Welcome to Food Week May 16. It is National Restaurant Show weekend in Chicago so we’ll be heading there for the first time in a couple of years. Will tell you all about it. This past week, we saw more and more evidence and causes of the death of the American independent restaurant. Consolidation is rife in industry across the spectrum of food supply and the results are not good. But slushies are good. And pesto is good. So enjoy!
MACRO
- Crazy up and down market for the indexes. But more down than up.
- Tornados and Derechos in Canada seems… out of place.
- But Monkey pox? Seriously?
RETAIL AND CONSUMER
- If it seems like there are more and more mass shootings at supermarkets, it is because there are.
- Yogurt wars. Between Greeks and Turks which seems kind of inevitable.
- Convenience stores have bee trying to move up-market on takeout for many years. There are few examples of success (Sheetz) but it hasn’t stopped them from trying.
- A long apologia from Abbot Labs in re baby formula. What much of the coverage misses is that, like meat and poultry, a consolidated industry is less nimble and adaptive. Imported formula from Danone to help.
RESTAURANTS AND FOODSERVICE
- Business in Russia ‘no longer tenable’ for McDonald’s.
- The Senate fails to pass the next round of restaurant revitalization.
- The contrast of 1st party vs. 3rd party in restaurant delivery. It’s hard for restaurants to win with 3rd party but it is expensive to do it themselves. So far. Technology may change that.
- Ghost kitchens are really hard without a lot of capital and therefore inaccessible for independent restaurants.
- These last three factors contribute to the accelerating death rate of the independent restaurant.
FOOD SUPPLY CHAIN
- Food Week May 16 saw the publishing of a damning report on how the meat industry put open plants ahead of the lives of workers & public health. Of course we knew this at the time. Private decisions made by a couple of men. Industry consolidation = regulatory capture.
- But apparently Burger King thinks it is tenable to substitute fried ramen for french fries. In their defense, this is a symptom of the ongoing potato shortage there.
- Meati launched an alternative protein steak: mycoproteins solve some of the issues with texture that other alt-proteins struggle with.
- Vertical hydroponic facilities will supply most cities with their greens and herbs in the very near future.
- Russia has been one of the largest producers of fertilizer in the world. The challenge to find alternatives leads us to Patagonia.
- Will tech bros. rescue fish farming? Probably not but some innovative thinking from a venture-backed company says its technology could revolutionize seafood.
FOOD WEEK LAGNIAPPE
- If you always felt the refrigerator magnet was just too small of a medium, Samsung has something for you.
- 8 most expensive restaurants in the US.
- Parsing the origins and meaning of the slushie...
- Backgrounder on pesto.