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Protein powders are notoriously hit-or-miss when it comes to taste. But according to a new study from Consumer Reports (CR), gym bros and casual proteinmaxxers should be less concerned with how their protein powders taste, and more concerned about whether they might contain lead. The study, published on October 14, tested 23 of the most popular protein powders and ready-to-drink shakes for heavy metal contamination. CR purchased multiple samples of each product, including two to four distinct lots, over a three-month period beginning in November of 2024. The samples were then tested for protein, arsenic, cadmium, lead, and other elements. The results were striking: More than two-thirds of the products analyzed contained more lead in a single serving than the amount that CRs food safety experts say is safe to consume in a day. CRs report noted that theres no reason to panic if readers have been consuming these products, as theyre unlikely to cause immediate harm. However, protein companies are pushing back against the results, arguing that the report is alarmist. Heres what to know: What did Consumer Reports find? CRs report is structured around a daily threshold of allowable lead consumption, which its researchers set at 0.5 micrograms. This figure is based on the California Prop 65 maximum, which, the publication notes, has a wide safety margin built in. In comparison, while the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does not have any official guidelines on dietary lead limits, it has set an estimated benchmark for safe daily consumption, which is 2.2 micrograms for children and 8.8 micrograms for women of childbearing age. (An FDA spokesperson told CR that the 8.8 figure can likely be applied to all adults). To be clear, no amount of lead is technically okay to consume, with even low levels potentially causing serious health problems. According to CRs report, the most concerning products were all plant-based protein powders, which, on average, contained lead levels that were nine times the amount found in those made with dairy proteins and twice as great as beef-based ones. Topping out CRs list was Naked Nutritions Vegan Mass Gainer. For a serving size of 315 grams, CR found that the powder continued 1,572% of its daily lead consumption threshold, or about 7.7 micrograms per serving. Following that product was Huels Black Edition powder, which contained 6.3 micrograms of lead in a 90 gram serving, and Garden of Lifes Sport Organic Plant-Based Protein, which contained 2.76 micrograms in a 45 gram serving. How have protein powder companies responded? In a statement to Fast Company, Naked Nutrition said it was important to note that Naked Vegan Mass Gainer was the only vegan weight gainer in the study, meaning it had a much larger serving size compared to the other powders tested. When viewed on a per-gram basis, the company added, results are consistent with other plant-based proteins. Elements such as lead are naturally occurring in soil, a spokesperson said. Because plants naturally absorb minerals and elements from soil, trace levels of heavy metals can be found in virtually all plant-derived foods and proteins, even in certified organic products, regardless of brand or country of origin. While Consumer Reports did not share its complete lab data, we reviewed the available information and verified results through independent third-party testing, which confirmed that no heavy metals exceeded FDA reference intake levels for adults, including for sensitive groups such as women of childbearing age. A spokesperson for Huel, which published its own article in response to CRs study, told Fast Company that it is extremely frustrated by the report and views it as alarmist. The brand added that California’s 0.5 microgram threshold is ultra conservative” because it divides the observable effect limit by 1,000 to allow a margin for error. For comparison, the EU benchmark is 270 micrograms per serving. It is important to understand that the Consumer Reports approach reflects a uniquely cautious regulation rather than an internationally accepted measure of consumer safety,” the spokesperson said. “Trace minerals such as lead occur naturally in crops because plants absorb them from the soil. For context, Huel added, a meal of sausages, potatoes, cabbage, and carrots can contain around 5 micrograms of lead, and most adults consume between 20 and 80 micrograms per day from normal foods. Huel is no different from everyday meals in this respect. Huels spokesperson added that it has conducted 17 independent tests on Huel Black Edition, with results consistently showing lead levels between 1.5 and 2.2 micrograms per 90 gram serving. Garden of Life did not immediately respond to Fast Companys request for comment, but a spokesperson for the company told CR that its products are safe for daily use despite CRs recommended limits.
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E-Commerce
Senate Democrats are poised for the 10th time Thursday to reject a stopgap spending bill that would reopen the government, insisting they won’t back away from demands that Congress take up health care benefits.The repetition of votes on the funding bill has become a daily drumbeat in Congress, underscoring how intractable the situation has become as it has been at times the only item on the agenda for the Senate floor. House Republicans have left Washington altogether. The standoff has lasted over two weeks, leaving hundreds of thousands of federal workers furloughed, even more without a guaranteed payday and Congress essentially paralyzed.“Every day that goes by, there are more and more Americans who are getting smaller and smaller paychecks,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune, adding that there have been thousands of flight delays across the country as well.Thune, a South Dakota Republican, again and again has tried to pressure Democrats to break from their strategy of voting against the stopgap funding bill. It hasn’t worked. And while some bipartisan talks have been ongoing about potential compromises on health care, they haven’t produced any meaningful progress toward reopening the government.Democrats say they won’t budge until they get a guarantee on extending subsidies for health plans offered under Affordable Care Act marketplaces. They warned that millions of Americans who buy their own health insurance such as small business owners, farmers and contractors will see large increases when premium prices go out in the coming weeks. Looking ahead to a Nov. 1 deadline in most states, they think voters will demand that Republicans enter into serious negotiations.“We have to do something, and right now, Republicans are letting these tax credits expire,” said Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer.Still, Thune was also trying a different tack Thursday with a vote to proceed to appropriations bills a move that could grease the Senate’s wheels into some action or just deepen the divide between the two parties. A deadline for subsidies on health plans Democrats have rallied around their priorities on health care as they hold out against voting for a Republican bill that would reopen the government. Yet they also warn that the time to strike a deal to prevent large increases for many health plans is drawing short.When they controlled Congress during the pandemic, Democrats boosted subsidies for Affordable Care Act health plans. It pushed enrollment under President Barack Obama’s signature health care law to new levels and drove the rate of uninsured people to a historic low. Nearly 24 million people currently get their health insurance from subsidized marketplaces, according to health care research nonprofit KFF.Democrats and some Republicans are worried that many of those people will forgo insurance if the price rises dramatically. While the tax credits don’t expire until next year, health insurers will soon send out notices of the price increases. In most states, they go out Nov. 1.Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said she has heard from “families who are absolutely panicking about their premiums that are doubling.”“They are small business owners who are having to think about abandoning the job they love to get employer-sponsored health care elsewhere or just forgoing coverage altogether,” she added.Murray also said that if many people decide to leave their health plan, it could have an effect across medical insurance because the pool of people under health plans will shrink. That could result in higher prices across the board, she said.Some Republicans have acknowledged that the expiration of the tax credits could be a problem and floated potential compromises to address it, but there is hardly a consensus among the GOP.House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., this week called the COVID-era subsidies a “boondoggle,” adding that “when you subsidize the health care system and you pay insurance companies more, the prices increase.”President Donald Trump has said he would “like to see a deal done for great health care,” but has not meaningfully weighed into the debate. And Thune has insisted that Democrats first vote to reopen the government before entering any negotiations on health care.If Congress were to engage in negotiations on significant changes to health care, it would likely take weeks, if not longer, to work out a compromise. Votes on appropriations bills Meanwhile, Senate Republicans are setting up a vote Thursday to proceed to a bill to fund the Defense Department and several other areas of government. This would turn the Senate to Thune’s priority of working through spending bills and potentially pave the way to paying salaries for troops, though the House would eventually need to come back to Washington to vote for a final bill negotiated between the two chambers.Thune said it would be a step toward getting “the government funded in the traditional way, which is through the annual appropriations process.”It wasn’t clear whether Democrats would give the support needed to advance the bills. They discussed the idea at their luncheon Wednesday and emerged saying they wanted to review the Republican proposal and make sure it included appropriations that are priorities for them.While the votes will not bring the Senate any closer to an immediate fix for the government shutdown, it could at least turn their attention to issues where there is some bipartisan agreement. Stephen Groves and Mary Clare Jalonick, Associated Press
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E-Commerce
Nestle will cut 16,000 jobs, new CEO Philipp Navratil said on Thursday, as the world’s largest packaged food company seeks to cut costs and win back investor confidence. The jobs being cut represent 5.8% of Nestle’s around 277,000 employees. Navratil said Nestle had raised its cost savings target to 3 billion Swiss francs ($3.77 billion) from 2.5 billion francs by the end of 2027. U.S. import tariffs are a headwind for Nestle, despite the bulk of the company’s U.S. sales being manufactured locally, while food producers across the board are grappling with fragile consumer confidence and changing habits as people seek to eat more healthily. “The world is changing, and Nestle needs to change faster,” Navratil said. UNPRECEDENTED MANAGEMENT TURMOIL Nestle, whose shares leapt by around 8% in early trading, has experienced an unprecedented period of managerial turmoil, with Navratil replacing Laurent Freixe, who was fired in September as chief executive over an undisclosed relationship with a direct report. Chairman Paul Bulcke then stepped down early to make way for former Inditex chief Pablo Isla two weeks later. Navratil said the 12,000 white-collar job cuts over the next two years, in addition to a further 4,000 headcount reduction as part of ongoing initiatives in manufacturing and the supply chain, were part of an efficiency push. ‘FUEL TO THE TURNAROUND FIRE’ The Swiss maker of KitKat chocolate bars, Nespresso coffee and Maggi seasoning has been fighting to reverse stalling sales growth and arrest a share price slide as it battles U.S. import tariffs, while costs have risen and debt levels have climbed, increasing pressure from investors. Nestle’s quarterly results “add fuel to the turnaround fire,” Bernstein analysts wrote in a note, naming the headcount reduction as a “significant surprise”. A 1.5% rise in real internal growth – a measure of sales volumes – in the third quarter, well above analysts’ expectations of a 0.3% rise, may offer Navratil breathing space as he looks to make his mark following his sudden promotion. Navratil said driving RIG-led growth was Nestle’s highest priority. “We are fostering a culture that embraces a performance mindset, that does not accept losing market share, and where winning is rewarded,” Navratil said. Strategic reviews of Nestle’s waters and premium beverages business and low-growth, low-margin vitamins and supplements brands are ongoing, the company said. NESTLE LEAVES 2025 GUIDANCE UNCHANGED The Swiss company maintained its 2025 outlook. It said organic sales growth should improve compared to 2024 and predicted the underlying trading operating profit margin, which excludes certain non-recurrent expenses, at, or above, 16%. For the medium-term, the forecast is at least 17%. The margin forecasts include the higher U.S. import tariffs on Swiss goods of 39%, that came into effect in August, Nestle said. The bulk of the 3 billion Swiss francs in cost savings is due to come in 2026-27, Nestle said, with 700 million Swiss francs in savings expected in 2025 as a whole. Organic sales, which exclude the impact of currency movement and acquisitions, rose 4.3% in the quarter, Nestle said, above analysts’ estimates for 3.7% growth. Quarterly sales growth was driven by pricing-led upticks in coffee and confectionery, but Greater China was a drag. CFO Anna Manz said Nestle had been too focused on driving distribution across China and not enough on building consumer demand. “So what you see in China is us correcting that and actually to consolidate our distribution and make it more efficient, while we build this consumer demand.” ($1 = 0.7955 Swiss francs) Alexander Marrow, Reuters
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E-Commerce
Who doesnt love a little cinnamon sprinkled on their toast or oatmeal? Unfortunately, lovers of the spice now have more things to worry about. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has expanded its list of ground cinnamon products to avoid over fears that they could contain elevated levels of lead. Heres what you need to know about the latest cinnamon products the FDA is warning consumers to avoid. Whats happened? On October 10, the FDA updated its ongoing list of ground cinnamon products that consumers should avoid due to fears that the products may contain elevated levels of lead, which could be harmful. The most recent updates to the list of products are just the latest additions to a list that the agency originally published in July 2024. Since then, the FDA has added additional products to the list five timestwo of those times being very recently, on October 8 and October 10. Upon publishing its original notice in 2024, the agency said that it had determined that the ground cinnamon products listed in the table below contain elevated levels of lead and that exposure to these products may be unsafe. These determinations were made after product testing by state programs that the FDA itself later confirmed. As a result of the findings, the FDA recommended that the firms involved should voluntarily recall the productsthe list of which has consistently grown. What cinnamon products should I avoid? As of the time of this writing, the FDA lists 16 different cinnamon products consumers should avoid due to fears of elevated levels of lead. Those products include: DistributorRetailer(s)Lot Code(s)Brand Name(s)Lead Concentration (ppm)Singh Trading Inc. DBA Roshni FoodsNone listedUPC code: 6251136 034139Best by date: BESTBY 020925Roshni2.268Haitai Inc. USANone listedUPC code: 6251136 034139Best by date: BESTBY 020925HAETAE4.60EUREKA INC. U.S.A.Recall AnnouncementDistributed to grocery stores in California and Michigan from 08/24/2024 to 10/6/2025Batch No.: 06 B:02 UPC code: 6251136 034139 Best by date: May 2026Durra2.44SLR Food Distribution, Inc Recall AnnouncementDistributed to retailers located (New Jersey, New York, Florida, Maryland, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Ohio) between 02/15/2024 and 06/28/2025UPC code: 0 688474 302853Wise Wife2.49Spicy World of USATAJ SUPERMARKETAF-CINP/822 Best by date: Best Before: July 2025Jiva Organics2.29IHA Beverage, Commerce, CA IHA Beverage Issues a Voluntary Recall of Super Cinnamon Powder 4oz Because of Lead ContaminationAsian Supermarket, Little Rock, ARNone listedSuper Brand7.68 6.60Sands Impex Inc. Dba Asli Fine Foods Woodbridge, IL Asli Fine Foods . Recalls Asli Cinnamon Powder 7 oz Because of Possible Health RiskA&Y Global Market Columbia, MODDDLUS (Missouri)Asli2.32El Chilar Apopka, FL El Chilar HF, LLC. Expands Recall of El Chilar Ground Cinnamon Due to Elevated Levels of LeadEl Torito MarketD181EX0624 (Maryland) E054EX0225 (Maryland)El Chilar3.75 7.01Moran Foods, LLC Saint Ann, MO Colonna Brothers, Inc. Issues an Updated Voluntary Recall for Marcum & Supreme Tradition Ground Cinnamon Because of Possible Health RiskSave-A-Lot Food Stores, Ltd.BEST BY: 12/05/25 12 D8 (Missouri) BEST BY: 12/05/25 12 D11 (Virginia)Marcum2.22 2.14Raja Foods LLC Skokie, ILPatel BrothersBatch No.: KX28223, Best Before October 2026 (Connecticut)SWAD2.89Greenbrier International, Inc. Chesapeake, VA Colonna Brothers, Inc. Issues an Updated Voluntary Recall for Marcum & Supreme Tradition Ground Cinnamon Because of Possible Health RiskDollar Tree10A11, BEST BY: 10/06/25 (California)Supreme Tradition2.37MAMTAKIM, Inc., Elizabeth, NJ (importer)EurogroceryExp and Lot: 08 2024 L1803231 (Connecticut)Compania Indillor Orientale2.23ALB-USA Enterprises Inc., Bronx, NY ALB-USA Enterprises Recalls ALB Flavor Ground Cinnamon Because of Possible Health RiskEurogroceryBest Before:30/08/2025 – LA02 (Connecticut)ALB Flavor3.93Advance Food International, Inc Advance Food International Inc. Recalls Shahzada Brand Cinnamon Powder 7oz Because of Possible Health RiskPremium SupermarketNone (New York)Shahzada2.03American Spices LLC, NY American Spices LLC. Recalls Spice Class Ground Cinnamon Because of Possible Health RiskFish WorldBest by: 12/2026 (New York)Spice Class2.04La Frontera ImportsFrutas Y Abarrotes Mexico, Inc.None (New York)La Frontera2.66 Images of the products can be found on the FDAs notice here. Has anyone been harmed by consuming the designated products? As of the time of this writing, no one is ye known to have been harmed by consuming the listed products, the FDA says. However, it can take months or years to see the negative health effects of elevated levels of lead in the body. Long-term exposure (months to years) to elevated levels of lead in the diet could contribute to adverse health effects, particularly for the portion of the population that may already have elevated blood lead levels from other exposures to lead, the agency warns in its notice. The FDA goes on to explain that the adverse health effects of consuming lead-contaminated food vary depending on a number of factors, including the age of the person, the volume and frequency of lead exposure, and more. The very young are particularly vulnerable to the potential harmful effects from lead exposure because of their smaller body sizes and rapid metabolism and growth, the agency warns. High levels of exposure to lead in utero, infancy, and early childhood can lead to neurological effects such as learning disabilities, behavior difficulties, and lowered IQ. What are the consequences of lead exposure? According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), exposure to lead in children can result in adverse effects, including: Damage to the brain and nervous system Slowed growth and development Learning and behavior problems Hearing and speech problems The CDC says this can lead to lower IQ, a decreased attention span ability, and underperformance in educational environments. Lead exposure in children is often difficult to see, the agency notes. Most children have no obvious immediate symptoms. If parents believe their children have been exposed to lead, they should talk to their child’s healthcare provider. What should I do if I have the listed cinnamon products? Ground cinnamon products last for years, which means consumers may have the products in their kitchen pantries and on their shelves, and may even have forgotten about themand so people may not use the products until far in the future when they suddenly need the spice for cooking or baking. But the FDA is warning consumers to check their homes now and discard any of the products on the list, warning that consumers should not eat, sell, or serve ground cinnamon products the agency has identified as potentially having elevated levels of lead.
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E-Commerce
Every day another industry leader proclaims that everything will change with AI. While there is no question AI is the most transformative tech shift since the industrial revolution, all the hype means leaders lack real answers about how those changes will roll out or improve critical decisions that will impact the future of their business. As the CEO of a technology company that has invested over $2 billion in evolving our cloud and managed services platform over the past 14 years, I have seen firsthand how foundational innovation sets the stage for transformational leaps. Two years ago, we recognized that AI had matured from future potential to strategic imperativeprompting a $100M investment while continuing to evolve our existing platform. Soon we will launch the next generation of our platform with AI fully integrated, putting our customers in a winning position while giving our internal teams the early-adopter advantage to evaluate vendor solutions and empower employees to harness AIs full potential. Our team sees AI following the 80/20 rule: 80% of jobs will change 20%, and 20% of jobs will change 80%. Here are four questions we continue to ask as we progress on our AI journey, for our customers and internally: 1. How are we encouraging AI literacy across the entire organization? AI is moving too fast to guarantee ROI; but it is too transformative to gatekeep it from employees. You will never find out how AI can help your teams unless you enable innovation that comes from all levels in the organization. The best way to encourage that is by giving tools to everyone. In our case we added Microsoft CoPilot to our existing contract as soon as it was released to encourage team members to use AI in their daily work while running AI literacy and education programs across the company. 2. What is the AI innovation process? As a leader, you want to operationalize curiosity and let every employee explore, test, and learn what is possible with AI. The promise of AI is that a non-coder can build an app, and it is true. Your most innovative team members will build their apps for their business problem and go fastand if you offer a little help, these innovators will go faster. In the last six months we have seen 725 exploratory agents created by employees experimenting with CoPilot. Of those, 40 agents have been selected to scale and are being used routinely across teams. Meanwhile, IT continues to offer technical and moral support to the self-starters. The most important part of this process is understanding these employee-led innovations and applying them to the broader organization. In our case, promising ideas are funneled through a formal review process to assess their potential for enterprise-wide scalabilityfor instance, a services-built app was expanded with enterprise support to also support sales. When a use case requires IT or development resources, the innovator helps define the use case and provide an ROI, after which the AI steering committee prioritizes initiatives based on their potential impact. This ensures the most valuable ideas move forward efficiently while the entire organization learns. 3. What is the A2A and MCP story? As a CEO you need to learn the key terms A2A and MCP and push for these standards to avoid your teams building silos of technology that become obsolete as they cannot work with other systemsthe bane of every enterprise back office. A2A is agent to agent; think of it as APIs for agentic. One vendors agent speaks to another vendors agent, which allows the passing of context so that an enterprise workflow can succeed. Vendors will resist this as they try to monopolize your spend. MCP is model context protocol. MCP is a server that sits in front of a data repository and summarizes the context for agents. This reduces the need for agents to access your datawhich in many cases they do not need; they only need the context of a situation to decide what action to take. This will keep your teams from getting caught in a quagmire of creating data silos while reducing your need for data warehouses. 4. When will we see the ROI? In the rigid world of IT timelines and budgets, we would all like to see ROI immediately. But remember the greatest innovations and paybacks often come from learning and failure. After all, when asked about all the missteps on his way to create the electric light, Edison famously answered: I have not failed. Ive just found 10,000 ways that wont work. Artificial intelligence is going to change the world and everything that we do. Failure to invest in AI will put your entire business at risk, and a short-term focus on ROI is myopic. Our culture is about better, better, never best, where we celebrate success and learn from failure. This approach has enabled our product teams to evolve our platform at the right time for artificial intelligence, and for our IT organization to draft on those learnings while creating an environment where employees can innovate and keep Calix and our customers as leaders of the AI opportunity.
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E-Commerce
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