Welcome to Food Week January 2 – 8, 2023. Our first update after the long holiday. Emerging trends continue to gain steam: rising restaurant employment, failing grocery delivery services, non-alcoholic beverage curiosity and the relationship of food to health. Plus a fond reminiscence of the Arch Deluxe. Enjoy!

MACRO

• Respectable but not torrid jobs report and slowing wage growth could mean soft landing from inflation.

• Sectors of the economy are laying off, like tech and finance.

• New COVID variant XBB.1.5 is the most transmissible one yet. Great.

RETAIL AND CONSUMER

• Boisson is a chain of stores dedicated to non-alcoholic liquors. We love the Guinness NA and there are good IPAs available too. The industry is now focused on liquor substitutes.

• Consumers focusing on gut health – looking for info, products from grocers.

• Another grocery delivery service re-thinking it’s strategy.

• Trader Joe’s sued for lead and cadmium in chocolate. The cocoa industry needs a complete transformation.

• Fun cartoons about American foods in European grocers.

RESTAURANTS AND FOODSERVICE

• Restaurants still a big contributor to employment, adding 26k jobs in December

• But rent delinquency for restaurants at 40%.

• Is Indian cuisine next to get the fast casual treatment.

• The FAST act about to be implemented on California. It sets standards for wages for fast food but is being billed as a way to give independent restaurants an advantage.

• Are drones really the answer for the last mile of the food supply chain?

FOOD SUPPLY CHAIN

• Needless to say, the sheer quantity of rain in California means trouble for agriculture.

• Disastrous bottleneck of perishable foods in Algiers.

• Massachusetts is using Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) to create year round food production.

• World food cost index registers a record high for 2022, mostly driven by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

• As bad as ocean plastic is, soil plastic pollution is possible greater and a more immediate threat to people.

FOOD WEEK LAGNIAPPE

• What is Food as Medicine? An explainer

• The Arch Deluxe was a marketing disaster for McDonald’s but it really was a good burger. It was just a decade too soon.

• Juicy dumplings at home.

• The truffle industry is garbage. Truffle oil is disgusting and made from synthetic oils, not truffles. Most truffles are flavor-less and augmented with the fake truffle oil. The high quality, flavorful varieties are rare and extremely expensive.

• The Brotherhood of Brie. Complete with hats.