Welcome to Food Week November 17 and greetings from New York. Busy revisiting old food and drink haunts. This week find out about dry farming, chlorpyrifos, the tenuous economics of fast food franchises, Eat Just’s shady dealings, where your cranberry dollar goes (it’ s Ocean Spray) and more. Enjoy!
MACRO
- Government shutdown averted
- Is deflation next?? The rest of the developed world still has issues but the US appears to have achieved the soft landing.
- As a result, financial markets are now betting on rate cuts
RETAIL AND CONSUMER
- Eat Just’s troubles contribute to mount, this time with some pretty serous financial violations.
- Big retailers finally admitting that self-checkout is a major contributor to shrink.
- Your turkey dinner will cost about 5% less this than last. But it is considerably higher than pre-pandemic
- Pepsico sued by New York State for plastic pollution.
RESTAURANTS AND FOODSERVICE
- How much trouble is Burger King in? The chain will shutter as many as 400 locations next year.
- Inflation was not uniform and it seemed to hit fast food prices more than other sectors. And franchisee bankruptcies are widespread.
- Gen Z drinking less alcohol in restaurants.
- Starbuck’s union organizers plan walk out during biggest promotion of the year.
FOOD SUPPLY CHAIN
- Food insecurity increasing more in rural areas than urban.
- Dry farming wheat
- While the Turkey flocks survived the season, at least until Thanksgiving, Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) in found in layer flocks in Iowa and Minnesota and in Michigan for the first time in a while.
- Lawmakers get courts to overrule FDA on chlorpyrifos, a particularly nasty pesticide banned in much of the developed world, Among in pact “disruption in nervous system development…” and “.. alters the expression of essential genes that assist in the development of the brain.” Yikes
- Meanwhile, Florida lawmaker wants to make it a crime to sell lab grown meat. As does Italy.
FOOD WEEK NOVEMBER 17 LAGNIAPPE
- Food allergies are a main contributor to heart disease and death, new research shows.
- Ocean Spray doesn’t really care whether you are buying cans of cranberries or making your own sauce. It gets your money regardless
- Interesting story on the growth of cocktail culture in Singapore but without mention of the Long Bar or the Singapore Sling (?)
- The idea of a cocktail that’s a pilot favorite makes me nervous as a traveler but intrigued nonetheless.