by Barbara Murray, December 11, 2008, 12:48 pm

Brand loyalty.  It’s a company’s dream, its never-ending aim, and, until recently, pretty standard in the food biz.  But we, the hungry and thirsty — but auto-loan-denied, company-Christmas-party-lacking, auto-maker-and-bank-bailing-out, waiting-for-the-new-presidential-administration, hoping-to-heaven-we-don’t-get-laid-off consumers — are passing up Green Giant canned peas, Ben & Jerry’s …

With a name like Smuckers …

by Barbara Murray, December 8, 2008, 11:55 am

OK, so Starbucks is busy telling Wall Street and Main Street — that’s all of us caffeine-deprived Christmas shoppers who can’t even afford to spend a measly $10 each on presents for our siblings this year — how it’s going to up its sagging coffee …

Are nanofoods a no-no?

by Barbara Murray, November 26, 2008, 2:56 pm

Ever see the movie Fantastic Voyage? Really, really miniaturized people floating around in the blood stream, sent on a mission to save some poohbah’s life. Great for a science fiction plot. Now it’s great for reality too, in the form of nanotechnology. Really, …