Food Week March 29, 2024

Welcome to Food Week March 29, 2024. Happy Easter! We have a lot to share this week, a lot of it about things people are doing wrong: making Negronis, pricing chocolate, pour over coffee, insider trading, antibiotics, washing vegetables and buying cheese. Do better people. Enjoy!

MACRO

• Disastrous bridge collapse in Baltimore will resonate across supply chains, including food.

• The workers killed on the bridge were immigrants. Foreign born workers make up 68% of the farm workforce. But that doesn’t stop politicians from demonizing them.

• An odd story about baseball players doing insider trading in anticipation of the Del Taco acquisition by Jack in the Box.

RETAIL AND CONSUMER

• Another group pushes back against the Kroger-Albertson’s merger: Independent grocers.

• How much was that Easter candy you just bought? Shocking, I know. It’ll get worse.

• Grocery prices are almost back to 2020 levels of affordability.

• Walmart CEO says convenience tops price, which is true, but surprising if you’ve shopped a Walmart

• The customers love Hello Fresh. The stock market, not so much.

RESTAURANTS AND FOODSERVICE

• Chain restaurant marketing disasters. But chains are out-performing rest of the restaurant industry

• California restaurant owners threaten layoffs because of higher minimum wage. However I can’t imagine there is that much operational slack that they can simply reduce headcount. Choices will be: a.) slimmer margins b.) raise prices c.) loss of market share from poor service/performance.

• Hotels are really upping their room service game: more options, branded foods, flexible locations (that is, not in your room)

• Restaurant marketers discussing how they use TikTok.

• Boston Market about done.

• Settlement offer to restaurants from Visa Mastercard offers to cap fees.

FOOD SUPPLY CHAIN

• The crisis accelerates. Cocoa futures went up 60% in March alone. The choconundrum explained here.

• The states are fighting the EPA over new rules on effluents coming from meat plants.

• It has gotten harder and harder to maintain a ‘no antibiotics ever’ stance with chicken. Several companies like Panera, Tyson and Chick-fil-A are abandoning it.

• Bayer is pushing legislation in several states to prevent lawsuits over their pesticides.

• Organic farming is beneficial but this doesn’t mean it has no impacts on other farmers around them.

DRINK CORNER

• Drinkers very angry at Buffalo Trace.

• I had a Casino just last night. It was delicious and the flavor was unlike any other drink, largely due to the use of Old Tom gin, an older earthier style of gin.

• Some one is calling this a martini but with equal part s gin, vermouth and sherry it is much closer to a Negroni. I would call this a Negroni even though it adds grapefruit (sounds good). But why would you call this White Mezcal cocktail a Negroni when it has literally non of the original ingredients?

• States where happy hour is illegal: interesting map, no real rhyme or reason

FOOD WEEK MARCH 29 LAGNIAPPE

• Now you are washing your foods wrong. And you are buying cheese wrong. Can’t you do anything right?

• The 40 foot wave of molasses that killed 21 people in Boston

• Defining (and fighting) ultra-processed foods.

• People love their pour over coffee. Me, I find it too oily. Regardless, here is a history.

• Suspended during COVID, the waiter race in Paris has returned.