Take a walk through a supermarket in any wealthy nation and the promise of omega-3 health benefits screams off food products from bread to milk to juice. But are consumers getting the superfood they paid for?

`Consumers don`t understand what it is,` Vivian Tysse, sales manager with Norwegian fish oil producer Denomega, said at a health ingredients trade show in Paris this month.

The UN food agency said Wednesday it would need 42.6 million dollars (33.6 million euros) to carry out reforms called for by an independent review.

About half the funds will be spent next year, focussing on measures to improve `systems, programme, culture and organisational restructuring,` Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) budget director Manoj Juneja told AFP.

School pupils throughout Europe will soon be offered free fruit every week under an EU initiative agreed Wednesday to improve children`s health and tackle obesity.

EU Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel said the commission would provide 90 million euros (114 million dollars) per year to finance the project, with member states pitching in on a voluntary basis.

The World Food Programme said Wednesday that it has signed a new food aid deal to allow the UN agency to provide 350,000 tonnes of grain to millions in the strife-torn country.

`The agreement is part of our long-standing partnership with the goverment of Zimbabwe. It runs until April 2010,` said WFP spokesman Richard Lee.

The World Food Programme said Wednesday that it has signed a new food aid deal to allow the UN agency to provide 350,000 tonnes of grain to millions in the strife-torn country.

`The agreement is part of our long-standing partnership with the goverment of Zimbabwe. It runs until April 2010,` said WFP spokesman Richard Lee.

BERLIN, Nov 17, 2007 (AFP) - Berlin butchers got together to request a patent on their currywurst sausage from the European Patent Office, according to Bild newspaper Saturday.

The butchers' objective is to 'geographically' protect their culinary invention, the 1949 creation of one Herta Heuwer, a Berliner who served her snack in the western part of the then divided city day and night.

A plaque marks the spot of her famous foodstall, which was an institution at the time.

CHICAGO, Oct 19, 2007 (AFP) - Fast-food behemoth McDonald's Corp. on Friday reported net third-quarter profits rose seven percent to 1.07 billion dollars as overall sales strengthened worldwide.

The profit excluding one-time gains and losses was in line with Wall Street forecasts at 83 cents per share.

Revenues for the July-September quarter increased seven percent to 5.9 billion dollars as same-store sales rose 6.9 percent.

TOKYO, Oct 19, 2007 (AFP) - A Japanese company is launching fake shark fins in China, hoping to tap a market as prices for real ones rise amid concerns the species is being hunted to extinction.

Shark fin is considered one of the highest-end delicacies in Chinese cuisine and also fetches high prices in select Japanese restaurants.

Nikko Yuba Seizo Co. a Japanese food-processing company, said it had developed artificial shark fins made out of pork gelatin. Its top executives returned Friday from a two-day trip to China to introduce the products.

VEVEY, Switzerland, Oct 18, 2007 (AFP) - The Swiss food group Nestle said Thursday that growing raw material costs were having an impact on its growth, as it posted a nine percent increase in sales over the first nine months of the year.

Nestle said in a statement that 'input cost pressures were increasing over the second half of the year' and having a 'dampening effect' on real internal growth.

However, the company maintained its recently revised targets for better-than-expected growth this year.

GENEVA, Oct 18, 2007 (AFP) - The Swiss food group Nestle said Thursday that growing raw material costs were having an impact on its growth, as it posted a nine percent increase in sales over the first nine months of the year.

Nestle said in a statement that 'input cost pressures were increasing over the second half of the year' and having a 'dampening effect' on real internal growth.