Poor Farmer

By Heather Walsh Bloomberg October 24, 2011 Colombia, the world’s second-largest supplier of Arabica coffee beans, may produce its smallest crop in two years in 2011 because of excess rain that poses a risk for next year’s harvest, according to a top growers’ leader. Output may slide to less than 8.5 million bags this year, said Mario Gomez, a member of the board of Colombia’s National Federation of Coffee Growers for almost three decades. In August, the Federation cut its forecast to 9 million bags, from 9.5 million previously. Last year’s crop was 8.9 million bags. “Output could be hit mainly because of the weather,” Gomez said in an interview on Oct. 21 near the city of Manizales in the heart of Colombia’s central coffee-growing region. “Production isn’t responding. Coffee like no other product needs light” and periods of dry weather, he said. Coffee has jumped 25 percent in 12 months as lower production in Colombia contributes to a slide in stockpiles of the...

Coffee Drinkers Less Likely to Develop Most Common Type of Skin Cancer By   Jennifer Warner Reviewed by   Laura J. Martin, MD WebMD Health News October 24, 2011 Drinking coffee may help prevent the most common type of   skin cancer. A new study shows that women who drank more than three cups of coffee per day had a 20% lower risk of developing basal cell carcinoma (BCC) than women who drank less than one cup a month. Men who drank more than three cups of coffee benefited from a 9% reduction in risk of this type of skin   cancer. Drinking decaffeinated coffee did not have any effect on skin cancer risk, which leads researchers to suspect   caffeine   is the key ingredient. "It is likely that caffeine has a protective effect," researcher Fengju Song, PhD, postdoctoral fellow in dermatology at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, says in an email. "BCC risk was inversely associated with caffeine." But be...

By Mia Lamar The Wall Street Journal October 24, 2011 Sara Lee   Corp. has sold the majority of its North American foodservice coffee and tea operations to   J.M. Smucker   Co. for $350 million in cash, continuing a slimming-down effort at the packaged-foods company. Sara Lee has worked in recent months to sell off businesses and narrow its focus. The company is currently in the process of splitting apart, separating into an international coffee and tea business and a North American business that includes the Jimmy Dean and Hillshire Farms brands. "Our decision to sell a major part of this business to Smucker is an example of Sara Lee Coffee and Tea's renewed focus on sustainable, profitable growth and part of our mandate to create the strongest possible pure-play company," said Executive Chairman Jan Bennink. The deal is expected to close in the beginning of next year. Also Monday, Sara Lee said that its Senseo coffee business in North America wil...