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On the occasion of its 75th Anniversary and the 3rd World Statistics Day, FAO is publishing today its revamped Statistical Yearbook, which weighs in at 366 pages this year and also offers digital interactivity and downloadable data sets for the first time.

Drones have already shown that they can reliably deliver vital shipments of blood across Rwanda, drop off prescriptions to senior citizens in Florida, and help quarantining families stay safe with contactless deliveries. Now they’re going to be buzzi...

16 October 2020, Rome - Today, World Food Day marks the 75^th anniversary of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations.

Born on the wake of catastrophe - World War II, three-quarters of a century later, FAO's mission to end hunger and nourish the world has been made more relevant because of another global scourge - the COVID-19 pandemic, said QU Dongyu, FAO Director-General.

Along the way, the world, and with it FAO, went from growing more food, to getting attuned to its environmental footprints, setting up regulatory frameworks in response, getting animal diseases under control, and, finally, seeing the fight against hunger as inseparable from other development goals.  

Hence, also, this year's World Food Day's theme: grow, nourish, and sustain. Together. 

"The present moment is again fraught with danger, complicated, and demands urgent action. As hunger grows once more, as the COVID-19 pandemic exposes the fragility of our food systems, history is calling upon us once more to rise to the challenge," urged Qu.

Loblaw is committing an additional $1 million to onboard its banner stores onto Second Harvest's FoodRescue.ca platform, which helps eliminate food waste and support local communities. 

Loblaw and Second Harvest, Canada's largest food rescue organization, have been partners for 35 years. There are currently 156 Loblaw locations using the FoodRescue.ca platform in Ontario and British Columbia. To date, these stores have used the platform to donate enough surplus unsold food to provide more than 500,000 meals to their local communities, and in doing so have prevented the release of more than 2.8 million kilograms of greenhouse gases.

Einride recently revealed its revamped autonomous delivery truck, which is more aerodynamic than the previous version. To give a glimpse of the Pod in action, the Einride team put the AV through its paces on the Top Gear track in Surrey, England.It’s...

Your Amazon Prime Day packages will look different than the boxes you're used to -- and they'll come with an unexpected surprise.

Promoting innovation and applying digital technologies in agri-food systems, as well as reducing food loss and waste, are vital to step up the fight against hunger and poverty. This was FAO’s main message at the opening of the High-Level Special Event on Strengthening Global Governance of Food Security and Nutrition.

COVID-19 has upended food retailers’ lives in dramatic ways. New social-distancing and sanitation requirements, along with supply-chain shortages, have counterbalanced some sales increases — putting pressures on grocers’ already narrow margins.

Against this backdrop, are there ways for food retailers to save money? The answer is a definite yes.

Amazon is working on a fix for a problem that challenged food retailers earlier in the pandemic — long virtual lines for grocery delivery spots for online shoppers.

According to an interview that Stephanie Landry, Amazon’s VP of grocery, gave to Recode, “Amazon has now come up with a solution if there are large spikes in demand this fall and winter, whether because of a jump in COVID-19 cases, a surge in other illnesses (like the flu), or bad weather.”

Amazon’s fleet of delivery trucks is finally getting a little greener. This morning, the e-commerce titan revealed its first custom electric delivery vehicle: A big, surprisingly cutesy van built in partnership with electric transport startup Rivian....

The food delivery space just became a bit more interesting.

Lyft has launched an offering that enables members of its Lyft Pink discount program to receive free unlimited Grubhub food deliveries. More specifically, Lyft Pink members — who pay $19.99 per month for 15% percent off rides — will be enrolled in the Grubhub+ membership program, which normally costs $9.99 per month.

Shipt is hiring an additional 100,000 shoppers this holiday season amid unrelenting demand for grocery delivery from the American consumer.

The new hiring push will bring the company's personal shopper base to over 300,000 (rival Instacart has amassed an army of 750,000 shoppers this year.)

In particular, Shipt is looking for shoppers in Detroit, Grand Rapids, Mich., Minneapolis/St. Paul, New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Houston and Chicago. 

Online grocery pickup isn’t going away.

As grocery e-commerce grows, food retailers need better ways to pick online orders

Bread in Subway's hot sandwiches contains too much sugar to meet Ireland's legal definition for bread, the country's Supreme Court has ruled.

The higher adoption of online shopping during the COVID-19 pandemic has naturally led to retooled strategies for capturing consumers’ breakfast dollars.

“We’ve created new subcategories in our taxonomy to make these items intuitive to find,” notes Scott Crawford, chief merchandising officer at Bronx, New York-based FreshDirect, which as a pure-play e-grocer, is somewhat ahead of the game in this area. “Email and social have also been scheduled to assist with the outreach. 

“Additionally, we are leveraging our shoppable homepage to offer relevant content to our customers and highlight the breakfast solutions available on FreshDirect across all categories, from our in-house prepared foods, to frozen aisle breakfast items, to multiserve yogurts and traditional breakfast cereals,” he continues. “We are also creating themed content pieces to align with reopening of schools and offices via a unique ‘Back to Routine’ landing page, including a breakfast module.”

Biodiversity underpins most of the world’s economic activities, particularly in the agri-food sector, so the pace of its erosion must be contrasted with holistic and collective efforts, FAO Director-General QU Dongyu said at UN Summit on Biodiversity.

"Its loss undermines global efforts to tackle poverty and hunger - no biodiversity, no food diversity," he said in a video address to the UN Summit on Biodiversity.

Qu spoke on behalf of several UN agencies and represented the United Nations system while participating in a Leaders Dialogue on how to mainstream biodiversity issues into the broader drive for sustainable development. The panel was co-chaired by Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and Prime Minister Imran Khan of Pakistan, while interventions were made by more than a dozen heads of government or state from countries such as Belize, Kyrgyzstan and Zambia, along with UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay and the heads of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the International Parliamentary Union and WWF International.

Del Monte Fresh Produce has launched its first e-commerce website with same-day delivery in the Dallas market — another signal that direct-to-consumer (DTC) commerce is picking up steam during the pandemic.

As of Tuesday, consumers can visit www.myfreshdelmonte.com to place orders for delivery. With more than 200 available SKUs from both Fresh Del Monte and Mann Packing Co. products, Dallas-based shoppers will be able to fill their virtual carts with fruits and veggies.

To promote the launch, Fresh Del Monte will add an order of lemons and send a lemonade recipe with each delivery placed through its new DTC website through the end of October. The promotion is limited one per customer while supplies last. 

At the global event marking today the first International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and their partners urged everyone to do more to reduce food loss and waste or risk an even greater drop in food security and natural resources.

Flexible technology is key to keeping up with evolving customer expectations

The Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), QU Dongyu, today praised the work of the Codex Alimentarius Commission as a driving force for ensuring international food safety and trade standards, particularly amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The aim of the online event: AI, Food for All. Dialogue and Experiences is to reinforce and build upon the Rome Call for AI Ethics endorsed by Pope Francis and co-signed by FAO, IBM and Microsoft at a conference hosted by the Academy in February.

Industry has experienced a tremendous amount of change over the past decade, and then squeezed in another decade’s worth of change in the past seven months

Global honey bee populations are in decline, putting the world's food supply under pressure. But new technologies could help beekeepers counter the threat.

Japan has the oldest population in the world, and that's causing an acute labor shortage. With almost a third of the population aged 65 and above, finding workers can be a challenge.