Food, in brief

On Monday, wheat for future delivery in Chicago fell toward its lowest price in four months. [1]

The most-traded contract stood at $6.01 3/4 a bushel, down 0.3%. [1]

That is nearly 25% below its high in early September. [1]

Traders expect Russia to sell more wheat abroad, and that is pulling the price down. [1]

Lower grain prices land on US farmers already paying far more for diesel and fertiliser. [10]

For buyers abroad, the slide made US wheat cheap enough to order more. [5]

Grain traders call the extra paid while a crop might fail a risk premium. [3]

Farm reports say the market continues to 'unwind the US weather risk premium'. [3]

Nobody yet knows how fast damaged Black Sea ports can be repaired. [2]

New US crop estimates come on 10 November, and Brazil's on 13 November. [4]

Wheat has fallen nearly a quarter since early September because speculators who had bet on a Black Sea shortage are selling, now that Russia ships through the Baltic and Argentina expects a big crop. [1][3]

Lower prices let them buy US wheat at a season-high pace of 31.2 million bushels in one week. [5]

They added to those bets in the week to 27 October, as the price kept falling. [1]

They sell wheat nearly 25% cheaper than in September while diesel costs far more than a year ago. [1][10]

About two dozen are feared dead after drone attacks on at least six ships off Bulgaria this month. [7]

Whether Russia's wheat exports really rise as far as forecast.

The Sea of Azov reopening came from unnamed sources, and Sovecon's 2.8 million tonnes is a forecast for October, not a count. [1][3]

All 18 crew of the Greek container ship sunk by drones off Bulgaria were rescued and taken to the port of Varna.

Argentina now expects 23.8 million tonnes of wheat, its second-largest crop on record, with harvest starting in November.

Wheat flour in Pakistan now costs 150 to 170 rupees a kilo, Dawn reports. [9]

Five years ago a kilo cost 50 rupees, says Dawn, a Pakistani newspaper. [9]

This year alone the price rose from 79 to 180 rupees a kilo, Dawn says. [9]

A roti, a flat bread, rose from 8 rupees in 2021 to 25 this year. [9]

Punjab, the province Dawn calls Pakistan's breadbasket, stopped buying wheat itself this year. [9]

It asked 11 private firms to buy and store 3 million tonnes as a reserve. [9]

Nine of the 11 never started buying, because banks would not lend to them. [9]

Together the firms bought 160,000 tonnes, against the 3 million tonne target. [9]

Punjab now holds barely 25% of the wheat it needs. [9]

Most of the wheat now sits with private stockholders, who set the price, Dawn argues. [9]

Agricultural economists call a public grain store a buffer stock: it is sold to calm prices. [9]

Punjab now releases about 3,500 tonnes a day, against a usual 25,000. [9]

Dawn says Punjab dropped its own wheat buying under pressure from lenders. [9]

Government flour is priced at 110 rupees a kilo, private flour at 150. [9]

Shops open government bags and resell the flour loose at the private price. [9]

That 40-rupee gap goes to the shops, not to families, Dawn says. [9]

Why wheat fell back while the fighting near its ports went on

War near the Black Sea ports puts wheat supply in doubt

Buyers and speculators pay extra in case grain goes missing

That extra, on top of the normal price, is the risk premium

Russia ships through the Baltic, Argentina grows more, US fields get planted

The fear fades, speculators sell, and the extra drains out

Wheat fell a quarter while drones still hit ships off Bulgaria. The price had been paying for grain that might go missing, and the grain turned up by other routes.

The extra paid for fear left the wheat price even though attacks on ships near the ports went on.

Marine insurance cost far more during the Gulf war, so rice shippers paid an extra charge for danger, as wheat buyers did in August.

Here the fear of a shortage has not faded. Punjab's own stores hold barely a quarter of its needs, so private stockholders keep flour dear for families.

A premium is only a guess about danger. If attacks on Black Sea ships start cutting real supply, the extra can come back quickly.

A wheat farmer in Kansas now gets less for each bushel than in September. A buyer in the Philippines now pays less for the same bushel.

In Pakistan the flour price went the other way, because Punjab stopped buying wheat and private stockholders now hold most of it. [9]

With the province's own stores at about a quarter of its needs, they release wheat at a price they choose, Dawn says. [9]

Whether Punjab will buy wheat from abroad to refill its stores.

Dawn says Punjab's government kept insisting the crop was inside the country, and Punjab still releases only about 3,500 tonnes a day. [9]

The Trump administration has promised US farmers $15 billion in the weeks before Tuesday's elections. [10]

More than half is an $8 billion one-time payment for soaring diesel costs. [10]

At least $5 billion is in guaranteed loans for ranchers and fishermen. [10]

The USDA, the US farm ministry, says diesel payment details come this month. [10]

It is not clear when the money will reach farmers. [10]

Diesel averaged $6.32 a gallon on Friday, 70% above a year earlier, says motor club AAA. [10]

Raymond Dietrich milks 550 cows in Wisconsin. [11]

He says the cost of hauling his milk to town is now a big worry. [11]

A farm economist at Kansas State says the payments more than cover higher fuel costs. [10]

In farm finance, a lender judges next year's loan on income that will come again. [10]

He says the payments do not fix the wider causes of high prices. [10]

AP links the high costs largely to US tariffs and the war in Iran. [10]

When the $8 billion US diesel payments reach farmers.

The USDA says details come this month, and AP reports no date for the money itself. [10]

How dear diesel really is for US farms.

AP cites $6.32 a gallon from the motor club AAA on Friday; Brownfield cites a national retail average of about $5.60, and neither explains the gap. [10][11]

UK health officials have tied 78 cases of Salmonella food poisoning to eggs from Ukraine. [12]

The cases ran from December 2024 to September 2026. [12]

England had 36 of them in 2025 and 40 this year. [12]

The eggs came from Yasensvit, one of Europe's biggest egg producers. [12]

UK health officials tested nearly 3,000 eggs while chasing a bigger, 700-patient outbreak. [12]

It found the same strain in three samples of Yasensvit eggs, by reading the germ's genes. [12]

That testing turned up this second, separate outbreak, tied to the Ukrainian eggs. [12]

Food safety scientists call this whole genome sequencing: reading a germ's full set of genes. [12]

UK food regulators told businesses to stop using eggs stamped 3UA1012066. [12]

Of the patients, 32 live in London and 24 in the East of England. [12]

Ukraine's food safety service says it will inspect the company and test its products. [12]

The eggs were sampled four days after their best-before date. [12]

Yasensvit has asked people not to draw 'premature conclusions' before all the facts are known. [12]

78 confirmed Salmonella cases since December 2024 are linked to one Ukrainian producer's eggs. [12]

How the Ukrainian eggs that made people ill reached UK kitchens.

Ukraine's food safety service has said it will inspect Yasensvit, and no result is public yet. [12]

The WHO, the UN's health agency, presents a new food tool on Monday in Nuremberg, Germany. [13]

It is meant to help governments decide on rules for ultra-processed foods. [13]

That label can mean salty chips and sugary drinks, but also whole-grain bread. [13]

US health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has made such foods a target. [13]

The EU's health commissioner, Oliver Varhelyi, has backed his push. [13]

Nobody has agreed how to define ultra-processed food, Politico reports. [13]

Brazil already tells its people to avoid such foods, and limits them in schools. [13]

The European Commission waits for a study on their health risks, due in March 2027. [13]

Campaigners want taxes, front-of-pack labels and limits on advertising to children. [13]

Public health campaigners model these on the rules used against cigarettes and alcohol. [13]

FoodDrinkEurope, the food industry's group, calls the tobacco comparison 'outrageously misleading'. [13]

Scientists still debate whether processing itself harms health, beyond fat, sugar and salt. [13]

What the WHO's food tool will say about ultra-processed food.

It is presented on Monday, and the European Commission's own study on the health risks is not due until March 2027. [13]

Pakistan shipped 420,000 tonnes of rice in September, more than Vietnam's 337,000. [14]

Vietnam is usually the world's third-biggest rice seller abroad, Dawn reports. [14]

Pakistan also earned more a tonne: $621 against Vietnam's $563. [14]

Its rice exports rose 51% by volume from July to September. [14]

That came even as the Gulf war pushed up shipping and insurance costs. [14]

Pakistan first beat Vietnam in a single month in December 2025, rice expert Hamid Malik says. [14]

Buyers kept paying for basmati, a fragrant rice, while plain rice exports fell 20% to 30%. [14]

World basmati trade held at 6.9 million tonnes, the same as in 2025. [14]

In trade, a prized product often keeps its buyers when costs rise, and basmati did. [14]

Malik says 18% to 20% more rice land, and easy fertiliser and credit, helped. [14]

Pakistan sets no guaranteed rice price; private millers buy at market rates. [14]

Its rice exports earned 37% more foreign money from July to September. [14]

Marine insurance cost far more during the Gulf war, so rice shippers paid an extra charge for danger, as wheat buyers did in August.

They earned $621 a tonne in September against Vietnam's $563, as buyers kept paying for fragrant rice. [14]

Pakistan shipped 420,000 tonnes of rice in September, more than Vietnam, usually the world's third-biggest rice exporter. Its rice exports rose 51% by volume from July to September.

Syngenta, a big seed and crop-spray maker, wants a value of at least $66 billion. [15]

It plans to sell shares in Hong Kong, probably early next year, sources told Reuters. [15]

China's state-owned Sinochem bought Syngenta for $43 billion in 2017. [15]

Its bankers value it at 15 to 20 times its expected 2026 earnings, the sources say. [15]

That would put Syngenta at $66 billion to $88 billion. [15]

It would sell 10% to 20% of itself, raising $5 billion to $10 billion. [15]

The money would pay down debt and fund new crop sprays and seeds. [15]

Syngenta is trying to look more like a biotech firm, with seeds bred to resist pests. [15]

Selling at most 20% leaves Sinochem, the state owner, in control. [15]

Three sources said the sale could still happen before the end of 2026. [15]

Too few salmon now return up Alaska's Kuskokwim River, where families fish for food. [16]

Officials often close the river to fishing, even to families who fish to eat. [16]

Villagers blame trawlers, boats that tow huge nets for pollock far offshore. [16]

Those nets also catch king salmon by accident; the waste is called bycatch. [16]

Pollock trawlers say they have caught 40,000 Alaska salmon this year. [16]

Fish is now a main issue in Alaska's close US Senate race. [16]

Democrat Mary Peltola would ban factory trawlers; Republican Senator Dan Sullivan offers a bycatch bill. [16]

The race could help decide which party controls the US Senate. [16]

Fisheries researchers have built an index of fishing villages most at risk from industrial fleets. [17]

The most vulnerable, where fishing supports many lives, are mostly in Africa and Asia. [17]

A trawlers' group says cutting pollock fishing would do little to bring salmon back. [16]

Peltola says Sullivan took over $300,000 from trawlers. [16]

Officials close the river to them when too few salmon return; villager Evon Waska says the trawlers are not closed. [16]

Brand Finance, a firm that values brands, puts Nongfu Spring's brand at $15.3 billion. [18]

Nongfu Spring is a Chinese maker of bottled water and tea, and its value rose 38%. [18]

Coca-Cola is still first at $46.1 billion, and Pepsi second at $16.8 billion. [18]

Pepsi's brand value fell $5.74 billion, from $22.5 billion, the biggest drop in the top 10. [18]

Nongfu now tops Brand Finance's brand strength score, at 89.8 out of 100. [18]

Eastroc, another Chinese firm, grew 62% to $4.99 billion, from $3.08 billion. [18]

Brand Finance says Pepsi faces shoppers who watch prices more closely. [18]

Brand Finance's strength score mixes marketing spending, how people see the brand, and business results. [18]

The ranking is Brand Finance's own estimate, made with its own method. [18]

The EU is giving almost 5.5 million euros to a project called PROFEED. [19]

It aims to grow more protein for animal feed inside Europe. [19]

Almost 96% of the high-protein feed used in Europe is imported, the European Commission says. [19]

The University of Leeds leads it, with 15 partners in eight countries. [19]

It will screen more than 130 kinds of soybean, lupin and alfalfa for future climates. [19]

Plant breeders screen many seed samples indoors first, then test the best on real farms. [19]

Then it will test them on farms, and in feed for pigs, poultry and farmed fish. [19]

It runs from October 2026 to September 2030. [19]

Imported feed leaves farms open to supply problems and swinging prices, the Commission says. [19]

13 E. coli cases may be linked to a California pumpkin patch, Food Safety News reports. [20]

Brookshire Farms in San Luis Obispo County has closed while they look for the source. [20]

This kind of E. coli can cause kidney failure; young children and older people suffer worst. [21]

In Homer Glen, Illinois, five children were taken to hospital after visiting another pumpkin farm. [20]

That farm's petting zoo is now closed. [20]

Health experts call these animal-borne germs: they pass from animals to hands and food. [21]

Cattle, sheep and goats can carry this E. coli without looking sick. [21]

The risk grows when food is cooked or eaten close to the animals. [21]

Another Food Safety News article counts 5 cases in the same county. [21]

How many people the California pumpkin patch made ill.

One Food Safety News report counts 13 cases that may be linked; another counts five, and officials have not named a source. [20][21]