Food producers and organizations from multiple countries have launched the Consortium for Common Food Names to stop efforts to restrict the use of generic food names, including such efforts by the European Commission.

A week or so before Thanksgiving 2011, Mexico became our first billion-dollar overseas market. It was like watching our first-born go through a graduation ceremony — the satisfying reward after years of careful nurturing.

The first baby boomers turned 65 in 2011. As more of the boomer generation reaches retirement age, the number of consumers 65-plus in the United States will burgeon from 40 million in 2010 to 72 million in 2030. Similar statistics can be seen around the world, with the highest percentages of seniors in Japan and Western Europe, and the highest population of seniors in China, whose citizenry swelled to 132 million people age 65-plus in 2011.

United States cheesemakers came away with 85 medals at the World Cheese Awards, the most ever for U.S. entrants in the competition. Hundreds of cheese companies worldwide participated, sending more than 2,500 cheeses to Birmingham, England, where they were judged by a field of more than 200 expert tasters from around the world.