Welcome to Food Week August 9, 2024. It was a bad PR week for a lot of things: erythritol, Seine water quality, Banza & Boars Head, fake olive oil, food delivery, Casamigos & Johnnie Walker, Malort and home-made Ozempic. And more, Enjoy
MACRO
- The markets took a wild ride. Mortgage rates finally going down.
- Overdosing on home-made Ozempic. And the per capita capital of weight loss semaglutides? Bowling Green, Kentucky
- Indications are Erythritol can cause clots, heart diseaese.
RETAIL AND CONSUMER
- You probably know this but Costco olive oil is really good and really cheap.
- Target finding it hard to reduce virgin plastic.
- Federal Trade Commission (FTC) coming after large grocers.
- Chicago may open its own grocery stores to combat food deserts
- Will Coca Cola help get rid of Seine bacteria in Olympians? (Hint: no).
RESTAURANTS AND FOODSERVICE
- NYT restaurant critic Pete Wells is retiring. Here reflects on the changes to fine dining. While we are at it, we can review restaurant etiquette.
- The economy may be slowing but it is not reflected in restaurant reservations.
- Relatedly even celebrities can get turned away if they don’t have a reservation.
- Trying to reform school lunches.
- It has not been a good Olympics for Sodexo, again, pr-wise.
FOOD SUPPLY CHAIN
- 3rd person dies from Listeria outbreak. A second lawsuit filed over 7 million pound Boar’s Head‘s ongoing disaster.
- Many limes and lemons are considred non-vegan beause of beeswax. Okay.
- EPA pulls weedkiller because of fetal damage.
- Does Banza pasta contain glysophates? Maybe, in trace amounts, but that doesn’t mean they can avoid a bad social media moment even if the levels are below regulations.
- Improving Mexican railway supply for produce.
- High prices and supply challenges in the olive oil industry have led to a fraudulent black market.
- Rocket fuel ingredient in fruit doesn’t sound good.
DRINK CORNER
- Vertical integration for whiskey ingredients finds it’s way to Japan. Up til now, while the results have been at times spectacular, the Japanese have outsourced several key ingredients.
- Johnnie Walker and Casamigos bleeding market share.
- There has been a worldwide Chartreuse shortage. Maybe the reason is that monks completely control its production and only 2 monks are allowed to see the recipe.
- Brew pub in trouble for infusing Malort with cicadas. As well they should be.
- Pairing tonics by gin. Or gins by tonic.
FOOD WEEK August 9 LAGNIAPPE
- Baking soda is hot right now as the big new supplement.
- Who says marketing doesn’t work: kids consumption of sugary drinks increased by a quarter since 1990.
- The glory that is Giardinera.
- Using eggs to create vaccines for flu can be problematic when that flu is from birds.
- The food delivery business has been really good at extrating money from foreign wealth funds, little else.
- Aunt Annie pretzel aroma is now a frangrance.