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DANISH TOY MAKER Lego has taken the top spot as the world’s biggest maker of toys by sales, overtaking Barbie doll-maker Mattel, its first-half results showed on Thursday.
Sales for the first six months of the year rose 11% to 11.5 billion kroner (€1.55 billion).
Performance was boosted by the Lego Movie product line which was launched together with the group’s eponymous feature film earlier this year.
“It is too early to say if the strong performance will be reflected in the full year results,” chief financial officer John Goodwin said in a statement.
“The majority of Lego sales to consumers happen in the second half of the calendar year in a short time span of a few weeks leading up to the holiday season,” he said.
Net profit rose 14% to 2.7 billion kroner, also putting it ahead of Mattel, which reported disappointing first-half results in July as sales of Barbie continued to decline.
Mattel bought Canadian Lego rival Mega Brands — which makes plastic building blocks directly in competition with the Danish group’s products — for $460 million (€353 million) in February.
Lego is looking to grow in Asia, where sales are relatively small compared to sales in the mature markets of Europe and North America.
“China saw the most significant growth in consumer sales in the region by more than 50 percent,” the company said.
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With some foods you play it safe and follow the BBD.
But with others you can trust your eyes and nose with a dash of common sense.
Apart from meat or fish etc., I do use out of date food, although, obviously if it looks or smells funky, I wouldn’t. Use a bit of common sense and you’ll be grand.
The problem with that is that common sense is not very common! Expiry dates for food are there so people cant sue food companies if they get food poisoning!!
If it smells and looks okay then not a problem but If in doubt chuck it out!
I have 3 children, it never gets near expiry date
Lol for the day.
When bananas go brown, or pears a bit too soft – we use them to make muffins….gorgeous.
Me too! Just ate the last apple spice muffin made with some wrinkly apples, fabulous :)
Bananas go brown mainly due to the heat, if left in a warm kitchen they can be brown all over but just ripe inside
Banana muffins and banana bread from not so pretty bananas – yum yum
Matt, I’ve just spotted some dodgy pears in my fruit bowl. Have you a recipe for pear muffins?
Also great for smoothies or milkshakes. Yum!
I just made banana bread…. Hurrah!
sorry for the delay – glued to elections ….. just mushem-up & mix-em in!
We used a frozen Joint of Beef 2 years over the use by date and it was lovely !
Use your nose and eyes instead of the sheer utter waste of binning food because of a date !
If it looks ok and smells ok…
100,000+ years of evolution does carry some benefits…
Yeah I would also say use your nose, that’s what it is for.
Too much good food being wasted these days.
Canned food will last long after the BBD, you can tell if a lot of food is gone off by using your nose and eyes.
Food in a can is not food :)
Gary, canned tomatoes contain more antioxidants than fresh tomatoes. Canned pulses such as chickpeas, kidney beans etc are also fine. Some canned food isn’t great, granted; but many canned foods are excellent store-cupboard staples.
Tinned sardines, anchovies and mackerel are excellent, tinned tomatoes surely every house has a tin of baked beans in their press, I also love tinned grapefruit. Granted there are many tinned foods I wouldn’t touch such as meatballs, spaghetti or soups.
Baked beans are the staple of my diet
A lot of continental cheeses appear on the supermarket reduced shelfs because they are near their expiry date bit are not really ready to eat….Some cheeses should be “runny”, like brie and came Bert. Also beef can keep for ages in a fridge. It should be turning blue before its cooked…..supermarkets are far too quick under hung beef on their sell by shelfs. Not that I’m complaining!
I’m sorry I know what you meant but “came Bert” made me laugh!
‘Come on the bears’ is good too as well as ‘eat them’ cheese. ‘Poor skin’ is nice as well, not to forget ‘ hello it’s me’. All delicious.
Great story
What is with the amount of sad negative twerps on thejournal.ie
GREAT STORY I LOVED EVERY LAST WORD.
I freeze a lot of stuff I get. Most things can be frozen on purchase. I am sure I have steaks in the bottom of my freezer that have been there for months and months.
Freezer constantly full of cheap short dated food. Have three kids, so gotta save where I can. Nothing wrong with any of it.
Love brown bananas
Big ones?
Food doesn’t go off at midnight on the “best before” date. “Use by” dates are much more important. Best before = guide. Use by = instruction.
Some discount shops are specialising in clearing short date and passed “sell by” date ranges brought in from UK and some Irish manufacturers. In the current economic climate………………..!
aviva stadium compass made us wash exp off bottles to sell to vip,s in the 02 lounge, 2 years ago
I would be cautious of Tesco’s discount shelf where they try to offload stock close to its sell by date.
Would definitely avoid sausages, chicken and other meat products.
What did people do before best before/use by dates? They used their senses, mainly sight and smell. I’ve often bought chicken from one of the big national supermarkets only to find that it’s gone rancid well within it’s use by date.(it was stored properly by the way) With things like a block of hard cheese, you just slice off the mould and it’s good as new. People get ill by not cooking food properly far more than by using things past the best before date. This paranoia about everything being fresh and new and anything more than a day or so old being not fit to eat is only since the advent of supermarkets and their advertising campaigns because they actually want us to waste food. That way they can sell us more.
Over ripe bananas are perfect for making banana bread.
I use carrots, onions and celery just about to die chopped into chunks and placed under the roast, makes amazing gravy.
Veggies on the turn either made into chutney or a veggie curry.
Oh yeah
Food has a expiry date?
Best before, still good after!
The milk in the fridge is 4 days out of date and is still good to go. I hate another bottle dated the 20th and its due to be opened today. :)
Sour milk is perfect for making brown bread Lily, a tip my mum in law gave me, she would only ever use sour milk when baking her soda bread.
Its not gone off yet but will keep it in mind for the bottle in the freezer dated 04 may 2014…
Yes. I have the constitution of a wild animal, do all food that’s reached its sell by date is passed over to me.
Best Before Date doesn’t mean Horribe After Date. The foodstuff will better before the date but usually perfectly for sometime afterwards. It varies on what it is of course. I have used teas that were more than an year up, but they were unopened, they were pretty ok. Waste not want not applies bit time here. Saving money for other things.
Beef in particular is perfect by it’s best before date – supermarket meat is not hung properly for eye appeal, a well matured piece of beef should be dark in colour.
I always snap it up and put into deep freeze where it will last several months if wrapped properly to prevent freezer burn.
Better still, seek out a good factory shop such as Gahan’s meats in Finglas, in the industrial estate across from Joe Duffy motors just before taking the slip road onto the M50. At least 2/3s the price of supermarkets with better quality.
Bananas were a bad picture example to use…it’s pretty easy to tell when a banana is gone off…
People obviously willing to risk their lives for sake of saving a few €- .
Judging by looks and nose not safe – of course the people who suffered /died by going past the ”use by” date will not be posting here .
Keep on ”saving ”— the world is overpopulated .
Jim,
The best before and use by dates are GUESSES.
eg. when you bottle some milk you can guess how much bacteria will be present in 7 days if you assume the current state of the milk, the temperatures and conditions of transport and storage. Since your information is not complete there is a range of values you could arrive at. What do you do? You need to work on the assumption of worst case conditions. this means you will probably have the dates set a few days before the food is actually gone off.
Most of us have an very accurate instrument for detecting when food is bad – our nose. Its a lot more accurate than the predictive dates on a bottle of milk.
there is also the possibility (which i have seen a few times) of food going bad before the best before date; incorrectly labeled, incorrectly stored, packaging compromised etc. blindly relying on the use by date could be disastrous in this case.
I have cheese that is months past its date, its very tasty.
There are many applications for the calculation of the expiration date, I use it https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=info.shelflife.shelflife
Loads of things are obviously not dangerous. Fruit and veg, that sort of thing.
Pork, mince, fish or chicken, never mess about with those.
Dairy, your eyes and nose won’t let you down.
As for steaks or lamb chops, I routinely stick them straight into olive oil and plenty of pepper when I get them home, and then you’re fine for the rest of the week, 2 weeks even with the former.
have your say