Welcome to Food Week June 12. Happy Father’s Day, Happy Juneteenth, Happy Pride Month. Prices falling but Fed unimpressed. Modelo becomes number one. Vertical farming and alt-proteins still struggling to reach profitability. An avocado that doesn’t turn black. A scary El Nino. And so much more. Enjoy!
MACRO
- Stock markets up and down, inflation steadily downward. But is it going down fast enough?
- Inflation is a problem but concentration of wealth is an even bigger problem, argues this author.
- El Nino arrives and with it comes climate (and food ) uncertainty.
RETAIL AND CONSUMER
- Math is hard but apparently writing headlines is harder. Yes eggs dropped more than ever before. But they dropped from a level that was more that twice that of previous record highs. Eggs are still pretty expensive and I outta know.
- Should bread be classified as a highly-processed food?
- The Albertson’s/Kroger merger is still moving forward but they may have to divest in the Northwest, where the combined companies would own almost 60% of market share.
- Lab grown meat will be called….Cell Cultivated. In this case, chicken. Per the USDA.
- Modelo Especial passes Bud Light as most popular beer. Part of me says thisis temporary due to the very siily boycott. However Modelo is subjectively a better beer, so maybe the loss becomes permanent, based on taste.
RESTAURANTS AND FOODSERVICE
- Restaurant uses fake priest to get confessions out of workers.
- Diners turn to their phones to place orders when QSR is too hectic.
- General reduction in inflation and improved supply helping Fast Food and QSR.
- LA’s Mexico oldest restaurant – El Cholo – turns 100.
- Netflix and fill. Netflix experimenting with food delivery, bespoke to the movie.
FOOD SUPPLY CHAIN
- The port crisis in LA seems to be resolved.
- Vertical farming has yet to find a way to make money and now investors are pulling out.
- Hoo boy. Impossible Foods employees have seen their shares drop 89% since 2021.
- The ongoing collapse of the Turkish lira is rippling across the entire region, as competitors lower prices to keep up with the regions largest exporter of food.
FOOD WEEK JUNE 12 LAGNIAPPE
- You should replace your plastic cutting boards every couple of years. And you should just get rid of them altogether because they ruin your knives.
- Smoking a whole chicken is not something I have done before but my interest is piqued.
- A Quebecois pastry called the ‘Nun’s Fart.” It sounds good. I mean the pastry
- An avocado that doesn’t turn black after you cut it?
- Struggling with the idea of a cocktail that adds grape juice but here it is.
- If you released a “Whoever Said Dykes Can’t cook Cookbook” today you wouldn’t raise many eyebrows. But in 1983…