Quick Take — Flood revives concerns over rising food prices in Europe

The winter larder is depleted as rains devastate crops in Spain, Portugal, France and Morocco…

“It is very difficult to replace some parts of the winter vegetable basket, especially those from Spain and Morocco, so I think we will see the effects very soon, and later on, we will probably also see effects on fruit, and then also on meat, dairy… and olive oil.” Central banks have begun to recognise the influence of extreme weather on inflation dynamics… Financial Times

Of course Sicily should also be considered.

Quick Take — Mercosur: MEPs vote in favour of referring the agreement to the EU Court of Justice

A treaty that, according to its critics, will disrupt European agriculture.

It should allow the EU to export more cars, machinery, wines and spirits to Latin America, while facilitating the entry of South American beef, sugar, rice, honey and soya into Europe.

For its detractors, this will disrupt European agriculture with cheaper imported products that do not necessarily meet EU standards due to insufficient controls.

Quick Take — Mercosur: pesticides and hormones in food?

amicarbazone herbicide, chlorothalonil fungicide, novaluron insecticide and growth hormones in meat? It would seem so, although 1) the precautionary principle, i.e. any food may only be placed on the market if it does not present a health risk, and 2) the obligation to indicate the country of origin on the label should be respected

Milena Gabbanelli, Corriere della Sera 19 January 2026

P.S.: Brazil’s JBS is the third largest producer of food and the first of meat in the world.

Our relationship with FOOD over the last 100 YEARS has changed a lot: how?

How has our relationship with food changed over the last hundred years? In the first episode of the docuseries “What We Eat”, produced together with @foodunfolded with the support of EIT Food and co-funded by the European Union, we retrace the evolution of our relationship with what we eat, which has been turned upside down in just one century

Quick Take — Pam has to decide if it is a supermarket or if it wants to be a discounter

Luigi Rubinelli writes: ‘At Pam there is an obsession with comparison with the discount store. This can be seen in the price communication variations. Too much repetition”

I would add that this fixation was already there years ago, see the first picture below which is from 2021 . The second picture below is from 2026 and is from Alimentando: I included it to make it clear that slogans and colours are always the same.

Note that in 2024 the group’s growth was lower than inflation but above all that Pam, in the same year, did NOT rank among the cheapest chains in Italy.

If Pam wants to measure itself against the discounters, instead of doing useless generic communication, why does it not do comparative advertising against the discounters, like – for example – Leclerc against Lidl, in France?

N.B.: in 2025 Pam only ‘distinguished itself’ – so to speak – by having some of its cashiers do the ‘trolley test’, sacking them and being obliged to reinstate them, making a big impression.

Quick Take — Cultured meat in crisis: market at a standstill, the ‘hybrid route’ is explored rather than the radical alternative

Cultured meat, the honeymoon is over: closures, slowdowns and the ‘hybrid way’ to survivethe sector of alternatives to meat – and thus also cultured meat, together with vegetable substitutes – is now growing barely between 0 and 1% per year. This is not just a slowdown, but a sign of stagnation. According to Marco Tschanz, Director of Bell Food Group Switzerland, the reason is not mysterious: for many consumers these products remain niche products, held back above all by a trivial and very powerful problem, the oldest of all: taste. The taste does not compare with that of meat, and there is also the image of food perceived as highly processed, ‘with numerous additives’, admits Tschanz…

The only ones to bet on it, for now, are the Chinese.