Pork barrel

Two major food companies announced that they will start winding down the amounts of antibiotics fed to pigs and chickens used in their products. The North American arm of Compass Group, an international catering company with 400,000 employees, and Smithfield Foods, the world's largest pork producer, based in Richmond, Virginia, said they would stop using medically important antibiotics to promote growth in pigs, and set up mechanisms to report and steadily reduce all antibiotic use. The agreement was developed with Environmental Defense, the New York-based green group. Antibiotic use in farm animals is thought to contribute to the growing human resistance to important antibiotics.

Special relationship

Qinetiq, a British research company that runs former Ministry of Defence laboratories, has made two major acquisitions in the United States. The company announced on 3 August that it is to buy two information-systems contractors based in Virginia — Apogen Technologies for $288 million, and Planning Systems for $42 million. Both companies sell computer and security systems to the Pentagon, the Department of Homeland Security and other US government departments. The expansion of its US business comes as Qinetiq gears up for an expected public offering in which the British government will relinquish its share of the company.

Hybrid option

Japanese car giant Toyota says that it expects sales of hybrid vehicles — which boost fuel economy by combining a battery and a conventional engine — to soar over the next five years. The company's North American president Jim Press says that sales of the vehicles could reach 600,000 a year in the United States alone by early in the next decade. The company, which plunged into hybrid technology more enthusiastically than its competitors (see Nature 435, 1026–1027; 2005), dominates the hybrid market and is on track to sell at least 100,000 of its popular Prius models in the United States this year.