Hot Right Now: COVID-19, F&B firms as essential services, food supply fears and more social media trending stories feature in our round-up
Fight COVID-19 with dairy? China industry associations issue consumption guidelines to ‘build immune resistance’
Four major dairy industry associations in China have formed a set of guidelines for dairy and dairy product consumption for local residents in the hope of strengthening the public's immune health amid the COVID-19 novel coronavirus outbreak.
Dubbed the ‘Milk and milk-related products consumption guidelines for Chinese residents’, the guidelines were formulated jointly by the National Association of Health Industry and Enterprise Management, Chinese Nutrition Society, Dairy Association of China, and China Dairy Industry Association.
Government bodies and private companies were also involved in the crafting of these guidelines, namely the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Institute for Nutrition and Health, the Chinese Medical Doctor Association and Mengniu.
COVID-19 and APAC's food and beverage sector: All our coronavirus news...in one place
Here's your constantly updated and comprehensive round-up of FoodNavigator-Asia's COVID-19 coverage.Recent highlights include stories about the UAE, China, effects on plastic packaging use, F&B as an 'essential service' and more.
India’s COVID-19 lockdown: Coca-Cola, Nestle and more MNCs call for F&B manufacturing to be made ‘essential service’
In the wake of India’s nationwide lockdown due to COVID-19, Coca-Cola India, Nestle India and various other big MNCs in the country have called for F&B manufacturing to be made an ‘essential service’ in order to keep shelves stocked and avoid further panic.
India’s nationwide lockdown of some 1.3 billion people started at midnight on March 25 and was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi the evening of March 24 via a televised speech, barely four hours before the lockdown took effect, sending the country into a panic buying frenzy.
Malaysia in lockdown: COVID-19 reignites food supply fears in Singapore despite government reassurance
Malaysia’s announcement that borders of the entire country will be closed for two weeks (now extended till April 14) in an attempt to control the local spread of COVID-19 has led to renewed panic in neighbouring Singapore, which imports large amounts of fresh produce from the country, despite government reassurances that food supplies ‘would continue’ as usual.
This was two-week-old Malaysian Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin’s first major crisis announcement after ousting predecessor Tun Dr Mahathir Mohammad from Parliament in early March.
“The government’s priority now is to avoid the spreading of new infections, which will affect more people. [Therefore], drastic action needs to be taken [and] the government has decided to implement the ‘restriction of movement order’ starting from March 18 to March 31,” Muhyiddin said in a live telecast on March 16.
Science Shorts: Asian vs Western foods, coconut oil for COVID-19, plant-based production and more feature in our round-up
Asian vs Western foods, coconut oil for COVID-19, plant-based production and more food science and technology stories feature in this edition of Science Shorts.
