Welcome to Food Week June 26 – July 2, 2023. Happy Independence Day! Among our holiday curiosities this week, a Roman pizza, but without tomato sauce, found in the ruins, cheese in cocktails, bomb threats, the marriage of pickleball and restaurants and why Aspartame got approved in the first place. And more. Enjoy!
MACRO
- More smoke, this time in the Midwest.
- Is gold just another commodity asset now?
- Apple hits a valuation of $3 trillion.
RETAIL AND CONSUMER
- Amazon and Whole Foods are sleeping in separate beds: Prime members prefer Walmart to Whole Foods and less than 14% of them have ordered from the Amazon-owned retailer.
- How an anti-trust decision led to the competition between Modelo and Bud Light for the top spot.in beer.
- Bomb threats to retailers so far more puzzling that deadly. Until they aren’t..
- Cereal prices just go up and up,
- It’s not enough to hydrate, now we have to RAPID HYDRATE!
RESTAURANTS AND FOODSERVICE
- Subway has used international licensing agreements to help turn around its fortunes.
- Door Dash offers drivers an option for hourly pay. Some apparently prefer a job to a gig.
- The Feds did a better job policing restaurant pandemic aid than in other arenas.
- More on the restaurant that used a fake priest to try and coerce confessions out of employees.
- I always felt that were a percentage of people who work in kitchens that are simply adrenaline addicts. The Bear explores that.
- Restaurant, bar, pickleball? New concepts try to jump on the craze.
FOOD SUPPLY CHAIN
- The World Health Organization is declaring Aspartame as a carcinogenic. NutraSweet, Equal, Candarel are all trade names for Aspartame. In 1981 the Director of the FDA in the Reagan Administration overruled the scientists and approved the sweetener. The former CEO of Searle, the company that invented it, was Donald Rumsfeld who joined the administration a few months earlier. OTH toxicity is always about dosage.
- USDA putting up about $115 million to support independent meat processors. A small dent in consolidation.
- The reduction in pandemic levels SNAP assistance is about to cause a spike in food insecurity.
FOOD WEEK JUNE 26 LAGNIAPPE
- Himalayan Tartary Buckwheat is the newest superfood to help you lose weight.
- A fresco uncovered in the ruins of Pompei shows a ‘proto’ pizza. No tomatoes of course because they weren’t introduced to Italy until after Columbus.
- A rant against ultra-processed foods which has the feature of being mostly accurate.
- Quick pickling fruits and vegetables.
- Ketchup goes in the fridge. That is all.