0815 ET – Oil futures rise after the U.S. attacked Iranian rocket launchers, renewing military action in the Persian Gulf for the first time in weeks. “The longer geopolitical uncertainty and supply disruptions continue, the tighter the market gets, keeping upward pressure on crude,” Nikos Tzabouras of Tradu says in a note. But the U.S. may have limited appetite for broader military action with its shift in focus to economic measures against Tehran and its enablers, he adds. Although below prewar levels, crude is finding its way out of the Middle East and with lower consumption the market could return to balance, he adds. WTI is up 3.4% at $86.21 a barrel, and Brent is 3.1% higher at $90.85. (anthony.harrup@wsj.com)

Oil Rises as U.S.-Iran Tensions Escalates

0933 GMT – Oil prices rise as renewed fighting between the U.S. and Iran revives concerns over crude flows through the Strait of Hormuz. November Brent rises 3.4% to $91.08 a barrel, while October WTI gains 3.3% to $86.19 a barrel. U.S. forces struck Iranian missile launchers on Larak Island, prompting retaliation from Tehran and renewed fears over safe passage through the key Gulf shipping route. Recent disruptions have shown how quickly uncertainty around Hormuz can feed back into oil prices, say ING commodity strategists Warren Patterson and Ewa Manthey. (farhan.rafid@wsj.com)

Consumer demand continues to reshape product development across nearly every food category. According to the International Food Information Council’s (IFIC) 2025 Food & Health Survey, 70% of Americans say they actively try to consume protein,* making it the most sought-after nutrient for the fifth consecutive year. Whether it’s bars, beverages, breads, snacks or frozen meals, manufacturers continue to respond with products that help consumers meet their protein goals.

As consumers increase protein intake, many aren’t getting enough fiber. In fact, Americans average only about 16 grams of fiber per day – which is well below the recommended daily intake. At the same time, higher-protein diets often replace foods that have traditionally contributed fiber, widening what nutrition experts commonly refer to as the “fiber gap.”

For food manufacturers, that gap represents an opportunity. Consumers aren’t simply looking for more protein. They’re looking for foods that help them feel satisfied and contribute to their overall wellness with more complete nutrition.

Why Fiber Matters in a High-Protein Diet

While high-protein foods are well-established for building and maintaining muscle, they often lack a sufficient amount of dietary fiber. Without adequate fiber, consumers who shift to eating more protein may experience digestive discomfort and gut issues, making these diets difficult to sustain.

Boosting fiber alongside protein helps keep digestion moving while also contributing to satiety. Pairing protein with fiber allows manufacturers to create foods that help consumers stay fuller longer while delivering the nutritional balance they’re increasingly seeking.

That combination is becoming even more important as GLP-1 medications reshape eating habits. An estimated 22 million U.S. adults have used GLP-1s. Because these medications suppress appetite, users eat significantly less and are advised to prioritize protein to help preserve lean muscle mass. As portion sizes become smaller, nutrient-dense protein + fiber companion foods are becoming essential and creating opportunities for manufacturers. 

Photo: Shutterstock/DronG

Adding Fiber Without Compromising Quality

Not all fiber performs the same way. Understanding the differences allows formulators to select fiber ingredients that positively impact both nutrition and product performance.

Soluble fiber dissolves in liquid and forms a gel-like consistency. Nutritionally, it is associated with supporting healthy blood sugar levels and heart health. In food applications, soluble fibers are commonly used for thickening, stabilization and emulsification.

Insoluble fiber does not dissolve in water. Instead, it aids digestive regularity by adding bulk to the digestive system. In formulations, insoluble fiber is used for water binding, moisture management, breakage control and overall texture — making it particularly valuable across bakery, snack and added-protein applications.

These distinctions make insoluble fiber well suited to address the technical challenges that arise when adding fiber to high-protein foods. 

Depending on the ingredient and inclusion level, fiber can introduce grittiness, heaviness or dryness. It can also negatively affect dough texture and finished product appearance. For food manufacturers looking to achieve a “high fiber” or “good source of fiber” label claim, the challenge is developing a higher-fiber formulation without compromising the sensory qualities consumers expect.

Oat Fiber Delivers Nutrition and Functionality

To do this, formulators increasingly turn to insoluble oat fiber. Unlike other fiber sources that can turn gummy or introduce off-flavors, oat fiber boosts nutrition with minimal impact on the sensory profile.  

Grain Millers Oat Fiber stands out as a choice for formulations. Produced through a natural process without the use of chemical agents, it allows for a clean, simple ingredient declaration. It features exceptionally high fiber and very few calories, and its light color and neutral taste ensure easy integration without disrupting product flavor or appearance. Grain Millers Oat Fiber is gluten-free and available in organic options, creating possibilities for premium product positioning and maximum shelf appeal.

Beyond its nutritional profile, oat fiber provides functional benefits across multiple food categories.

• Breads and tortillas – helps maintain softness and pliability while reducing cracking.
• Cereals and snacks – improves structure, enhances crunch and helps minimize the dry, “cardboard-like” texture that can sometimes accompany high-protein formulations.
• Meat products – improves moisture retention, helping products stay juicy.
• Reduced-calorie foods – serves as a bulking ingredient, adding volume and enhancing satiety without contributing significant calories.

Photo: Shutterstock/Andrey Starostin

Looking Ahead

High protein continues to attract consumers, but it’s also creating a new opportunity for product innovation. More and more, as consumers continue choosing protein-rich foods, they’ll expect those products not to provide only protein. They’ll expect foods that support digestive health, promote satiety and offer a more complete nutritional profile.

For manufacturers, that means looking at elements other than just protein content and understanding how fiber ingredients can enhance both nutrition and product performance. Pairing protein with fiber to meet evolving consumer expectations will help companies differentiate their products in a crowded marketplace.

To learn more about Grain Millers’ oat fiber ingredients or connect with our technical services team, visit grainmillers.com/oat-fiber

This article was written by

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The SRC said the policy also risked forcing small shops which are not covered by the proposed legislation to be uncompetitive.

“Scottish consumers benefit from the most affordable food prices in western Europe,” MacDonald-Russell added.

“We know food price inflation is a problem, but the best model to deal with it is the one we have right now and price caps are going to make that worse.

“It is giving a false promise that it is going to be able to help with something.

“In reality, there is as good a chance it is going to make the overall cost of a shopping basket higher, because the cost of the scheme as well as the cap have to be absorbed by businesses.”

It is thought the proposals would require changes to the UK Internal Markets Act of 2020, which was brought in after Brexit to prevent trade barriers and regulatory divergence between England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland as powers returned from the EU.

The Scottish Government said helping people with the cost of living was a “top priority”.

A spokesperson added: “Ministers have welcomed engagement with stakeholders, including retailers, food producers and farmers on proposals for food price controls.

“A consultation will launch shortly for further views.”

Key Points

Thailand’s journey to join the OECD by 2028 involves rethinking its approach to inequality. Policymakers must broaden their perspective beyond taxation and welfare. They need to integrate competition policy as a core strategy to tackle inequality effectively. This shift requires fostering a fairer market environment where small and medium-sized enterprises can thrive, ensuring that economic growth benefits all segments of society.

These are not the same problem, and the failure to distinguish between them is a large part of why so little has changed.

The uncomfortable reality is this: Thailand’s wealthiest households are not simply outearning everyone else. In many cases, they are the same conglomerates that dominate the industries they operate in, from telecommunications and energy to beverages, retail and airport concessions, with too little regulatory friction to prevent market dominance from converting directly into personal fortune. 

In markets with few genuine competitors, the winners do not just accumulate wealth. They tend to keep it, almost regardless of how well they actually perform.

Telecom offers the clearest illustration.

In 2023, True Corporation and DTAC, then Thailand’s second and third largest mobile operators, completed a merger that reduced the number of major carriers from three to two. That alone warranted serious scrutiny. Instead, the deal fell into a regulatory gap. 

The Trade Competition Commission does not oversee telecom mergers, and the sector’s dedicated regulator, the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission, determined that the transaction did not technically qualify as an “acquisition.” 

The two companies had described it as an “amalgamation,” a legal distinction that placed the deal outside the commission’s approval authority. Rather than being approved or rejected, the merger was simply acknowledged, with conditions attached. No regulator with clear authority ever rendered a formal judgment on it.

The consequences followed a predictable pattern. True Corporation’s average revenue per user has risen since the merger, while cheaper mobile plans have become harder to find. That outcome is not incidental. It is what tends to happen when competitive pressure is removed and no regulatory body is positioned to notice or respond.

This is a pattern, not an isolated case.

True Corporation is partly owned by Charoen Pokphand Group, Thailand’s largest conglomerate, with interests spanning agriculture, food, retail, automobiles and telecommunications. Its leaders, the Chearavanont brothers, rank near the top of the country’s rich list. Close behind is Sarath Ratanavadi of Gulf Development, which is also the principal shareholder behind AIS, the country’s other major mobile carrier. Add Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi’s beverage business and the Srivaddhanaprabha family’s airport duty-free operations, and a small number of firms account for a striking share of the country’s concentrated wealth.

This is not merely a matter of historical accumulation. It is recurring in the industries that will shape Thailand’s coming decade. When virtual banking licenses were approved in mid-2025, the successful applicants included CP Group, two of the country’s established banks and PTT, the state oil company. When the Board of Investment approved data center projects in early 2026, five of the seven were linked to True Corporation, Gulf Development or AIS. The names change little, even as the frontier does.

Why this matters more than the inequality figures alone

The figures themselves are stark. Thailand’s wealthiest one percent hold roughly a third of national wealth, and the next nine percent hold close to another third, leaving the bottom half of the population with approximately 3.5 percent. 

But figures of this kind tend to invite responses centered on taxation or redistribution. That response misses the underlying mechanism. If weak competition enforcement is the root cause, redistributing income after the fact addresses a symptom while leaving the structure that produces the imbalance largely untouched.

Some scholars trace this dynamic to the Prayuth Chan-o-cha era, arguing that Thailand has drifted toward a form of hierarchical capitalism in which a small circle of conglomerates now effectively shapes national economic direction. 

The comparison with South Korea and Taiwan is instructive. Large firms in those economies also received substantial state support, but that support came with defined expectations: industrial upgrading, export performance, alignment with long-term national strategy. Thai conglomerates have often gained comparable scale and protection without equivalent obligations attached.

What genuine reform would require

The OECD’s 2025 review identified concrete, addressable weaknesses: opaque procedures for selecting Trade Competition Commission board members, unclear investigative rules and, most consequentially, ambiguous jurisdiction between regulators. 

That last weakness is precisely what allowed the True-DTAC merger to escape meaningful review. When a transaction can avoid scrutiny simply by being classified under the right legal term, the underlying law is not functioning as intended.

Thailand does not need a campaign against large enterprise. It needs a Trade Competition Commission with clear, enforceable jurisdiction over sectors, such as telecommunications, that currently fall outside its reach through regulatory ambiguity. It needs transparent oversight of who gains control of emerging markets, including virtual banking and data infrastructure, before those markets settle around the same handful of family-controlled firms. And it needs to stop treating OECD accession as a matter of technical compliance, when the more difficult obstacle is a political economy that has, for years, quietly determined who is permitted to compete and who is simply positioned to collect the returns.

Address the competition problem, and the wealth problem begins to correct itself. Leave it unaddressed, and Thailand may join every international body it seeks membership in without the underlying concentration shifting at all.

WINDSOR, England — The Prince and Princess of Wales have returned to Windsor after wrapping up their traditional late-summer holiday in Scotland, marking the end of the family’s break and the start of preparations for Prince George’s first term at Eton College.

William and Catherine spent the past several weeks at Balmoral Castle in the Scottish Highlands alongside King Charles III and Queen Camilla, a tradition dating back to the reign of Queen Victoria and one that became particularly associated with the late Queen Elizabeth II. The couple has now headed south to their primary residence at Forest Lodge in Windsor Great Park with their three children, Prince George, 13, Princess Charlotte, 11, and Prince Louis, 8, as the family prepares for the start of the new school year in September.

The most significant change facing the household is George’s transition into secondary education. After spending recent years at Lambrook School in Berkshire alongside his younger siblings, George is set to begin his first term at Eton College, following the same educational path taken by both his father and his uncle, Prince Harry. Kensington Palace confirmed the decision earlier this year, stating simply, “Kensington Palace can confirm that Prince George will attend Eton College from this September.”

The choice ends years of speculation over whether George would attend Eton, William’s alma mater, or Marlborough College, the school Catherine attended alongside her siblings Pippa and James Middleton. According to royal commentator Charlotte Griffiths, William was reportedly pushing hard for Eton throughout the decision-making process, telling reporters, “I think that on this one, William was pushing hard for Eton, and they did flip-flop over the issue of where to send George.” Some reporting has suggested Catherine initially had reservations about the boarding school route, with one source indicating she would have preferred a day school for her eldest son, though she is now said to be fully supportive of the decision.

Eton, an all-boys boarding school educating students ages 13 to 18, charges annual tuition of roughly 63,298 pounds, or about 84,000 dollars. Founded centuries ago, the institution has educated 20 British prime ministers, including David Cameron and Boris Johnson, along with William, who attended from 1995 to 2000 and became the first senior member of the royal family to attend the school. William earned 12 GCSEs and three A-levels during his time there, including an A in Geography, a B in History of Art and a C in Biology.

George’s new school carries a practical advantage tied directly to the family’s living situation. Eton sits just across the River Thames from Windsor Castle, roughly a 15-minute drive from Forest Lodge, the eight-bedroom Georgian mansion the family moved into in October 2025 after relocating from the smaller, four-bedroom Adelaide Cottage. The proximity means George will be able to return home relatively easily on weekends, including for family dinners or Sunday lunch following sports fixtures, according to royal commentary reported by Hello! magazine.

Meanwhile, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis will continue their education at Lambrook School, a co-educational day and boarding school spanning 52 acres near Ascot, Berkshire, that has become known for accommodating high-profile students with discreet security arrangements.

The family’s return to Windsor comes just days after Prince Harry and Meghan Markle arrived back in the United Kingdom with their own children, Prince Archie, 7, and Princess Lilibet, 5, following more than six years based primarily in California. William and Catherine have made no public comment regarding Harry and Meghan’s return, maintaining the same silence that has generally characterized the relationship between the two households in recent years. Harry and Meghan have reportedly settled on the Cotswolds region as their new UK base, with their children also set to begin school there this September.

It remains unclear how long the Sussex family intends to remain in Britain. Reports have pointed to several possible factors behind their return, including concerns over King Charles’ ongoing cancer treatment, Harry’s stated desire to repair his relationship with his family, and a series of public engagements Harry is expected to attend in the coming months, including the WellChild Awards in London on Sept. 5 and events leading up to the 2027 Invictus Games in Birmingham.

For now, both branches of the royal family are entering a season defined by significant transition, with William and Catherine’s household adjusting to George’s new chapter at Eton even as questions continue to swirl around the broader implications of Harry and Meghan’s return to British soil after years away.