India’s Department of Biotechnology is stepping up efforts to enhance its research capabilities in food biotechnology by integrating its masters and PhD programs in food science and technology in select institutions starting from the 2008-09 academic year. Announcing this, the Union Minister for Science and Technology and Earth Sciences, Shri Kapil Sibal said that this would expand the scientific human resource pool in an area of growing interest to India—food biotechnology. The four institutions earmarked for this program are Anna University in Chennai, the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, Banaras Hindu University in Varanasi and University of Kashmir in Srinagar.
Unilever has announced it intends to appoint Paul Polman, 52, as group chief executive. He will succeed Patrick Cescau, who retires at the end of the year.
Germany's METRO Group is making plans to open its first Metro Cash & Carry wholesale store in Kazakhstan in the summer of 2009. The Group officially agreed to the investment with the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan on Wednesday, a move which will extend METRO's activities to 33 countries.
Trent Ltd, the retail arm of the Tata group in India, is likely to invest around Rs 20billion ( €0.3 billion ) over the next five years in the roll out of 50 Star Bazaar hypermarket stores, according to Indian press reports.
The recent credit crunch has led all the major supermarket chains in the UK to increase promotions of cheap, unhealthy food, according to the country's National Consuner Council (NCC).
Auchan has published half year results for the first time as a result of new European regulations governing transparency. Although there has been a slow-down in mature markets, emerging markets remained buoyant for the French company and as a result sales for the first six months of 2008 were 9.4% higher than in 2007 reaching EUR18.7 billion.
Price promotions and the decision to only partially pass on food price inflation to customers have led to a downturn in second quarter margins for Ahold. Net sales for second quarter 2008 were EUR 5.8 billion, down 0.8% from the same period last year. At constant exchange rates, net sales increased by 7.3%.
