Kellogg

The Breakfast Council of "independent" nutrition experts that appeared on the website of Kellogg Co. was a paid panel given talking points by the giant food company, according to a copy of a contract and emails obtained by the Associated Press. Kellogg started the panel in 2011 and disbanded it this year, telling the AP that, as part of a review of its nutrition work, it decided not to continue the council.

Fifteen companies, ranging from food processors to grocery and fast food chains, make up the inaugural class of "food loss and waste champions," said the EPA and USDA. The companies won the designation by agreeing to reduce food waste 50 percent by 2030, in line with an administration goal to conserve resources and to combat climate change.

Seven major food companies, with $124 billion in combined annual revenues, will work with growers around the world to reduce water use and pollution, said World Wildlife Fund and Ceres, a nonprofit group promoting sustainable food. The companies, Diageo, General Mills, Hain Celestial, Hormel Foods, Kellogg, PepsiCo and WhiteWave Foods, will submit detailed sustainable sourcing and water stewardship plans as part of the AgWater Challenge.

For years, organic food has been the fastest-growing segment of U.S. agriculture, with a sales total of nearly $36 billion a year at latest count. "A deepening divide" is splitting the industry and "sparking litigation and allegations that the well-known label marking foods as organic no longer assures consumers that foods are free from chemicals and other materials, or that organic meat was raised naturally," says Huffington Post.

Best known for its breakfast cereals, Kellogg Co. became the third major U.S. foodmaker in four days to say it will put GMO labels on is products nationwide to satisfy Vermont's first-in-the-nation label law, which is effective July 1.

Sixteen major food and beverage companies sold 6.4 trillion fewer calories in 2012 than they did in 2007, says the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which paid for an independent evaluation of sales. The companies had pledged to cut 1 trillion calories by 2012 and 1.5 trillion calories by 2015. In total, the companies sold products containing 60.4 trillion calories in 2007.

The world's largest cereal maker, Kellogg Co, said it will reduce energy and greenhouse gas emissions by 15 percent by 2020 to combat climate change.