New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has announced that the city will continue Michael Bloomberg’s fight for a ban on sodas over 16oz per serve, U.S. media reported in early May 2014.

Coca-Cola and PepsiCo said on 5 May 2014 they’re working to remove a controversial ingredient, brominated vegetable oil (BVO), from all their drinks, including Mountain Dew, Fanta and Powerade, following petitions on the website Change.org by a 17-year-old Mississippi teenager who wanted it out of PepsiCo’s Gatorade and Coca-Cola’s Powerade.

Mr Buffett wasn’t going to do anything about the Coca-Cola executive compensation plan, which, according to some detractors, might dilute Coke’s shareholders up to 16.6 percent and hand Coke’s executives up to USD 24 billion worth of stock at today’s share price.

Altria Group is the parent company of Philip Morris USA, the largest U.S. tobacco company, and of the smokeless tobacco and wine manufacturer UST. The company formerly owned Miller Brewing, Kraft Foods and Philip Morris International, which housed its international tobacco business. Although considered a “sin stock”, the company is known for its high dividend pay-out, averaging at about 80 percent of profits.

There would have been lots of lots of chest-pumping pride at the Craft Brewers’ Conference in Denver (8-11 April 2014). The Brewers’ Association (BA) reported that U.S. craft brewers sold an estimated 18.2 million hl of beer in 2013, up 18 percent over 2012. Yet, to take a contrary view, the Motley Fool (www.fool.com), a website for investors, ran a story on 5 April 2014, titled: “Brace Yourself: Anheuser-Busch May Just Be Brewing Up the Next King of Craft Beers”. How should this be possible? Did the Motley Fool get the story wrong?

It must be a tough job to keep Coke’s management motivated. Hence the company is planning to award stock worth about USD 13 billion (EUR 9.5 billion) to its senior managers over the next four years, based on the company’s current stock price. When combined with awards from previously approved compensation plans, this figure rises to USD 24 billion. That’s according to estimates by Wintergreen Advisors, a long-time Coke shareholder.

The same day a Coke shareholder publicly complained about excessive corporate rewards for Coke’s management, The Economist newspaper ran a column headed “Corporate headquarters have put on weight and need to slim down again”.

Is it the lure of the ampersand that we got Gieves & Hawkes (tailors), Fortnum & Mason (food store), Gilbert & George (artists), … plus tatties & neaps, blood & thunder, shock & awe, and now Smith & Forge, a new cider launched by MillerCoors in the United States?

Perhaps the controversy around the Brewers’ Association (BA) and its attack on “crafty beers” has had some good. In early March 2014 the BA revised its definition of a craft brewer. The revised definition states: “An American craft brewer is small, independent and traditional.”

It ’s still a rumour but the food industry investor C. Dean Metropoulos has offered the Pabst Brewing Company for sale. Pabst Blue Ribbon is a retro-chic “blue-collar beer” enjoyed by hipsters and budget drinkers alike.