• From the Washington Post:
"The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday declared a lab-grown meat product developed by a California start-up to be safe for human consumption, paving the way for products derived from real animal cells — but that don’t require an animal to be slaughtered — to someday be available in U.S. grocery stores and restaurants.
"Dozens of major food companies are jostling to debut cultivated meat to the American public. As of now, Singapore is the only country in which these products are legally sold to consumers. The FDA’s announcement that cultivated chicken from Emeryville-based Upside Foods is safe to eat is likely to open the floodgates in the United States in the coming months."
The Post goes on:
"Whether consumers will embrace this form of meat remains a question. Despite the money and hopes invested in realistic simulated-meat products such as Beyond and Impossible, which are made with vegetable protein, the market for these alt-meat products has cooled. High prices, too, will be a challenge to widespread adoption, experts say.
"Still, boosters of cultivated meat say it has huge potential."
• From the Oregonian:
"An update to Fred Meyer’s payroll software has left some employees’ paychecks short of what they’re owed, some for several weeks.
"Jeffery Temple, a spokesperson for Fred Meyer, said the parent company, Kroger Co., recently launched a new human resources platform that has caused the problems.
"'Through the conversion we have experienced a technical error in paycheck distribution,' the spokesperson said in a statement. 'Although a small percentage of our associates have been affected, we understand the impact. We are working quickly on resolving known issues.'
"Temple said about 1% of the roughly 40,000 Fred Meyer employees across Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Alaska have been affected. It’s unclear why around 400 employees were affected while others were not."
