The Central Iowa Breakfast, Business & More meeting scheduled for Thursday morning has been cancelled. The event was scheduled to begin at 7 a.m. at the Holiday Inn Downtown, featuring Kristi Maitre from the Internal Revenue Service. For questions, contact Dawnelle Conley at the Small Business Administration office, 284-4913.

Kemin Industries Inc. has acquired a majority share of Soda Feed Ingredients, an Italian manufacturer specializing in technologies that enhance the digestibility of animal feed ingredients. The acquisition expands Kemin’s product portfolio of animal feed ingredients to include unique encapsulation technologies and new ingredients for the dairy industry. Kemin said it will invest resources in research and development to apply these technologies in the food, pet food, nutraceutical and pharmaceutical industries.

Monsanto Co., the world’s largest seed producer, reported a loss in its first fiscal quarter that trailed analysts’ estimates as sales of corn and soybean seeds dropped and prices for Roundup herbicide declined. The net loss of $19 million, or 3 cents a share for the three months ended Nov. 30, compared with net income of $556 million, or $1 per share, a year earlier. Net results for the quarter included a loss from discontinued operations of 1 cent a share. That trailed the average estimate of break-even results from 14 analysts in a Bloomberg survey. Sales fell 36 percent to $1.7 billion.

Convenience store chain Casey’s General Stores Inc. and Hy-Vee Inc., the state’s largest grocery chain, are partnering with the U.S. Census Bureau to provide space in their stores to answer questions about the 2010 Census. Casey’s will have “Be Counted” boxes with census information available, and Hy-Vee will have part-time census workers available at “Quality Assistance Centers” in its stores throughout the region, Rich Gerdes of the U.S. Census office in Kansas City told RadioIowa. Iowans will start getting census questionnaires in the mail in mid-March.

The Des Moines Area Regional Transit Authority (DART) put its 100th vanpool into service in November, bringing the total number of people sharing vans to and from work to nearly 900, the organization announced. To encourage more people to join vanpools, in January DART is offering a $10 gift certificate to any Amici Espresso Coffee location to new vanpool riders. DART also offers a free trial round trip to those interested. For more information, go online to www.ridedart.com or call (515) 288-RIDE (7433).

DART’s free D-Line downtown shuttle will be temporarily rerouted beginning Jan. 11 to accommodate legislative traffic at the state Capitol. The shuttle will stop on the west side of the Capitol, instead of running behind it on East 12th Street. The change is made every year to accommodate the hundreds of lawmakers, lobbyists and citizens who visit the Capital when lawmakers are in session. The D-Line route will return to normal once the 2010 legislative session ends.