Because melamine, a chemical additive used to make plastic, was discovered in the milk supply of China's third-largest dairy, more than 20 countries -- including France, India, and South Korea -- have already banned not just dairy products from China but also candies and cookies. Business Week provides a good overview of the crises, which has resulted in China's four largest dairy companies, accounting for nearly half the country's milk market, pulling their products off shelves. USA Today carries an AP report that Kraft and Mars are investigating claims by Indonesia's Food and Drug Monitoring …

People may drink more during tough times, if past performance is an accurate measure of future performance, but executives at Pernod Ricard say they're not necessarily drinking better. "Sales at grocery stores and other retail outlets continue to grow at healthy rates," the Journal reports -- is "healthy" really the right modifier here? -- but Paul Duffy, CEO of Pernod's U.S. business, reports that sales have slipped in bars and restaurants. Some brands are down as much as 8%, he says. Pierre Pringuet, managing director at Pernod, says the company's strong lineup of brands, such as fast-growing Jameson Irish …

Brandweek leads off a roundup of current advertising that's infused with political themes with a new campaign from Vegas.com. "The official Vegas travel site" is launching "Crapshoot '08," with the tag: "Because you need to be drunk to make it through this election." Burger King is embroiling itself in supporting consumers' "right to vote" -- be it at the polls or when ordering customized food orders at a BK drive-thru. (Promo has more details on BK's use of social media online, as well as celebrity television ads featuring Snoop Dogg, Michelle Branch and P. Diddy encouraging …

Walt Disney Imagineering's program brought in five interns this summer who brainstormed attractions for the company's for the theme parks and resorts. The notoriously secretive Imagineering, which is responsible for developing new ideas and rides, took the unprecedented step of granting access to its creative trove -- a database with more than 1,000 technologies and ride systems known as the "blue sky project" -- in hopes of sparking ideas for future attractions. This approach of bringing together "people who know too much and people who know too little" is a time-honored way to foster creativity, says Stanford University engineering …

Shareholders of Wm. Wrigley Jr. Co. have approved the sale of the company to Mars Inc. for $23 billion. The deal is expected to close within two weeks. Wrigley will remain based in Chicago as a subsidiary of Virginia-based Mars, and its current top management is expected to remain in place. The Mars-Wrigley deal has ignited a wave of speculation in recent months of further consolidation in the confectionary business. The most recent, which popped up this week in Britain's Daily Telegraph, has Nestle angling to buy a stake in Hershey. Cadbury, another big European-based candy player like Nestle, …

Columnist Bill Virgin says that his hometown bank, Washington Mutual, pursued a dream of becoming a coast-to-coast consumer financial-services giant under former CEO Kerry Killinger. "The company's message took on a tone of irreverence, of being unbankerly," Virgin writes. "The branches looked more like a friendly neighborhood Starbucks store than a traditional and intimidating marble-and-brass financial palace, the checking accounts came without up-front fees and the advertising tweaked pinstripe-suited bankers," Virgin writes. But with so much of its image in recent times tied to its words, "it ran out of the right words to convince regulators it should …