Just over six months ago, Cadbury went through a major recall of some of their best selling products in the UK because the bars tested positive for traces of salmonella. In Canada, at about this time last year, the company had to recall some Cadbury Easter eggs because "pieces of hard plastic" were found in them. Now, the company is faced with yet another recall. This time, thousands of Easter eggs and chocolates were shipped out with no nut-allergy warning on the packaging, which puts those with such allergies at serious risk.

Since many of the chocolates have already been distributed, Cadbury is not only recalling them from stores, but chose to run ads in the newspapers to try to draw consumers' attention to the potential risk. A Cadbury spokesman could not give an estimate as to the exact number of products involved in the recall, but he speculated that the number of candies - primarily Easter-themed Cadbury Creme Eggs - would be in the thousands not the millions. The real danger for the company in this third recall comes from decreasing consumer confidence in their brand and whether the love of Creme Eggs (properly labeled ones) is enough to make consumers stay with them.

Fruity Pebbles, Fruit Rollups and fruity candies are just a handful of the myriad products aimed at kids that promote their fruitiness. Not only are fruit flavors appealing, but the use of the word implies that that flavoring is natural, or at least that it has been derived from fruits. Of course, this is not necessarily the case and the Strategic Alliance for Healthy Food and Activity Environments proved it by doing a study entitled "Where's the Fruit?"

The study looked at 37 different products, all product aimed at children, where images of fruit and/or fruit ingredients were pictured on the packaging and found that half of them contained no fruit of any kind. Another 16% contained only "minimal amounts of fruit despite prominent fruit promotions on the packaging." For example, Yoplait's Strawberry Splash Go-Gurt Yogurt contained no actual fruit, nor did Berry Berry Kix.

Using a picture of fruit on a box isn't exactly false advertising, but it is misleading and the study certainly illustrates how important it is to read the ingredients and nutritional information on packaging when shopping for food if you really want to know what you're getting.

A blade coffee grinder, which is the standard for most home coffee drinkers, has a food processor-like blade that swings around and chops up coffee beans. The grinders are usually fairly inexpensive and do the job of grinding up beans faster than you could do it with a hammer, but they are not necessarily very efficient, nor do they come close to getting the coffee beans evenly ground. Burr grinders, which are more expensive but crush the beans instead of chopping them up, produce even grounds and will generate the most consistent flavor in coffee - not to mention that they offer a range of sizes (from powdery fine to coarse) that work with different types of coffee makers, including espresso machines and french presses.

The Wall Street Journal's catalog critic sat down and tested a number of burr grinders to see which ones performed the best. The less-than-satisfactory grinders included the Capresso Infinity burr grinder, The Krups Burr Coffee Mill and the Cuisinart Automatic Burr grinder. The top performer was the KitchenAid Proline Grinder ($200), which produced grounds to exacting specifications and stored them in a nice glass container before use to eliminate the possibility of static charge making grounds adhere to the side of the container, as they sometimes did with plastic container models. The model given the "best value" designation was the Solis Maestro Burr Grinder ($115), which performed perfectly, but had a plastic grounds container that could have a minim static charge. In fact, it is the grinder that I use and it always does an excellent job - even with dark-roasted, oily beans that can jam up some other grinders. The KitchenAid would make a great Christmas gift "for coffee geeks," but the Solis is probably the way to go in terms of both price and performance.

The most popular cornbread mix on the market is Jiffy, and even though homemade is still the top choice of cornbread loves, it is a close second. It isn't the only cornbread mix on the market and in the last year, after very stagnant sales of muffin mixes - including cornbread - Betty Crocker decided that it was time to try and revamp their product to compete with Jiffy. The problem for them was that, even though they had a good product and Jiffy only advertised through word of mouth, they had a hard time driving up sales.

A General Mills executive decided to do a little in-house research with the help of some of the company's African American employees, based on the fact that African Americans account for more than one third of all cornbread sales in the US. What he found was that they didn't buy Betty Crocker either. One employee even said "I'd never eat Betty Crocker cornbread because it's not for black people."

With the feedback from the employees and not much else, the company tweaked the packaging to feature skillet cornbread, rather than corn muffins, and approached B. Smith for endorsement and to be a spokesperson for their healthy-eating "Serving Up Soul" campaign. The endorsement of a respected, award-winning chef and restaurateur gave the rebranded cornbread a little more credibility, and sales got a boost - rising almost 25% in the last year.

After months and months of green and white tea based products, including Enviga, green tea lattes and even green tea vodka, some beverage companies are starting to go back to black teas as the inspiration for their drinks. Nestle and Coca Cola announced this week that they would be concentrating their joint venture project on black tea-based beverages after the group has rolled out Enviga in Europe in early 2007.

The green tea craze was all in the name of the various health benefits that have been attributed to it. Black tea is still a consumer favorite, however, and now there are studies that have shown that drinking any kind of tea can be good for your health, so there is no reason to stay away from it as a drink option. On top of that, green tea seems to have oversaturated the market for the time being and people are probably ready for a change. It will be interesting to see what the group comes up with, since green tea drinks tended to be far more innovative than the average flavored ice tea and perhaps some of the inspiration for those drinks will be applied to black teas now.

Wine sales in France are on the decline, and that has several wineries turning to other ways to use their crops, such as grape-based sodas and beers, according to a recent Times article. The Times' Adam Sage reported on several such products unveiled at last week's International Food Fair in Paris. While one of the new products, Le Soda de la Vigne, is alcohol free, other new grape-based products like Ensô are more akin to beer, and others are simply wines with lower alcohol contents. These are aimed at "drinkers who have grown more health conscious and in some cases more wary of France's tougher drink-driving laws," The Times reported.

One grocery executive recently said, when explaining the lack of interest in the organic pasta sauces and cereals that prompted the store discontinue them, that "most of [the] consumers couldn't care less" about whether products were organic or not. The executive is part of a growing segment of retailers that believes that the push towards organic foods is not much more than a passing fad and, although it probably won't fade out in the way that the low-carb craze did, that it will return to a niche segment. Manufacturers, too, are cutting back on organics after discovering that consumers aren't always eager to pay double the price for a frozen pizza with organic flour when it is next to a regular one.

But the trend isn't fading everywhere. Upscale groceries, where consumers are already paying premium prices, are continuing to stock their shelves with organic options and consumers everywhere are still showing interest in buying organic meat, dairy and produce. Perhaps part of the problem is an overuse of the label. In unprocessed goods, such as produce and dairy, shoppers can see and taste the difference in organic products. In processed foods, most people only see the price difference and the word "organic" but only a few, if any, can taste the difference in the product.

So, organics might not be on the way out; they market is merely being refined as consumers become more educated about what organics are and more likely to overlook a potentially overpriced product that only has a small portion of organic ingredients in it.

General Mills has very strict advertising guidelines. They "consistently [avoid] advertising on programming that contains graphic violence, excessive sexual content and foul language," to much applause from consumer groups. It is the newest change to that policy, however, has those groups almost cheering aloud. The company has said that it will no longer advertise certain products, those that are considered to be unhealthy or high-calorie, to children. If a product contains more than 175 calories per serving, it will not be advertised to children under 12 via TV ads, movie tie-ins, internet content or using licensed cartoon characters. On top of that, "every product also must be considered 'healthy' or provide an important childhood nutrient, as measured by government guidelines." They will continue to use characters, including the Trix rabbit and the popular Dora the Explorer, to promote their other cereals, as the company has done for decades.

It is a bold step for the company, as it means that they might lose market-share to competitors in this area, but if parents applaud the move as much as the consumer groups, it might encourage some of them to stick with the brand in support.

This is the part where I plug my ears and mumble "bacon is healthy, bacon is healthy, bacon is healthy." Swedish researchers have reviewed 15 different studies and concluded that eating an extra ounce of salted or smoked meat a day can increase the risk of developing stomach cancer by 15 to 38 percent. The data comes from figures taken from over 4,000 individuals in the last 40 years, Reuters reported. The study appears in the current issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. An abstract is available here.

Trader Joe's puts out a different version of their Fearless Flyer, the newsletter that highlights many of their products, for different regions of the country, since often the products they carry will vary by state. This month, the Flyer is the same for all the western states (they're still working on the Eastern Flyer) and it lists the " Top 100 plus 4" favorite items of their tasting panel. I'm not going to type out all the items, especially as they can be seen online, but I am curious to know how many of their favorites are also favorites of yours.

Reading through their list, I saw that I have tried and enjoyed more than 55 of their picks,  including supersweet corn, Perlini mozzarella, Greek yogurt with honey and Purple Moon Shiraz . From the list, I'm not a fan of their frozen Old Fashioned Cheesecake, French Market Pink Lemonade or the Carrot Ginger Soup, but there were surprisingly few that I found myself disagreeing with. Head over to the Trader Joe's website and see if you think that their picks are on the money.

An Italian inventor has developed a way to make paper from apple by-products, according to a recent release on FreshPlaza.com. About two years ago, Dr. Albert Volcan (right) began work on the process of drying, cooling and grinding waste from apple juice production. He has since fine tuned the method so that the apple waste doesn't ferment and is thus able to produce a stable paper product that is being called Cartamela. For you Italian speakers, more info is available at EcoApple.com.

It's been a busy past four days as I perused about a million technologies at the CES conference. Sadly, there weren't too many food-related items. However, Microsoft had set up a portable home at the conference showing off their networked and smart appliances. I was hoping to see their smart countertop technology, but, alas, they were more focused on the big plasma displays and their media center products.

One appliance that caught my eye was their intelligent oven that can be programmed to cook at a certain time over the internet. So, I suppose you could put in your roast and leave to go somewhere, and then suddenly remember you had a roast in the oven, but forgot to turn on the oven. Then, you could simply use your PDA to turn on the oven. Practical? Perhaps not. But this oven can also act as a refrigerator after it cooks. Therefore, you could simply leave that pork roast in the oven instead of taking up room in the fridge.

As always, the idea of intelligent products might theoretically be a good one, but I don't think it's mature enough to really be that useful for the average consumer. Who needs a blender that connects to the internet to get drink recipes? I'm sure we all already know how to make our own favorite drinks.

The Impulsive Buy is an amusing blog that reviews consumer food products, ranging from Yoplait whipped yogurt to Slurpees. The banter is usually pretty humorous, and the reviewers are not professionals (ie. they're consumers just like us), and there's usually a good amount of comments. So, the next time you tuck into a Reese's, check out the Impulsive Buy to see what they have to say about it.