Food, in brief

On Thursday 17 September, a decree from Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, put the Russian businesses of Nestle and Auchan under temporary administration. [2][5]

Nestle is a Swiss company, the maker of Nescafe coffee and KitKat chocolate. Auchan is one of France's largest supermarket chains. [2][4]

Temporary administration means the two companies still own their Russian businesses on paper. A manager picked by the state runs them instead. [1][3]

That manager is LEV Management, a Moscow company registered in 2024 with little public record. [1] The same decree covered FM Logistic, BATI Group and Lemana Pro, the DIY chain once called Leroy Merlin. [5]

Nestle has six factories in Russia making coffee, pet food and baby formula, and about 7,000 staff there. [1][2] Russia brings in about 1% of its sales worldwide. [1]

Auchan stayed in Russia after the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, when many Western firms left. It had 229 stores and 24,236 staff there at the end of 2025. [1]

Its Russian shops took 127 billion roubles, about $1.5 billion, in the first half of 2026. [1]

Russia's presidential spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said both are European firms from unfriendly countries that are most actively involved in the fighting against Russia. [5] He said no decision beyond outside management had been made. [5]

Russia created this tool by decree in 2023. It was used on Danone, the French dairy company, and Carlsberg, the Danish brewer, and both businesses were later sold to new Russian owners. [1][5]

Nestle said on Friday it would take all necessary steps to protect its rights and keep its factories working for its staff. [2][4]

Western firms that left Russia in 2022 and 2023 declared more than $100 billion in losses. Some were forced to sell cheaply to buyers Russia's government approved. [4]

Why it matters. Watch whether state management is followed by a sale to a Russian buyer, which is what happened to Danone and Carlsberg after the same step. [5]

Russia is the world's biggest wheat exporter, and almost 90% of the grain it sent by sea used to leave through the Black Sea. [6] Attacks on ships and ports there cut its exports to 4.4 million tonnes in July and August, down about 31%. [6] So Ultramar, a fertiliser terminal at Ust-Luga on the Baltic, has been loading grain since August. [6] Murmansk, an Arctic port that never freezes, says it will start shipping grain in October. [6]

Why it matters. Russian Railways is giving grain trains to the north priority, with state subsidies. [6] Grain buyers in Egypt and Saudi Arabia are among those now being served from the Baltic. [6]

US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he would support stopping diesel exports, as the average US price passed $6.50 a gallon, a record. [7] The US Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, said officials were checking whether a full or partial ban would work. [7] Republicans in Iowa and Alaska had asked for it before the 3 November midterm elections. [7] The US exports about 1.3 million barrels of diesel a day, nearly a quarter of what its refineries make. [7]

Why it matters. A ban could give American drivers short-term relief. [7] It could squeeze supplies for Britain and the Netherlands, which have used American diesel to fill the gap left by sanctions on Russian fuel. [7]

Mosaic, a US maker of phosphate fertiliser, has idled two plants in Louisiana, affecting 300 families. [25] Fertiliser needs sulfur, and its price has jumped. [25] Sulfur cost $46 a ton in 2024 and more than $1,000 a tonne on the spot market in July. [25] Much of it is stuck behind the closed Strait of Hormuz, and Russia's exports are banned in many countries. [25]

Why it matters. Mosaic expects farmers to use much less phosphate fertiliser because sulfur now costs so much. [25] Oxford Economics, a forecasting firm, expects world food prices to rise another 4.8% in 2027. [25]

In Dhaka, Bangladesh's capital, Parvin Akter now sometimes waits until midnight for enough piped gas to cook dinner. [24] Bangladesh makes more than 40% of its electricity from imported liquefied gas, and Qatar once supplied 95% of it. [24] Shipments from the Gulf are disrupted. [24] Gas shipped to Asia now costs close to $30 per million British thermal units, a standard measure, against about $10 before the US-Israeli war with Iran. [24]

Why it matters. Pakistan started a fuel subsidy on Wednesday 16 September, but people must register their vehicle and phone to get it. [24] A Karachi resident said he spent days trying. [24]

Food bought in shops cost the same in August as in July, after falling 0.1% in July. [8] Over a year, grocery prices were up 2.2%. [8] Ricky Volpe, a farm economist at Cal Poly, expects prices to rise again because diesel, fertiliser and tariffs take months to reach the shelf. [8] Grocers say their profit margins averaged 2.3% since 2020, leaving little room to absorb costs. [8]

Why it matters. Volpe says higher corn prices take time to become higher shop prices, so August's pause may not last. [8] New York City plans public grocery stores selling basics 30% cheaper from 2027, and nearby shopkeepers have sued. [8]

The completo, Chile's hot dog topped with avocado, tomato and mayonnaise, used to cost 2,500 pesos, about $2.60. [15] Now it costs 3,500 to 4,000 pesos. [15] Chile's economy has shrunk for two quarters in a row, unemployment has reached 9.5% and prices rose 4.1% in a year. [15] A basic monthly food basket cost just under $100 in August, up 5%, against a minimum wage of about $580. [15]

Why it matters. Chile's central bank cut its growth forecast for 2026 to between 0.25% and 0.75%. [15] President Jose Antonio Kast has asked his ministers for a jobs emergency plan. [15]

New Zealand gives carbon credits to forests planted after 1989, and has approved nearly 9,000 square kilometres of carbon forest. [14] Forest investors can outbid sheep and beef farmers for land. [14] Since 2017 about 3,300 square kilometres of that farmland has been sold for trees, enough to feed nearly 9% of the country's sheep. [14] Grazing land prices rose 9.7%. [14]

Why it matters. In Pongaroa, a farming village, the rugby club folded in 2022 and the daycare closed in 2023 as families left. [14] New Zealand's government tightened the rules for pine on good farmland late last year, and conversions have slowed. [14]

Brendan Foley, head of McCormick, the US spice company, said this month that American shoppers are under pressure. [10] He said most of the US food industry is selling smaller amounts, as people use what is in the cupboard and cook from leftovers. [10] McCormick says that helps its own spices, sauces and hot sauce, which is now in 67.5% of US homes. [10]

Why it matters. It is a company describing its own market, so it is a claim, not a count. [10] McCormick is also combining with Unilever's food business, adding stock cubes and mayonnaise. [10]

People taking weight-loss drugs such as Ozempic are buying less food and eating smaller portions, the New York Times reported. [12] One nurse in Michigan said his grocery bill fell by 10 to 15%. [12] Hershey, the chocolate maker, says its protein bars are growing despite the drugs. [11] It is adding vitamins and protein through a partner firm and cut 90 days from the time it takes to launch a product. [11]

Why it matters. Hershey counts foods such as protein bars as one of its four areas for growth. [11] Its finance chief called that business small for now. [11]

Momofuku, a US restaurant group, launched five cooking sauces in mid-September for people to use at home. [9] Buffalo Wild Wings, a chain of wing restaurants, put three of its flavours on Pringles crisps, made by Mars. [9] Research from Bank of America found restaurant prices are still rising, but more slowly than a year ago. [9]

Why it matters. Restaurant prices have risen faster than grocery prices since before the pandemic. [9] Chains keep launching supermarket products even as more people eat out again. [9]

South Korea charges households by the weight of their food scraps, using smart bins in 8.61 million homes. [13] Its food waste recycling rate rose from 2.6% in 1996 to nearly 97% in 2023. [13] New York City made food waste separation compulsory in October 2024 and has issued more than 63,000 violation notices. [13] It collected about 140,000 tonnes in 2025, roughly 9% of what households throw out. [13]

Why it matters. Scraps in a landfill give off methane, a gas that warms the planet over 80 times more than carbon dioxide in 20 years. [13] South Korea turns its scraps into power instead. [13]

The US agriculture department announced on 18 September $26.5 million in grants for 194 farm projects. [23] The money helps farmers turn what they grow into their own products and sell them directly. [23] Of it, $11.6 million goes to 80 beef projects. [23] The agriculture secretary, Brooke Rollins, called it an investment in the country's cattle herd. [23]

Why it matters. The department says the grants help farmers cut out the middleman and keep more of the money in rural towns. [23]

A study in Nature Climate Change looked at four decades of US farm data. [18] It found that genetically engineered corn, soybeans and cotton raised average yields. [18] They also made yields swing less from one year to the next. [18] And they slowed the northward drift of where crops are grown as the climate warms. [18]

Why it matters. We could read only the summary, not the full paper, so the size of each effect is not given here. [18]

Biographica, a British start-up that uses computer models to find which genes shape a crop trait, is working with Hudson River Biotechnology, a Dutch gene-editing firm. [17] Biographica picks the genes and designs the edits; Hudson River makes the edited plants. [17] They will start with tomatoes and aim at traits such as disease resistance. [17]

Why it matters. Its co-founder says it can help breeders get around genes already covered by other companies' patents. [17]

INFOODMATION, a project paid for by the European Union, studied 322 possibly misleading food messages from 13 European countries. [16] It also read more than 540,000 posts by popular influencers. [16] It found three common tricks: badges that look official, paid adverts dressed as news, and scary or nostalgic words. [16] The most common problem was claims that were partly true, not outright lies. [16]

Why it matters. The researchers found no widespread law-breaking, only firms working in unclear areas the law does not settle. [16]

Online sales of dairy in the US have grown about 20% a year for four years, Circana, a market research firm, found. [22] Online shopping made up all of dairy's sales growth, meaning shop sales fell. [22] About 12.7% of the $19.7 billion of milk sold went through online orders. [22] Amazon said its shoppers buying fresh food rose 50% this year. [22]

Why it matters. Fresh food used to be the thing people insisted on buying in person. [22] Ice cream is still mostly bought in shops because it can melt on the way. [22]

Walovi, a Chinese maker of herbal tea drinks, has opened its international headquarters in Singapore. [20][21] Its exports to Vietnam, Cambodia and Malaysia each doubled in the first half of 2026. [20] It launched an energy drink made with ginseng outside China for the first time. [20]

Why it matters. It signed Baosteel Packaging to make its drinks in Vietnam, Malaysia and Cambodia. [20] Southeast Asia is now its fastest-growing market outside China. [20]

Researchers studied soil and plant remains in the Maya lowlands of Belize, Guatemala and southern Mexico. [19] About 6,000 years ago, people grew crops at the edges of wetlands. [19] By about 3,500 years ago they were growing maize on higher, drier land away from the wetlands. [19] The researchers link the move to a dry period and a growing population. [19]

Why it matters. It is an early record of farmers changing where they grow food after a dry spell. [19]