Welcome to Food Week August 16, 2024. Lots to learn about this week. the tricky world of tips. How to keep a Michelin star. The success of Kevin’s. Why the bacon-apocalypse didn’t happen. The world’s rarest pasta. Avoiding peanut allergies. Why prosecco sucks. And pumpkin spice garbage bags. And more. Enjoy
MACRO
- The market crash that wasn’t. S&P recovers all its losses. Core inflation falls to lowest in 3 years.
- The spur of inflation was COVID panic and broken supply chains. Getting prices down requires competition. Competition requires enforcement of the Robinson-Patman act. A ban on price gouging won’t work though
- Federal agencies still struggling with assessing the threat of H5N1.
RETAIL AND CONSUMER
- Kroger tries to sweeten the pot/bribe with a pledge to lower prices even further if deal with Albertson’s allowed to go through. Four GOP state AGs signed out to support the merger after Oregon comes out against.
- In further consolidation news, Mars acquires Kellanova, makers of Egg, Cheez-its, Pringles, Pop Tarts, etc.
- The unexpected success of Kevin’s
- Can Heinz climate proof its ketchup?
- Stew Leonard’s is the Chuck E. Cheese of grocers. Its animatronic characters are hitting the road.
- 8 ways to be rude at the grocery store.
RESTAURANTS AND FOODSERVICE
- Both Presidential candidates have promised ‘no taxes on tips.’ What would that mean?
- In Arizona the waitstaff may need it: there is a ballot iniative to lower the minimum wages for tipped workers.
- How to get and keep a Michelin star.
- I always hated Outback. The food isn’t bad but the concept is so dumb. Anyway, they are in a world of hurt.
- Shake Shack trying to make autonomous robot delivery a thing.
FOOD SUPPLY CHAIN
- Oyster industry in Canada’s Atlantic provinces in crisis over disease MSX.
- The sow crate ban in California was supposed to cause baconapocalypse. It didn’t.
- I thought all along that Florida’s cultivated meat ban was unconstitutional. Well, here come the lawsuits.
- FDA announces it won’t investigate kratom after all.
- New vaccines on the way to treat fungi in produce.
DRINK CORNER
- Bad wine chases out good; there is so much bad prosecco out there that Italian wine makers aren’t going to use the word any more. The Italian version of chardonnay
- Why you would drink green chartreuse in a Swampwater is beyond me, but people do.
- The debate about health, alcohol and wine is not simple.
FOOD WEEK August 16 LAGNIAPPE
- Peanut allergies are 80% preventable through careful introduction to babies
- The world’s rarest pasta: Su filindeu—literally “threads of God” – is from Sardinia. It is made by only three women only for the biannual Feast of San Francesco.
- Hefty finally confirms that pumpkin spice is trash.
- Without bread we would still be living in caves.
- Tomatoes on ice cream has me wondering.
- Decaf coffee very bad for you. Regular coffee very good.
- Fantasy literature and fictional foods.
- Wally Amos of Famous Amos dies at 88.