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The good mix of rain and sunshine is leading to higher estimates for wheat production in US, Europe and Australia. Australian production is up by 3 million metric tons over last year. Russia is exporting more than it did last year by 80% in April and by about 25% in May through Black Sea ports. This is easing pressure on wheat prices which are down to $9 a bushel. Russia exports to countries in the Middle East. US production of wheat is expected to be 8% higher this year. 

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The effects of the Ukraine war on wheat prices and wheat imports for Egypt and other Middle East countries is shown here in the Financial Times.

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A scandal in China over cooking oil transported in fuel trucks that is shown in DW.com

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The most important segment with future implications for growth is the young people segment, and here American companies are really weak. Of the "millenials" or people born between 1979 and 1985, those who consider a Ford when shoppng for a small car are only 7%. These are Ford's own numbers according to the Wall Street Journal. Ford and GM are moving their emphasis to small cars. Ford did this at the Los Angeles Auto Show with the new Fiesta arrriving in the market in early 2010, and GM will compete with the Honda Civic with its Chevy Cruze due in August in showrooms. To do this Ford and GM are remodeling their showrooms. To do this 3000 Chevy stores are taking on a new focus on small cars and 26,000 sales people are being retrained by end of 2009. Kurt Mcneil, Chevy's sales chief, says their emphasis is on giving a good response to online customers by having salespeople able to talk fluently about fuel efficiency and compare with Honda and Toyota. For Chevy the showroom remodeling involves having a greeter at the reception desk not a salesperson, this is who one first sees when walking into a dealership. The improvements costing $200,000 to $600,000 per location are being paid by dealers with GM offering financial incentives for the work. The way Ford is approaching it is to use social media like Facebook to a bigger extent. It will send a social media consultant to its largest 800 dealerships or one fourth of all stores to build an online infrastructure to connect to local buyers and offer online updates, videos, and games related to small cars. Ford, GM and Chrysler have only 21% of the small car market, according to Autodata, and Ford has only the aging Focus to offer today. In 10 months of 2009, 19% of 8.65 millon light vehicles sold were small cars up from 14% in 2006, while the percentages for SUV and pickups dropped 53% to 46%. ...

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Protein supplement intake and protein sources in food.

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Ford showed a profit of $1.6 billion in the third quarter of 2012. Profit of $2.3 billion in North American operations with North American profit margins of 12% helping overcome pretax losses of 468 million in Europe. In comparison to earlier years Ford held incentives down and maintained North American profit margins, earning $3500 on every vehicle sold in N. America. By comparison operating margins for Chrysler for third quarter were 4.6% and GM's margins in 2012 are about 7.4%.

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Campbell Soup Co. acquires Bolthouse Farms of Bakersfield, California, a maker of high-end juices, for $1.55 billion. By doing this Campbell is shifting into beverages and into fresh foods from its traditional business in canned condensed soups which have a long shelf life. The packaged fresh food category is growing at 7% a year much faster than the canned soup business. This also complements Campbell's V8 vegetable juice products.The soup business is declining because of a change in consumer preferences for simplicity in meals, lack of new products and ineffective discounting. Campbell is planning to introduce 30 new soup items, and packaging in pouches with newer flavors, to get younger people to try its products.

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Controversy about whether bringing back a revamped Ford Explorer is a good idea. Ford's Farley thinks Americans might still consider an Explorer with high fuel economy, getting it up to 28 mpg from 15 mpg. But the evidence is that Americans have soured on SUV's. Consider that during the cash-for-clunkers program more Explorers were scrapped, and by a large margin, than any other model. Sales are down from 450,000 at one time to 52,000 today. To get buyers to look at the Explorer Ford is trying to change the looks from boxy to sleeker car-based crossover , and add high tech features. In fact it is going to be built not as an SUV, but on the same architectural base as the Taurus.

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The federal government spends $93.8 billion on SNAP during the last fiscal year. It gives food to about 41.7 million people each month. The average monthly benefit, per person is $187.54.

Over a decade the SNAP is being cut by $230 billion as the program for money to buy groceries is being changed to require able bodied people to work, and also shifts costs to states. This is part of the new Tax Cuts bill that is being passed in Congress in May 2025.

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Prices of Cheerios cereal up 17% on a per ounce basis, General Mills has simply taken out the 10 ounce box and put in an 8.9 ounce box. Kellogg cereal company is doing the same thing as the input costs of grain for its cereal went up by 9%. And retail stores are taking advantage of thhis situation by adding an increase of their own on top of this. And this is going on in many places from icecream cartons to beverage containers, smaller sizes and higher prices. Food prices inflation estimates vary from 4.5 to 5.5% in 2008, and 4-5% in 2009 from Department of Agriculture to Well Fargo's estimates of 6% in 2009 and Farm Sector Economics estimate of 7.5%. Not only are companies raising prices but they are doing so frequently, Alpha Baking Company is paying twice as much for wheat flour from a year ago to make bread and buns, now it changes prices quarterly. This poses an interesting question for the Fed's fight against inflation, does an increase in interest rates mean these companies faced with rising costs of inputs are going to respond by not increasing prices that much? Its the shortage of grain supplies that is driving this food price increases and how would increasing rates make a difference? And most of the inflation is in food and crude oil prices, wage inflation is modest with rising unemployment and a slowing economy....