Welcome to Food Week April 4, 2025. Each week a new self inflicted disaster. A recession is almost baked in at this point but food prices, particularly produce, will skyrocket until tariffs are adjusted or rescinded. Aside from the topical idiocy, stuff on labels, the death of the middle tier restaurant, the re-birth of the loaded potato, the best bars in the world, the beef tallow shortage and much more.
MACRO
- I probably don’t have to tell you but tariffs blew up financial markets.
- Even before the tariffs, 1st quarter growth projected as flat. But job growth was strong,
- FDA among the health agencies being gutted.
RETAIL AND CONSUMER
- Tariffs will hit produce first
- Coke bottles wearing yellow caps for Passover. (It means there’s no corn syrup). Regardless of the cap, Coca Cola products contribute 1.3 billion pounds of plastic to the ocean each year.
- Spindrift claims that citric acid is not an actual additive. But it also doesn’t want to list it as an ingredient. And so, lawyers
- Dollar Tree selling Family Dollar for 90% less ($8 billion) than it paid for it 10 years ago,
- WIll preventing SNAP beneficiaries from buying soda improve health? Probably not much.
- Tracking changes in food prices since inauguration
- How to deli like a pro, or at least your Mom
RESTAURANTS AND FOODSERVICE
- Illinois now requiring schools to have kosher and halal options
- The olds are taking over: 3:45 dining becoming a trend. On the other hand, Hip hop and fine dining may not mix,
- Speaking of which, in the most gangster of recalls, Sukiya closes almost all of its 200 locations thanks to rat and bug parts in the food.
- Texture is back on the menu.
- Is the middle class restaurant in danger of extinction? Related, Hooter’s files for bankruptcy, joining Red Lobster and TGI Friday’s
- Highly innovative restaurants and caterers
FOOD SUPPLY CHAIN
- Dutch company stops shipping agricultural equipment even before tariffs take effect.
- For the first time in 80 years, the US has decided not to share water with Mexico, which will end up hurting Mexican producers who mostly sell to…the US.
- China believes that agriculture should be off limits in trade war. But Trump tariffs earn a 34% retaliatory response from China which will hit soybeans hard.
- Uh oh – now there’s a beef tallow shortage.
- States with the highest food recall rates
DRINKS
- Bar Nouveau in Paris named best bar in the world. Or here’s a listicle of the top 10 bars in America. Or an old fashioned tiki bar in Reno
- The oldest rum distillery in the world
- Cognac was actually a common ingredient of the first cocktails. Here are 8.
- The stinger. The honey bee.
- You can pre-order your carton history of the cocktail here:
FOOD WEEK April 4 LAGNIAPPE
- What is the real truth about Ultra-processed foods? It’s murky.
- Is salmon the most poisonous fish in the world? I think fugu might differ
- The loaded potato was a big thing in the 80s. TikTok is reviving it
- Butter boards? Yes, butter boards.
