Welcome to Food Week April 26. You don’t want to pass over all the cool stuff this week, what with cookie wars, new look Matzo, secret McDonald’s menu items, AI in milk, meats in sweets and a whole lot more. So have a Nuka Cola and Enjoy.
MACRO
- Biden Administration raises the minimum salary at which workers can be considered salaried management and therefore not eligible for overtime. to FTC approves ban on non-competes
- Study finds that just 60 firms are responsibile for half the world’s plastic pollution.
- Coffee drinking at an all time high in US.
RETAIL AND CONSUMER
- The sudden death of Foxtrot, the upscale grocer. Employees and customers given zero notice. Lawsuits forthcoming but so far no explanation.
- Kroger Albertson’s promising more and more divestiture to save the merger deal. Albertson’s had a strong year without Kroger in 2023.
- Rebranding Matzo for this years Passover.
- Junk food fights back.
- The OG Hydrox – yes, it’s older than Oreo – suing the young upstart for messing with shelves. In the meantime, Mondelez comes out with a Sour Patch Oreo, which is likely… interesting.
- NY state law restricts minor’s access to muscle building and weight loss supplements. The industry is suing.
- Walmart now locking up pens and energy drinks.
- Congress rescinding a 40 cent per meal increase in SNAP benefits in 2023 Farm Bill.
RESTAURANTS AND FOODSERVICE
- Starbuck’s fights unionization up to the Supreme Court while negotiating with its unionizers.
- Domino’s to reward customers who tip their drivers well which is pretty great.
- School lunch programs to have caps on sugars.
- McDonald’s secret menu items, including Air, Land and Sea.
- Vegan restaurant changes its mission, oves to regenerative agriculture instead to save the planet. But 11 Madison Park is keeping the vegan faith.
- Enumerating operational failures at Popeye’s
FOOD SUPPLY CHAIN
- A new study on micro-plastics in food. What foods have them? Practically all.
- Avian Influenza is found in milk. However it is inactivated by pasteurization. USDA rules dairy cows to now be tested for Avian Influenza before crossing state lines.
- Koch Industries buys out nitrogen competitor, further consolidating the fertilizer industry.
- The Flint water crisis is still not over.
- Alt-meat issues being fought in French courts.
- 70% of world’s workforce exposed to excessive heat.
- Is organic a giant fraud? PhD says yes. And more on regenerative agriculture.
- There are a lot of ingredients that can be upcycled in beverages.
DRINK CORNER
- The healthiest alcoholic drinks.
- Sam Adams fuses non-alcoholic beer with seltzer to make… something
- The best vermouth for negronis? Doesn’t matter that much as it really is there to take the edge off the Campari. My advice if you do have good vermouth? Change the ration to 2:2:1 with the one being the Campari. A much more subtle drink.
- Bottled mixers upping their game.
- Prohibition was a crucible for cocktails. Its legacy lives on in some of the most popular drinks.
- New rules for Japanese whisky – can’t blend foreign distillations. This will challenge the industry.
FOOD WEEK APRIL 26 LAGNIAPPE
- Did you know that Tampa is known as ‘The Big Guava?’
- You really don’t see food in a lot of Science Fiction television. But not Fallout. Lot’s of fun, made up brands.
- Wild seeds could help crops manage climate change. Seeds are as nutrient dense as all heck.
- Using salmonella to influence elections?
- Home cooking hacks. Desserts without sugar. Parchment paper in the air fryer? Yes.
- Williams Sonoma in trouble after false ‘Made in the USA’ claims.
- Sweetener Neotame destroys gut walls, study shows.