Business
High Orange Juice Prices May Be On The Table For A While Due To Disease And Extreme Weather
MOGI GUACU, Brazil – Prices for orange juice have always been erratic; they rise when frost or a hurricane destroys fruit trees and fall when abundant harvests result in an excess of oranges.
But since the diseases and severe weather decimating orange groves in some of the top-producing nations are not readily fixed, the record-high prices for OJ that the globe is currently experiencing might not last long.
The biggest orange juice producer in the world, Brazil, is expected to have its poorest crop in 36 years due to drought and flooding, according to a prediction by Fundecitrus, a Sao Paulo state citrus growers’ association.
Orange Juice | AP news Image
High Orange Juice Prices May Be On The Table For A While Due To Disease And Extreme Weather
According to Mogi Guacu, Brazil, orange grower Oscar Simonetti, there is more to worry about than rising juice prices. The worry is not having the juice.
In the United States, Hurricane Ian severely devastated an already suffering crop due to an invading insect, resulting in a 62% decline in orange production in Florida’s 2022–2023 season. Spanish orange output was likewise reduced by drought the previous year.
Low supplies have driven up costs. Government statistics from April show that a 12-ounce can of frozen orange juice concentrate in the United States costs an average of $4.27, 42% more than the previous month.
Consumer research firm Nielsen reports that fresh orange juice prices in the UK, where the British Fruit Juice Association reports supplies are at 50-year lows, increased by 25% over the previous year.
Those price hikes are turning off consumers tired of inflation. Rabobank, a Dutch food and agriculture bank, reports that orange juice consumption has decreased from 15% to 25% over the past year in major worldwide markets, including the United States and the European Union.
Jonna Parker, principal for fresh food client insights at market research firm Circana, noted that more and more people are obtaining their morning fruit from smoothies, energy drinks, and other beverages than orange juice.
People think about other options when the price rises, she said.
Before the current price increases, orange juice consumption fell worldwide due to public concern about the quantity of sugar in fruit juices and rivalry with other drinks. If that tendency keeps up, Rabobank said, it should help balance supply and demand and prevent prices from growing much higher. Limited supplies, however, are expected to keep prices high for some time.
Orange juice has completely gone from the shelves in some stores.
An “orange fruit drink” with 35% orange juice replaced orange juice on the Australian McDonald’s menu late last year. The company mentioned short supplies.
Because of limited Brazilian juice supply, Tokyo-based Morinaga Milk Industry Co. plans to cease delivering its Sunkist orange juice by the end of June. Based in Sapporo, northern Japan, Megmilk Snow Brand Co. ceased shipping 1-liter (approximately a quart) and 450-milliliter (15.2-ounce) orange juice packs in April 2023. The company sells the juice under a Dole contract. Sales have yet to start up again.
Orange Juice | AP news Image
High Orange Juice Prices May Be On The Table For A While Due To Disease And Extreme Weather
A few firms are considering substituting other fruits for oranges in their goods. Citing the expense of routine orange juicing, British juice manufacturer Coldpress launched a mandarin juice product in February.
Still others, though, keep their ideas under wraps. Dole, Tropicana, Florida’s Natural, Uncle Matt’s, and Coca-Cola (which produces the Simply and Minute Maid brands) are among the big orange juice producers that either declined to comment or did not answer questions from The Associated Press.
Decades of history are at the heart of the present supply problems. When an Asian citrus psyllid invaded Florida in 2005, it injected bacteria from its saliva into the orange plants there. By damaging its root systems, the bacteria gradually destroys the tree. Once a tree is afflicted, there is no known treatment.
The effect has been devastating. Florida produced 200 million orange boxes in 2004 before the illness known as citrus greening struck the state. It will provide less than 20 million this year.
Though no orange tree is completely resistant to greening, scientists have been working to breed more tolerant trees, according to Michael Rogers, an entomology professor and head of the Citrus Research and Education Center at the University of Florida.
Though it has advanced more slowly there because of its far bigger orange orchards, citrus greening appeared in Brazil around the same time as in Florida. Rogers added that the disease is carried by insects traveling from tree to tree.
The sickness is still advancing. Fundecitrus projects citrus greening on 38% of Brazil’s orange trees by 2023. According to orange farmer Simonetti, greening affects 20% of his output. On afflicted trees, oranges ripen improperly and fall off early, lowering their juice quality, he said.
Production can only sometimes be moved to other places. Citrus psyllids, for instance, do not do well in the climate of California, where oranges are grown. However, Rogers added, California also lacks the rainfall required for juicing oranges; its oranges are often marketed for consumption.
Extreme weather is another problem that affects orange harvests and is getting more frequent as global warming is caused by climate change.
Orange Juice | AP News Image
High Orange Juice Prices May Be On The Table For A While Due To Disease And Extreme Weather
Nine heat waves that tore across Brazil last year caused reduced production and inferior fruit quality. El Niño has had especially dramatic effects this year, causing terrible floods in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul and a record drought in the Amazon.
It’s hot during the day. Nighttime brings with it a drop. Simonetti said that this temperature differential is too great for the plant.
Brazil’s 2024–2025 crop is predicted to produce 232 million boxes of oranges, a 24% decrease from the previous year.
Coordinator of Fundecitrus’ crop estimates study Vinícius Trombin commented, “We have never seen a harvest like this.”
Trombin noted that some producers are considering combining oranges and tangerines to manufacture juice to offset the expected lower output. He is dubious, though.
“The consumer wants orange juice made entirely of oranges,” he declared.
Parker of Circana is a little unsure. Blends including other fruits, in her opinion, may help keep prices down and pique customer interest in orange juice.
“The notion of many flavors is a way to stand out and is very popular,” she said. People must be kept interested. Regaining that interest is extremely difficult once it is lost.
SOURCE – (AP)
Business
Google Says It Will Stop Linking To New Zealand News If A Law Passes Forcing It To Pay For Content
Wellington, New Zealand – Google announced on Friday that it will stop linking to New Zealand news content and will withdraw its support for local media sites if the government passes legislation requiring internet companies to pay for stories published on their platforms.
The search giant’s promise to cut off Google traffic to New Zealand news sites, revealed in a blog post on Friday, mimics techniques it used as Australia and Canada prepared to implement similar laws in recent years.
It came after New Zealand’s government said in July that MPs would go forward with a measure requiring tech companies to reach agreements with media outlets generating news material in exchange for revenue sharing.
Google Says It Will Stop Linking To New Zealand News If A Law Passes Forcing It To Pay For Content
The previous administration introduced the law in 2023, and the government, led by the center-right National, opposed it.
However, the loss of more than 200 newsroom positions earlier this year — in a national media business that had 1,600 reporters at the 2018 census and is sure to have fallen since then — pushed the current administration to reconsider requiring digital companies to pay publishers for showing material.
The law seeks to limit the flow of advertising money from New Zealand news items overseas.
Google New Zealand Country Director Caroline Rainsford stated on Friday that if the legislation passes, the company’s engagement in the country’s media ecosystem will change.
“Specifically, we’d be forced to stop linking to news content on Google Search, Google News, or Discover surfaces in New Zealand and discontinue our current commercial agreements and ecosystem support with New Zealand news publishers,” according to her.
Google’s licensing scheme in New Zealand delivered “millions of dollars per year to almost 50 local publications,” she added.
The News Publishers’ Association, a New Zealand industry group, said in a written statement Friday that Google’s guarantee constituted “threats” and reflected “the kind of pressure that it has been applying” to the government and news outlets, according to Public Affairs Director Andrew Holden.
Government officials “should be able to make laws to strengthen democracy in this country without being subjected to this kind of corporate bullying,” said Mr. Trump.
Australia was the first government to try to force digital companies, including Google and Meta, to negotiate with news outlets under a law passed in 2021. Initially, the internet titans imposed news restrictions for Australians on their platforms, but both finally caved, negotiating arrangements reportedly worth 200 million Australian dollars ($137 million) per year, given to Australian sources for the use of their content.
However, Belinda Barnet, a media expert at Swinburne University in Melbourne, claims Meta has refused to renew its contracts with Australian news outlets while Google is renegotiating its initial deals.
As Canada prepares to enact comparable digital news bargaining regulations in 2023, Google and Meta reiterated their commitment to ending their assistance for the country’s media. Last November, however, Google pledged to provide 100 million Canadian dollars ($74 million) in annual financial support to news organizations across the country, indexed for inflation.
Colin Peacock, an analyst who leads the Mediawatch show on RNZ, New Zealand’s public radio broadcaster, stated that Google “doesn’t want headlines around the world that say another country has pushed back” by passing such a law.
Google Says It Will Stop Linking To New Zealand News If A Law Passes Forcing It To Pay For Content
While Google emphasized its support for local outlets on Friday, Peacock stated that one of its funding recipients, the publisher of a small daily, told a parliamentary committee earlier this year that the money he received was “a pittance” and insufficient to recruit a single graduate reporter.
Minister for Media and Communications, Paul Goldsmith, told The Associated Press in a written statement on Friday that he was still conferring on the next version of the law.
Goldsmith stated in July that he intended to approve the measure by the end of the year.
SOURCE | AP
OpenAI might be the future of Silicon Valley, the next Google, the Great Disruptor, the slayer of late capitalist workplace tedium, etc.
However, as the business transitions from a nonprofit-led research lab to a for-profit AI powerhouse, now is a good time to examine OpenAI and its brilliant (if often tumultuous) leadership team. Because, if we believe OpenAI’s fundamental assumption that better-than-human artificial intelligence is unavoidable, and that it is the best brand to harness that potential, it’s worth pausing to ask the age-old business question: Really?!
Here is the deal: OpenAI, the startup behind ChatGPT, recently secured a $6.6 billion private investment round – the largest in Silicon Valley history — giving the fledgling company a $157 billion valuation, despite an uncertain route to profitability.
OpenAI Just Secured A Ton Of New Cash. Now It Needs To Wow Us
(For reference, public corporations with comparable valuations include Goldman Sachs and Pfizer.)
According to reports, OpenAI’s latest investors include major tech companies such as Microsoft (which has already invested more than $13 billion since 2019), Thrive Capital, Nvidia, Cathie Wood’s Ark Investment Management, and Japanese conglomerate SoftBank.
But it’s worth remembering that Apple was in talks to join that scrum, but it backed out at the last minute, according to The Wall Street Journal.
It was unclear why Apple, which did not respond to CNN’s request for comment, appeared to back out.
That being said, the iPhone maker does not engage in many strategic alliances.
But you don’t need an MBA to notice several red flags about OpenAI’s operations and the true worth of its technology.
According to the New York Times, the corporation appears to be spending significantly more money than it is coming in.
Let’s run some numbers:
OpenAI hopes to generate approximately $3.7 billion in revenue this year. (This revenue is mostly derived from ChatGPT premium subscriptions and the licensing of its technology to third-party developers.)
However, the Times estimates that it will incur costs of $5 billion.
(That’s not ideal, but it may not be a dealbreaker for a young, buzzy firm with big goals like OpenAI’s.)
Here’s where it gets a little wild:
Next year, OpenAI expects its income to more than triple to $11.6 billion. (To which I respond, with all due respect: Really?)
By 2029, it expects to generate $100 billion in revenue. This represents a more than 2,600% gain over the following five years. (Again: Seriously?!)
It’s unclear how, or if, OpenAI is striving to reduce its substantial cash burn. (The business declined to respond to The Times and CNN.)
When I asked Gil Luria, a managing director at D.A. Davidson, if my OpenAI pessimism was justified, he politely pushed back.
“The path from $0 in revenue to nearly $4 billion was clearly the fastest in history,” Mr. Luria added. “Nobody’s ever grown this fast at this scale, and they’re doing it again straight out of the gate with only the first few evolutions of their product set.”
Fair!
However, Luria stated that in order to reach $11 billion in revenue, “a lot of things have to go right, and very little can go wrong.”
What about that $100 billion prediction for 2029? “It’s completely unrealistic,” he admits. “It has nothing to do with reality.”
One approach for OpenAI to enhance its margins is to reduce costs. Even if it becomes extremely meticulous, the generative AI business faces an economic quandary: training and operating huge language models costs a lot of money, which is a structural cost that varies from prior tech booms, as CNBC reported last year.
In other words, the more people use ChatGPT, the more it costs to “compute,” as the business refers to it. Running these massive language models necessitates the use of numerous powerful semiconductors within massive data centers that consume a lot of electricity. It’s no surprise, however, that practically every major AI player wants to get their hands on good old-fashioned nuclear energy (as I discussed here earlier this week).
OpenAI’s challenges include more than just the economics of AI.
There’s also a Bravo-worthy soap opera going on with its founders, nearly all of whom have gone, and board of directors.
In 2015, CEO Sam Altman and ten others launched OpenAI as a nonprofit with the purpose of “building safe and beneficial artificial general intelligence for the benefit of humanity.”
OpenAI Just Secured A Ton Of New Cash. Now It Needs To Wow Us
Then it evolved into a hybrid: a for-profit firm led by a nonprofit board.
With 1,700 workers, it is now prepared to mainly abandon the nonprofit model in favor of a “public benefit corporation” — effectively a for-profit company with do-gooder intentions.
Several executives have left during this transition, raising concerns about Altman’s devotion to the firm’s initial objective in the face of, say, boatloads of cash.
What happens now? With new funding, OpenAI can focus on the next iteration of ChatGPT, which, according to Luria, is one of the Big Things that must go right for the company. Whatever OpenAI’s next product looks like, it must knock our socks off.
“If we’ve gone from a model that’s as smart as a high school student to GPT-4o being as smart as a PhD student, the next version must be getting us closer to a model that’s smarter than any human.” to make the investment worthwhile.”
SOURCE | CNN
(VOR News) – It will soon be possible for American customers who frequently visit McDonald’s to order the Chicken Big Mac, a dish that has shown a great deal of popularity with those specific customers.
This will become available to them in the not too distant future.
When it was initially released in this nation in 2022, it was entirely sold out in both Ireland and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland due to its extreme popularity.
The sandwich may be found on menus everywhere because it has previously been placed on menus in every part of the globe. This is due to the fact that menus already feature it. It was found that both of those countries have this same situation after further inquiry.
McDonald’s scheduled this object’s return to the US for Thursday, October 10, prior to its occurrence.
There is extremely little chance that the recently added item to the menu will remain available for an unusually long time. This is due to the extremely low likelihood that this will occur. This is specifically because the availability of the new item is contingent upon the availability of supply.
It has been demonstrated by the announcement that the rumors were accurate in what they reported based on the information they had.
McDonald’s has a history of doing many different things that are thought to be improper. These practices had previously been identified.
There was a sandwich that was served in Los Angeles the weekend before that was kind of similar to what you are eating right now. You have this sandwich at your disposal. The sandwich was easily obtainable.
The pop-up restaurant McDonnell’s by Chain, located in Los Angeles, was only open for business on one day. The only people who can enjoy this exclusive eating experience are customers. On that specific day, customers were able to enjoy the restaurant’s signature meal, which is widely known as “The Chicken Sandwich.”
The dinner that was being served to attendees could be purchased. This dish’s recipe was remarkably similar to the one utilized by McDonald’s for their Chicken Big Mac, which had two chicken patties instead of the original Big Mac’s two patties made completely of beef.
Two beef patties were used to create the first Big Mac. There were two beef patties utilized in the creation of the original Big Mac.
McDonald’s and the company’s formulas had many similarities.
It was McDonald’s that applied the formula. Regarding the toppings used, there is no difference between the two scenarios that have been described in full.
Customers expressed such high delight that they even called it a McDonald’s knockoff. This is because they found it to be quite satisfactory. They did this because they were quite happy with how things turned out.
The story takes an unexpected and shocking turn when it is revealed that McDonald’s was the establishment that was there the entire time.
The company released a press release that said, “We are able to serve up more than just a sandwich.” This message was sent to McDonald’s USA Chief Marketing and Customer Experience Officer Tariq Hassan.
“We are able to serve up more than just a sandwich,” These are the words from the website of the company that provided the information, from which the information was taken.
“We are able to do this by tapping into some of our fans’ biggest passions, which range from live-streaming to dupe culture.” “There truly is something for everyone to enjoy in this campaign and we’re bringing experiences that will surprise and delight them, all before the Chicken Big Mac hits restaurants.”
SOURCE: NY
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