Food Week October 10 -16, 2022

Welcome to Food Week October 10. More food consolidation, this time with the retailers themselves. This week, we have the obvious – packaging bananas according to ripeness, the composition of black coffee and a high fiber diet causing gastric distress. And we have the less obvious – secret menus, the right way to stock your refrigerator and a billion missing crabs. Enjoy.

MACRO

• Inflation high, food higher.

• But maybe the Fed is going about this wrong way.

• Just a reminder, we have the equivalent of a September 11 every 10 days in this country. But the pandemic is over

RETAIL AND CONSUMER

• Tofurkey will no longer be able to use terms like burger and sausage if a ruling from a U.S. Court in Arkansas has its way.

• Kroger (number 2 grocer) trying to buy Albertson’s (#4) as supermarkets consolidate further. A $24.6 billion deal . With Wal Mart and Costco, the top 3 would represent more than 50% of total market.

• No more plastic bags at Wegman’s.

• In Korea, some retailers pack bananas in sequential ripeness, which only makes sense:

RESTAURANTS AND FOODSERVICE

• Inflation helps Domino’s recover from the pandemic.

• Latest Starbucks/barista/TikTok viral outrage is about the definition of black coffee.

• Secret menus and hacks make workers at Starbucks and other places, difficult.

• The relationship between wages and tips still not sorted out.

• Burger King overdoing it on the Ghost Pepper Whopper?

FOOD SUPPLY CHAIN

• Worst Avian Influenza outbreak ever?

• Cattle and environment stuff:
  • Ranching and other farming not only causing de-forestation but contributing to extinctions.
  • Brazilian cattle farmers selling off animals early because of a lack of rainfall.
  • Google is starting to track carbon emissions in recipes and cattle industry isn’t happy with that.

• 1.35 million cases of salmonella illness per year in US. The USDA wants to decrease that number.

• Forecast for Florida oranges is a reduction of 33%.

• New sensor can tell whether products have been previously frozen.

• A billion (an estimate) snow crabs have disappeared from the Bering Sea. Warm water to blame but high prices at least in the meantime.

FOOD WEEK OCTOBER 10 LAGNIAPPE

• Micro-plastics found in human breast milk which is really not good.

• Coconut oil is not a cure-all.

• You are doing it wrong: Martha Stewart tells you how to stock your fridge.

• A Pumpkin the size of a Prius.

• New diet – F factor – causing gastric distress and other ailments. Users suing becuase a high-fiber diet causing gas.

• More Pappy van Winkle this year?