Welcome to Food Week March 15, 2024. Late update as this week we attended the Expo West show. What a week! St. Patrick’s Day and Pi day – so many made up holidays! But lots of fun things below. Enjoy!
MACRO
- Housing is the main source of inflation. A generation completely unfamiliar with inflating prices is struggling but unmoored?
- The obesity capitals of the world.
RETAIL AND CONSUMER
- Costco does may things right. One of them is EVOO. The certifying organizations still struggling with scandals so process control is key.
- How Liquid Death became a billion dollar brand.
- Family Dollar and Dollar Tree closing 1000 stores; Dollar General adding 800.
- Mixing plastic Fruits and vegetables with the real ones in your produce department is a real thing, apparently.
- Don’t defrost on the counter.
RESTAURANTS AND FOODSERVICE
- As someone who has made three large dining reservations in the last week, I will confirm that it is a strain on restaurant operations. (We were charming.) As a result many restaurants are restricting how many they offer.
- International revenue down at McDonalds as boycotts take their toll.
- How restaurants can deal with bad Yelp reviews.
- The oldest steakhouses in America
- Burger King in Japan offering the Great Yeti burger, a 1500 calorie monstrosity
FOOD SUPPLY CHAIN
- Weirdo politicians in Florida trying to criminalize lab grown meat. They know that the courts will throw these laws out but it will put the industry back years. If it continues, production will end up off shore.
- The long term repercussions are alarming but extraordinarily warm weather is allowing Minnesota farmers to get corn and soybeans in ground already.
- Understanding the relationship between fungi and carbon in the soil.
- Small solar panels allow irrigation in arid regions. However over-use is depleting ground water at alarming rates.
- The pain-staking process of uncovering the age of olive trees.
DRINK CORNER
- Will licorice be the next big flavor in cocktails?
- It seemed almost inevitable that cocktails and Japanese cuisine, with it’s precision and subtlety, would meet, We had an extraordinary time at Kumiko last week – more to come – but here is the Pantheon, a simple cocktail from another famous Japanese bartender.
- Irish Whisky cocktails. Does a drink with two beers count as a cocktail? I say no but this article claims otherwise, with concoctions using Guinness in time for St. Patrick’s day, Also no jello shots in NYC anymore.
FOOD WEEK MARCH 15 LAGNIAPPE
- Some crazy pies for Pi day.
- Butter chicken and the rise of Delhi as a culinary capital.
- The best food movies. And 20 book titles with drinks in them.
- The woman who was named Diot Coke, a few centuries before the soda.
- Junk food addiction attains status as a medical disorder.
- Water as palate cleanser before espresso.
- Getting corned beef sandwiches in Chicago.