Welcome to Food Week November 1, 2024. Fresh off of Halloween now we have to change our clocks. Work work work, to quote Governor Le Petomane. Several items about things to avoid: hydrazine, micro-plastics, phthalate, insecticides, maybe cinnamon and certainly olive oil in your coffee. And a lot more. Enjoy
MACRO
- Very weak jobs report but some of it attributable to strikes and hurricanes. Inflation falls to 2%
- It should go without saying but deporting millions of undocumented workers would cause disruptions and price spikes all the way up the food chain.
- Rising levels of anxiety among parents with all of the food-borne illness outbreaks
RETAIL AND CONSUMER
- The winner of Halloween is Nerds. Also the history of gummi critters.
- Walmart ‘asks’ remote employees to move to Bentonville AR.
- 7-Eleven launching 500 food focused stores.
- Vegan food hall in Chicago closing.
- The healthiest choices for junk food.
RESTAURANTS AND FOODSERVICE
- We ate at the Ristorante Da Pancrazio a number of years ago and it would b have been great for the food alone but to be in the Theater of Pompey was mind blowing.
- As predicted here over a year ago. even Starbucks can’t make olive oil in coffee a thing. Things are generally less than great there. Can fixing China get them back on track?
- Coping with noisy restaurants.
- What is the future of Noma, probably the world’s most famous great restaurant.
- First the bread, now the meat. Subway being sued over the skimpiness of the meat in its sandwiches.
FOOD SUPPLY CHAIN
- Are we at ‘peak beef?’ There is an ongoing conflict in Brazil between ranching and preservation of the Amazon. The government caught some packers buying cattle from deforested areas and fined them $64 million
- USDA trying to get more organic dairy into schools.
- A very deep dive into how farmers end up using insecticides and how that is much less rational and precise than they think.
- Scammers steal $400k worth of cheese.
- $5.2 billion award in lawsuit against water bottler that sold product with hydrazine, a chemical used in rocket fuel.
DRINKS
- There is a variation of the Aperol spritz called a Venetian.
- The healthiest alcohol choice is probably tequila.
- A bitters review for your bourbon cocktails.
- All pilsners are lagers but not all lagers are pilsners. Got it.
- The Bocce Ball.
FOOD WEEK November 1 LAGNIAPPE
- Coffee gets all the good press. Here is a skeptical take, more about the methodolgies than the actual results.
- How to reduce your exposure to micro-plastics. And by all means avoid phthalate.
- Cinnamon is really good for you. Unless it is full of lead.
- Crazy expensive RV with open kitchen concept.
- A label has to start somewhere.
