Food Week February 6 – 12, 2023

Welcome to Food Week February 6. An early update with lots of governmental affairs. US fighting Mexico over glyphosate, the Fed inventing the lasagna index, the FDA stalling over CBD and the FDA all over Smucker’s for salmonella in peanut butter. All that and a lot more. Enjoy

MACRO

• US and Mexico in a trade war over GMOs and glyphosate.

• You’ve heard of the Big Mac index? Well now there’s a Lasagna index. From the Fed official who wants to keep raising interest rates.

• Eggs are falling rapidly at wholesale, less so for the consumer.

RETAIL AND CONSUMER

• Get KFC with your Kroger. Would scale save grocery delivery services by mixing in fast food service as well? Takeoff Technologies thinks it will.

• Even though commodity prices and the wholesale food index are both substantially down, brands are planning more price increases. Part of this is recovery from losses during COVID, part of this is increases in anticipation of inflation. But I can’t help but believe a lack of rigorous competition isn’t part of it.

• The FDA kicks the can down the road on CBD in food and drink.

• Smucker’s in deep peanut butter over salmonella outbreak. Last big peanut butter outbreak led to the CEO being sentenced to 28 years in jail.

• Cutting staff at Impossible Meats and calling it a voluntary retirement program feels a little sketchy.

RESTAURANTS AND FOODSERVICE

• Blow back from the revelations that the NRA -food edition – is using training funds to lobby for suppressed wages.

• The Guatemalan juggernaut that is Pollo Campero.

• Chipotle results disappoint. Doesn’t change their aggressive plans.

• Chinese market is retarding Starbuck’s earnings.

• It cost $1.4 to $2.5 million to open a McDonald’s. But that’s only the investment. Here are the other costs.

FOOD SUPPLY CHAIN

• To paraphrase Mark Twain, ignorance and suspicion can fly halfway round the world before science can get put it’s shoes on. Lab-grown meat is fighting that uphill battle.

• Using sorghum to help farms adapt to climate change.

• Palm Oil cleans up its act.

• French farmers back to their traffic blocking ways.

• Minor horror comparatively but the earthquake in Turkiye will disrupt food shipments in an area of the world already struggling.

FOOD WEEK LAGNIAPPE

• The biggest mistakes made when people try to eat healthy.

• Does moderate consumption of alcohol prevent dementia? Maybe. But it’s complicated.

• Creator of the Peep has died.

• 24 seminal cocktails you should know how to make, even as a home bartender

• Really cool mini-White Castle from the 1930’s saved.

• 16 air fryer snacks.