Consumer Business Review: Tobacco DEFEATED In Oz, Nestlé Won’t FOLLOW Kraft

These were yesterday’s top stories:

Smokers in Australia will soon face very graphic images and warnings on cigarette packaging, as the supreme court of Oz denied tobacco companies’ argument that the new regulations that mandate such warnings are unconstitutional. The ruling is being monitored worldwide for possible outside intervention by the World Trade Organization, but failing something like that, Philip Morris International Inc. (NYSE:PM), and British American Tobacco (AMEX:BTI), should soon be mandated to cover most of their packs with the images, and will also be disallowed from using branding, logos, colors and promotional texts.

Don’t Miss: Is the iPad Mini JUST a Large iPod?

Nestlé (NSRGY.PK) Chairman Peter Brabeck comments to the Swiss business newspaper paper Finanz & Wirtschaft, that his firm does not intend to break up as did Kraft Foods Inc. (NYSE:KFT), or to spin off its Nespresso coffee unit with an initial public offering. The chairman called Kraft’s split creating shareholder value by “financial manipulation”.

Whole Foods Market, Inc. (NASDAQ:WFM) will smoothly deal with the expected food inflation, and also retain its growth plans in place, says the company’s co-Chief Executive Walter Robb, who added that after 18 months of a mostly deflationary environment, the drought in the Midwest will drive inflation up by a “manageable” 3 to 4 percent next year.

Don’t Miss: Samsung Gives Apple a Taste of Its Own Medicine.

Want news like this in real-time so you can get an edge? Click here for Wall St. Cheat Sheet Pro.