Warrnambool Cheese and Butter's board of directors has recommended that the company reject Bega Cheese Limited's takeover offer. [ + ]

According to the organisers, the Rethink Sugary Drink forum "comes amid a recent move by soft drink companies to publicly position themselves as 'part of the obesity solution' via expensive advertising and PR spin campaigns". [ + ]

Solvay has announced plans for South-East Asia's largest sodium bicarbonate plant. The plant, to be built in Thailand, will have a total capacity of 100,000 tonnes per year. [ + ]

SIG Combibloc's combidome - a bottle made of cardboard - has been awarded the German Packaging Award (Deutscher Verpackungspreis) in the 'Best Sales Packaging: Beverages' category. [ + ]

Oxfam has taken aim at some of the biggest names in the food and beverage industry - including Coca-Cola and PepsiCo - for their lack of action on land grabs and conflicts throughout their supply chains. [ + ]

Milmeq has been awarded an AU$18 million contract to supply its food processing technology to a major new beef processing facility in the Northern Territory. [ + ]

While fish has frequently been blamed for rising mercury levels in the human body, new research from the University of Bristol suggests that fish may not be the biggest contributor to mercury levels. [ + ]

Consumers deserve to know about the tactics Coles deployed when it decided to slash its own-brand milk to $1 per litre, the Queensland Dairyfarmers’ Organisation has said. [ + ]

According to new research from Lonergan Research, almost half of Australian adults surveyed have actively tried to reduce their meat consumption, with around one in 10 calling themselves 'flexitarians'. [ + ]

Submissions are invited on a proposal to amend minimum age-labelling requirements for infant foods. FSANZ is calling for comment on the proposal, which seeks to change labelling requirements from "four months" to "around six months". [ + ]

UK horticultural firm Thompson & Morgan has developed the TomTato - a plant that produces both tomatoes and potatoes. [ + ]

Exhibitor bookings for Foodtech Packtech 2014 are now open, but exhibition space is filling fast. More than 50% of the available floor space has already been sold to repeat exhibitors, organisers say. [ + ]

The Glass Packaging Institute has awarded Owens-Illinois (O-I) for its products in the 2013 Clear Choice Awards. O-I took out four of the seven product categories. [ + ]

A study has found that girls aged 9 to 15 who regularly ate peanut butter or nuts were 39% less likely to develop benign breast disease by the age of 30. [ + ]

GS1 Recallnet has won the Larry Smith Leadership in Technology Award (IT Capability) across the Logistics and Supply Chain Industry award category in the Logistics Association of Australia Leadership in Logistics Awards. [ + ]