Banana Split; Full Film, with many thanks to Shebafilms Kelly Saxberg for sharing her film;
Banana Split from Shebafilms Kelly Saxberg on Vimeo.
Banana Split; Full Film, with many thanks to Shebafilms Kelly Saxberg for sharing her film;
Banana Split from Shebafilms Kelly Saxberg on Vimeo.
Iran’s Minister of Commerce Dr. Mahdi Ghazanfari denied reports appearing in Manila newspapers last month that the Philippines’ banana export contract with Iran may be cancelled.
The Minister of Commerce issued the statement during the 17th Press and News Agencies Festival held here with 247 participants from the academe and media from 48 countries.
Responding to a question related to trade sanctions and exports, Dr. Ghazanfari said that if four waves of “unfair and unjust” sanctions had failed to adversely affect Iran, then there was no reason to cancel any of its existing import or export contracts.
He said that gone are the days of the Cold War when smaller states were dependent on superpowers, adding that in this new era of globalization, buyers need only to find suppliers and arrive at a mutually agreeable price.
“In the year 2009, our exports to your country were worth $250 million; and in the same year, we had imports of $130 million from your country. You can be sure that there is no limitation for expanding our trade,” Ghazanfari said.
A new wave of vending machines aims to convince Americans to snack on healthier foods. But selling fresh produce like bananas and broccoli comes with its own fresh challenges, WSJ‘s Ilan Brat reports.
The Wittern Group Inc., one of the biggest makers of vending machines, and fruit and vegetable marketer Fresh Del Monte Produce Inc. say they are tackling this problem with a new machine specifically designed to dispense whole bananas and fresh-cut fruits and vegetables.
At Wittern’s headquarters in a suburb of Des Moines, refrigeration engineer Jerry Parle shows off the new device, its red and orange exterior festooned with Del Monte logos and pictures of whole pineapples and other fruit. The machine—which went on the market earlier this year—has two temperature zones. The top is loaded with bananas kept at about 57 degrees. The bottom zone—kept at about 34 degrees—holds packages of fresh-cut fruit and vegetables. Wittern says having the two zones helps more than double the shelf-life of bananas, from two or three days to five days or a week.
“This is a total new era for vending,” said Mr. Parle. “Getting rid of the stigma of junk food in vending machines is a good thing.”
New school regulations and workplace initiatives are targeting vending machines amid larger efforts to combat obesity and reduce health-care costs and absenteeism.
That was the verdict of prime-minister Ralph Gonsalves, who told local media that not a single banana tree had been left standing in the northern part of the group of Caribbean Islands.
“Agriculture is gone completely. Not a banana tree is left standing in the north of the country now,” Mr Gonsalves told the Trinidad Express Newspaper. “Our farmers have been adversely affected.”
While initial damage assessments were still being carried out, Mr Gonsalves said that some 500 houses had been damaged, with hundreds of citizens stranded. However, it was the agricultural industry – with banana production employing more than 60 per cent of the workforce and accounting for more than 50 per cent of merchandise exports – that was of great concern.
Weak salad sales, reflecting retailers’ shift toward cheaper, private-label products, also squeezed Chiquita’s Fresh Express subsidiary, which cut its 2010 profit forecast for the second time in four months.
Banana prices in Europe eroded late in the third quarter because of excessive imports from major African, Caribbean and Pacific producing regions, Chiquita’s chief executive officer, Fernando Aguirre, said in a statement announcing the company’s quarterly results Nov. 2.
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