Welcome to Food Week February 23. The theme this week seems to be… for reasons? Why $40 martinis? Or why throw oranges in water? In what way is Italy trying to be like Florida? And why disco drinks, or red wine and condensed milk, for that matter? Why is soaking your dishes bad? And why kale? For reasons. Enjoy.

MACRO

• Financial markets crazy about AI, Invidia.

• Huge amounts of plastics are generated by the food industry. Recycling hasn’t worked and it turns out it was a false promise all along.

• Colorado Attorney General joins Washington state in suing to prevent the Kroger Albertson’s merger. An FTC action expected next week. And the chains – Kroger, Albertson’s and C&S (which would acquire >400 spun-off units) are starting to hedge on commitments to keep stores open. A local union in Oregon comes out for the merger, so that’s one ‘for.’

RETAIL AND CONSUMER

• CPG Brands stop worrying and learn to love weight loss drugs.

• Chlormequat, a pesticide approved for use for plants like flowers, is showing up in Cheerios and Quaker products. EPA began tolerating trace amounts in 2018 even though it causes fertility and birth defects in lab animals. You’ll be likely hearing more about this .

• Mondelez still raking in the cash in Russia.

• As if the self checkout experience was imperiled enough, news comes of credit card skimmer found installed a Walmart.

• Costco faces unionization challenge.

• Sriracha is an ongoing mess. Finances, shortages lawsuits and more!

• Chicago tries to rein in the urban blight of dollar stores.

• Truly mystifying argument that you shouldn’t soak your dishes. Of course you are going to wash them after soaking so why the concern about bacterial growth?? Or do people just soak and figure it is good enough?

RESTAURANTS AND FOODSERVICE

• Ever order from food delivery app and end up with a much higher bill than quoted? You are not alone. LA County seeks to do something about it with a lawsuit against Grubhub.

• Jack in the Box now in Florida and Michigan.

• Anthony Bourdain’s trick for find the best local restaurants.

• Fresh off their success in being named ‘Best Pizza in the country’ by Yelp, Pequod’s expands to the Chicago suburbs.

• I hope it goes better than it has for Panera: Dunkin unveils its own caffeine bombs.

• Martini culture in San Francisco seems to be about making the relatively simple drink as expensive as possible.

FOOD SUPPLY CHAIN

• If you take the top off a pineapple, it may be less pleasing to look at but it sure is cheaper to ship.

• I always felt that collard greens were superior to kale. The rest of the world is now catching up. You will hearing about Carolina Azola and it’s high level of nutrition, speed of growth and the fact that it gets nutrients out of the air. Natural pesticides gaining traction.

• Trying to create a Chocolate that doesn’t require cocoa. Although if you are using cocoa, try less sugar. Tastes better

• The use of prison labor extends from agriculture through supply chain and even into restaurants. Top QSR and CPG brands use forced labor. And even retailer Giant Food has turned to work release .

• What is the role of Artificial Intelligence in food formulation?

• Is Italy the Florida of Europe? Dangling off the bottom and being goofy about cultivated meat. They will be missing out on the cool technology, like the rice grown meat hybrid. Which is a sentence i didn’t anticipate typing.

DRINK CORNER

• We recently wrote about Bacanora as the next hot agave spirit. That’s good, because mezcal supply is starting to strain.

• Heretic claims terroir is a myth.

• Disco drinks; as long as I don’t have to listen to the music, sure.

• Aeration obsession goes to new heights. A Nutri-bullet?

• Guinness and Black Currant is a thing and, maybe…The Batanga cocktail: Tequila, coke and lime? Probably not. Okay, how about red wine and sweetened condensed milk? (BTW, the Guinness double pour is a bunch of baloney.)

FOOD WEEK FEBRUARY 23 LAGNIAPPE

• For Lunar New Year, Malaysian women throw oranges in water to help them find a mate.

• People are using broccoli to apply freckles.

• Citizens of Cook County convinced they have the fountain of youth in a park water fountain.

• Air fryer empanadas.

• Don’t nobody like chocolate chip ice cream no more.

• Horrible things that US Presidents ate. And the strange story of the fish pepper which almost went extinct.

• Lyle’s Golden Syrup, an ancient and beloved treacle from England, changes their label after more than a century. Of course this makes religious people mad(?)