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Man Dip has a six-month lease on life.

That’s about how long local grocery stores will give the spicy sausage and cheese dip, a new product from an unknown local entrepreneur, before they decide whether to keep it or dump it. But that’s a lot farther than most other food startups make it in the highly competitive race for grocery shelf space.

If it were up to Dr. Ted Mimlitz, the man behind Man Dip, the concoction he’s been whipping up for 15 years might have remained just a party favorite and inside joke among his circle of friends.

But about four years ago, Andy Wolf, a serial entrepreneur who has brought to market a number of items including a deer sled for hunters, took a bite of Mimlitz’s dip at a school-related event for their children.

“I said right there, ‘Have you ever thought about bringing this out commercially?’” Wolf said. “I pestered him for three months. Then he called me one December night and said, ‘Do you really think we can do this?’ I said, ‘Absolutely.’

That confidence belies the difficulty in bringing a product to market from scratch. Lots of folks flirt with the idea of branding and selling their homemade creations. But few people pursue it beyond their daydreams.

Local products face stiff competition from large food manufacturers with established brands, bulk negotiating power and money for extensive product and marketing research. Most local food products that have found success at area grocery stores are affiliated with local restaurants or well-known landmarks such as the Hill. Think Imo’s salad dressing, Zia’s pasta sauce and Fitz’s root beer.

“When people see that on your shelves, there’s that connection right away,” said Rich Wallace, Dierbergs’ director of procurement.

Another local example

President Barack Obama played golf and enjoyed some beach time with his family Sunday on Martha’s Vineyard, though not before getting briefed on developments in Libya.

Under sunny skies, Obama, wife Michelle, and daughters Malia and Sasha spent the morning on a private beach in Edgartown. The outing came on the third full day of Obama’s 10-day summer vacation and was his first excursion with his full family in tow. The president then parted ways with his family to play a round of golf at the Vineyard Golf Club.

First, though, Obama was briefed by national security aides on developments in Libya, where rebels advanced on Tripoli, threatening Moammar Gadhafi’s hold on power. White House aides have been at pains to show Obama is carrying out his duties as president even while on vacation amid international unrest, a shaky economy and high joblessness.

Obama also appeared on CBS News in an interview taped during his bus tour of the Midwest last week instant payday loans. He said he understood his low standing in the polls of late given public dissatisfaction with Washington and the poor economy. And he said he expected to be judged on the economy in next year’s presidential election.

“You’ve got an unemployment rate that is still too high, an economy that’s not growing fast enough,” he said. “And for me to argue, look, we’ve actually made the right decisions, things would have been much worse has we not made those decisions _ that’s not that satisfying if you don’t have a job right now. And I understand that and I expect to be judged a year from now on whether or not things have continued to get better.”

The president is scheduled to return to Washington next Saturday.

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Royal Dutch Shell PLC, Europe’s largest oil company, reported Thursday a near doubling in second quarter profits as higher oil prices and one-time gains offset a drop in production.

Net profit of $8.66 billion was up from $4.39 billion a year earlier. The figure was helped by a $1.44 billion gain booked on a mix of tax credits, trading activities, and the sale of businesses.

The company’s CCS profit, or profit at its current cost of supplies, was $6.55 billion excluding one-time gains, up from $4.21 billion a year earlier. The nonstandard measure, which seeks to strip out the impact of volatile oil prices on the company’s earnings, is closely watched by analysts and came in slightly lower than they had forecast.

Though Shell has been investing heavily in new projects, production fell 2 percent to 3.05 million barrels per day. Excluding asset sales, production would have risen 2 percent, Shell said, with 285 thousand barrels of oil per day added from new fields in Qatar, Nigeria and Canada more than offsetting the impact of field declines.

“We have made important progress with new production in 2011, and the ramp-up of our new projects should drive our financial performance in the coming quarters,” said Chief Executive Peter Voser in a statement.

Profits at upstream operations were up 85 percent to $6.06 billion, including $641 million in one-off gains from tax credits, trading gains, and sales of operations, Shell said.

The downstream operations, which include the refining arm, saw profits drop 7 percent on a CCS basis to $1.08 billion, reflecting lower refinery intakes and worse margins. The non-CCS results included gains of $802 million, mostly from the sale of operations in Chile and the Dominican Republic.

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Troubled car maker Saab Automobile AB has received a euro13 million ($18.4 million) car order from a Chinese company that could help pay salaries to its employees, its owner Swedish Automobile AB said Monday.

The company, previously known as Spyker Cars, claimed the deal would provide the ailing car brand with enough funds to also pay back parts of its debt to suppliers, but didn’t reveal the name of the Chinese company.

Last week, Saab said it had run out of cash to pay its 3,700 workers, raising doubts over how long the brand could survive.

Saab spokesman Eric Geers on Monday said the company hopes a prepayment from the Chinese company for the cars will allow it to pay the salaries, which were due last Friday, this week.

Swedish Automobile, which bought Saab from General Motors Co. last year, said it continues to hold talks with several parties to raise more cash for the brand. Among other things, it is in talks to sell and lease back Saab’s real estate.

Shares in Swedish Automobile rose by 21.4 percent to euro1.19 ($1.69) on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange.

Separately, Geers said two union members and Saab’s General Counsel Kristina Geers have resigned from the board of Saab Automobile, leaving Swedish Automobile CEO Victor Muller as the only board member fast payday loan.

“We very much regret the current cash shortage which is causing undeserved hardship to all and we are working relentlessly to resolve the current situation,” Muller said.

Muller said Russian businessman Vladimir Antonov is still interested in investing in Saab, but he has so far failed to receive the necessary approval from the European Investment Bank.

“Antonov can provide much needed financing and/or capital to Swedish Automobile/Saab Automobile at this critical time. We are pushing hard to obtain this vital clearance as soon as practically possible,” Muller said.

EIB spokesman Par Isaksson declined to comment on the bank’s review of Antonov, saying only that it examines all proposals to change the lending agreement thoroughly.

Antonov has previously said he is prepared to invest between $50 million-$150 million in Saab. He was forced out of Spyker as part of its deal with GM amid reports of money laundering. He has denied those allegations and has never been charged.

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Pakistan extended a six-month pause in interest-rate increases as inflation eased and the central bank awaits the budget for signs the government will tighten fiscal policy and help contain prices pressures.

The State Bank of Pakistan left the discount rate unchanged at 14 percent, among the highest in the world, according to a central bank statement in Karachi today. The decision was predicted by all 10 economists and researchers surveyed by Bloomberg News.

The central bank raised rates in three consecutive meetings from July to November, blaming excess state spending for pushing inflation to more than 15 percent late last year. The government may be forced to cut spending in its budget after the discovery and killing of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Pakistan led some U.S. lawmakers to call for a reduction in aid.

“The budget will determine the future outlook for inflation and rates,” Sayem Ali, a Karachi-based economist at Standard Chartered Plc, said before the decision. “The fiscal conditions will be tricky especially after a possible slowdown in external financing with the Osama episode here, and not-so- encouraging developments with International Monetary Fund support.”

The budget may be announced in the first week of June, Dawn newspaper reported today. The finance ministry had said earlier it would be released May 28.

Pakistan’s government needs external aid to support an economic growth target of 4.2 percent for the next fiscal year, as it seeks to reduce the budget deficit to 4.5 percent of gross domestic product. The shortfall is expected to reach 5.5 percent this year, compared with the official target of 4 percent, the Finance Ministry said April 27.

Fiscal Pressures

“The government is mindful of fiscal pressures and has expressed resolve to address these issues in the budget,” the central bank said in its monetary policy statement today.

The International Monetary Fund told Pakistani economic officials in a weeklong review of the economy that ended May 17 that the government needs to keep cutting the deficit to take pressure off monetary policy and allow more credit to companies.

The Washington-based fund stopped disbursing money to Pakistan in May last year after the country failed to meet conditions attached to an $11.3 billion loan first issued in 2008. In December, the IMF approved a nine-month extension of the loan to give Pakistani authorities time to comply with some elements of the agreement, including implementing an overhauled sales tax.

Falling Rupee

The Pakistan rupee has fallen 0.5 percent to 86.18 against the dollar since the current financial year started July 1. The Karachi Stock Exchange 100 Index has advanced 23 percent this financial year after advancing 36 percent in the previous year ended June 30.

The South Asian nation has received $14.6 billion in economic and military aid from the U.S. since 2005 to help revive growth and fight Taliban militants along the border with Afghanistan.

Whether Pakistani government and intelligence officials shielded bin Laden has become an issue on Capitol Hill, where some senators have called for postponing any more U.S. financial aid until Pakistan’s commitment to fighting terrorism can be re- evaluated.

Senator John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat who leads the Foreign Relations Committee and was an architect of a 2009 bill committing $1.5 billion annually to Pakistan, said this month many members of the U.S. Congress are questioning that aid after bin Laden was found sheltering in the country. They say President Asif Ali Zardari’s administration must crack down on insurgent groups that target American forces in Afghanistan.

Terrorism, Floods

Pakistan’s $162 billion economy, sapped by terrorism and floods in 2010, is lagging behind emerging markets including neighbors India and China, which helped lead the global economic rebound from the deepest postwar recession.

President Zardari announced in March a 15 percent surcharge on income tax to counter losses from the nation’s worst monsoon flooding last year, and an increase in import duties to 2.5 percent from 1 percent. The government will also withdraw sales tax exemptions on fertilizer, pesticides and tractors.

The government raised domestic fuel prices as much as 12 percent on May 1, after increasing them 13 percent on April 1, to bring charges in line with international oil prices, according to the Islamabad-based Oil & Gas Regulatory Authority.

“The fuel-subsidy reduction and the tax measure indicate the budget will bring tight fiscal policy,” Saad Khan, an economist at Arif Habib Ltd. in Karachi, said before the decision. “Another reason not to raise rates is the easing in inflation last month.”

Pakistan’s consumer prices rose 13.04 percent in April from a year earlier, after a 13.16 percent gain in March, a Federal Bureau of Statistics report showed on May 3.

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More than 400 Ford workers at the company

A slowdown in growth in the U.S. and mixed corporate earnings dampened stock market sentiment around the world Friday.

Oil prices fell to near $112 a barrel as the lackluster U.S. economic news blunted crude’s 33 percent gain over the past two months. The slowdown in the world’s No. 1 economy in the first three months of the year also proved worrisome to Asian companies that count on strong U.S. consumer demand. The dollar was down against the yen and the euro.

In early European trading, Germany’s DAX was down 0.1 percent to 7,467.04 and France’s CAC-40 slipped 0.5 percent at 4,085.71. Britain’s FTSE 100 was closed as the country celebrated the nuptials of Prince William and Kate Middleton. Wall Street was set for a lower opening, as Dow Jones industrial futures sagged by 14 points to 12,694 and S&P futures dropped marginally to 1,353.10.

“Equity markets are reacting nervously to weak U.S. data overnight. Demand from the U.S. for Asia exports may actually slow,” said Dariusz Kowalczuk of Credit Agricole in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index closed down 0.4 percent to 23,805.63, with yuan units of Hui Xian Real Estate Investment Trust falling 9.4 percent in their trading debut. They are the first equity securities denominated in China’s currency to trade outside of mainland China.

South Korea’s Kospi index slipped 0.7 percent to 2,192.36, with technology shares dragging the index down.

Samsung Electronics lost 0.8 percent after the company announced its first quarter profit fell 30 percent on declines in memory chip prices and reduced profitability in liquid crystal displays and flat screen televisions. Rival Hynix Semiconductor Inc. slid 1.6 percent. LG Electronics lost 3.7 percent.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 shed 1 percent to 4,823.20, with mining shares among the big losers. The world’s biggest mining company, BHP Billiton Ltd., fell 1 percent. Shares in Rio Tinto Ltd. lost 1.4 percent.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 was closed for the start of Golden Week holiday. Benchmarks in Singapore, Taiwan, Indonesia, India and Thailand were also down.

Mainland Chinese shares snapped a five-session losing streak as the release of a survey showing lackluster growth in manufacturing suggested inflation may be under better control than earlier feared, easing the need for further credit tightening measures.

The Shanghai Composite Index gained 0.9 percent to 2,911.51, while the Shenzhen Composite Index gained 1.4 percent to 1,200.62. Shares in power companies, non-ferrous metals and steels led the gains while banks fell back on profit-taking after recent advances spurred by better-than-expected earnings reports.

“Power companies rose due to rumors authorities may raise electricity fees,” said Peng Yunliang, an analyst based in Shanghai. But he said the market’s immediate outlook depends on whether Beijing might opt for a “surprise” interest rate hike during the three-day May Day weekend.

“If there is an interest rate hike over the upcoming long weekend holiday, as investors fear, the correction will resume next week,” Peng said.

Huaneng Power International, one of several big state-owned electricity generators, rose 6.3 percent, while Huadian Power International Corp. Ltd rose 9.8 percent.

On Wall Street, stocks closed at another 2011 high Thursday despite modest U.S. economic growth in the first quarter. The U.S. economy grew a 1.8 percent annual rate between January and March, the Commerce Department said. That’s the weakest growth since last spring and underscores concerns about the strength of the U.S. recovery. Higher oil prices cut into consumer spending and bad weather slowed down construction projects.

The S&P 500 rose 4.82 points, or 0.4 percent, to 1,360.48. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 72.35, or 0.6 percent, to 12,763.31. The Nasdaq composite gained 2.65, or 0.1 percent, to 2,872.53.

Corporate earnings were mixed. Procter & Gamble Co. rose nearly 1 percent after the maker of Tide detergent and Pampers diapers reported higher earnings but cut its forecast for the year due to rising costs for raw materials. Exxon Mobil Corp. _ the world’s largest publicly traded company _ fell 0.5 percent even after the oil giant reported its best quarterly earnings since 2008 _ perhaps due to high expectations.

More people applied for unemployment benefits for the first time last week. The increase, the second in three weeks, suggests that the job market remains sluggish.

Benchmark crude for June delivery was down 53 cents at $112.33 a barrel at late afternoon Singapore time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

The euro was higher at $1.4846 from $1.4821 late Thursday in New York. It had peaked at $1.4881 Thursday, its highest point in nearly 17 months before softening. The dollar was down to 81.48 yen from 81.57 yen.

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The Bank of England will leave its benchmark interest rate unchanged at a record low next week as policy makers hold off tackling inflation on concerns about the strength of the recovery.

The nine-member Monetary Policy Committee, led by Governor Mervyn King, will leave its key rate at a record low of 0.5 percent, according to all 61 economists in a Bloomberg News survey. They’ll also keep their bond purchase plan at 200 billion pounds ($326 billion), said all 34 economists in a separate poll.

Three of the committee voted to increase interest rates last month, with Andrew Sentance calling for a 50 basis-point increase to tame inflation that’s accelerated to twice the bank’s 2 percent target. Still, the economy shrank 0.6 percent in the fourth quarter and Deputy Governor Charles Bean said yesterday that the recovery “still faces headwinds and has recently shown signs of fragility.”

“The body of the committee is still looking for further evidence of a bounce back,” said David Tinsley, an economist at National Australia Bank in London. “The data over the last month hasn’t changed that story much. They’re looking for a bounce in activity in the first quarter for them to move.”

Tinsley forecasts the bank will increase its key rate by a quarter-point in May, though he sees “a non-trivial risk” of a move in April. He sees the rate at 1.5 percent by year-end.

The Bank of England will announce its decision at noon on March 10, a week after Jean-Claude Trichet said an interest-rate increase by the European Central Bank next month is “possible.” The Frankfurt-based central bank has left its benchmark interest rate at 1 percent since May 2009.

In the U.K., the key rate has been at 0.5 percent since March 2009. Investors have priced in a 25 basis-point jump in the rate by June, according to forward rates on the sterling overnight interbank average, or Sonia, compiled by Tullett Prebon Plc. It will rise to 1 percent by October, the data show.

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Eurozone finance ministers have decided to provide a permanent crisis mechanism that will come into action in 2013 with euro500 billion (674 billion).

Jean Claude Juncker, who chairs the regular meetings of the 17 eurozone finance ministers, says the ministers “agreed on the provisional volume of euro500 billion, which will be revised every other year.”

Juncker says additional financing will be provided by the International Monetary Fund.

The so-called European Stability Mechanism will succeed the European Financial Stability Facility, the eurozone’s current bailout fund, in 2013.

Ministers didn’t reach a decision on boosting the size of the current facility.

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TOKYO