Ag Secretary Updt and Food Sales

Elsa Murano, a former undersecretary for food safety at USDA and former president of Texas A&M University, will be interviewed by President-elect Trump to become secretary of agriculture.

A Trump spokesman said Murano "comes highly recommended and her track record of running a major university really speaks for itself."

The Cuban-born Murano, who is still a professor at A&M and a member of the Hormel Foods Board, would add a woman and a Hispanic to the administration.

Total food-away-from-home expenditures of total U.S. consumers in 2014 surpassed at-home food sales for the first time.

This outcome is reflected in the 32.7-cent foodservices share of the U.S. food dollar claimed by restaurants, and reflected in the 12.9-cent retail-trade share claimed by food retailers, its lowest since 2002.

A growing share of the food dollar has gone to farm producers, up 1.7 cents since 2009, while food processing's share is down.