Food Week April 10 – 16, 2023

Welcome to Food Week April 1o. Happy tax day! Will try to divert you from your paperwork woes with happy stories about grocery inflation, disappearing agave, water issues, product development disasters and cows on fire. Enjoy!

MACRO

• Economy slowing down very gradually

• Inflation is cooling and unemployment is low. But economists still worried about a recession

• The best entertainment of the week may be the Fox defamation trial.

RETAIL AND CONSUMER

• Yep. Retailers are winning the inflation war. Consumers are losing.

• Retailers missing that sweet, sweet COVID shot reimbursements from pharmacies.

• The tempest in a teapot over Bud Light. performative outrage, mostly. However the link allowed me to learn about the White Angel from Breakfast at Tiffany’s. After an initial stock, AB InBev’s stock price still above 52 week high. So maybe boycott not working?

• Monster Energy trying to sue Pokemon over the use of the word ‘monster’

• Still no ‘killer app‘ in the dairy-free milk category. So switching is common.

• Candy consumption breaking all records. More proof the epidemic is over.

RESTAURANTS AND FOODSERVICE

• There are still Restaurant Revitalization Funds available.

• A Chipotle restaurant run entirely on renewable energy.

• Demographic changes mean that Mexican and TexMex restaurants are now more popular than Italian.

• 7 of the world’s oldest restaurants. 8 of the most expensive in US.

• A guide to historic and somewhat obscure Southern restaurants.

FOOD SUPPLY CHAIN

• Agave is in trouble due to demand. COOPs being formed in Mexico to try and save it. Impress you friends: There are actually 6 different types of Tequilas.

• Splitting the baby: all states get reduced allotments of Colorado river water.

• California farmers have little supply but can get a lot of money for what they have.

• 18,000 cows died in a fire in Texas. .Over 6 million farm animals died in fires since 2018, Most were chickens.

• Milking the system illegally A dairy supply scandal in, of course, Florida.

FOOD WEEK April 10 LAGNIAPPE

• Campari is the bully of cocktail ingredients but used correctly it can really rock a drink.

• Spaghetti all’Assassina.

• Potatoes are called vegetables because there isn’t another category for them.

• A hit musical on Broadway about corn: Shucked.

• And 5 big food disasters, product development-wise.