Welcome to Food Week July 25, 2025. Hot everywhere, all the time. Dog days of summer. More stories on the incoherence of the administration on food, Plastics, PFAs, high beef prices. It makes you want have a drink, regardless of what the CDC says. And, like every week, we provide you with cocktail concepts. Enjoy!
MACRO
- Trump Administration to remove dozens of FDA food product standards.
- CDC says it’s too damn hot to drink.
- Like MAGA, MAHA depends upon a myth of America – in this case health and nutrition -that never really existed
RETAIL AND CONSUMER
- Pursuant to last week, Coke is not changing for corn syrup but merely offering a cane sugar alternative pace Trump. But it might not be as good as ‘Mexican’ Coke because it isn’t in glass.
- I remain fairly skeptical about ‘Summerween‘: heavily promoted made up holiday to drive people to eat more candy which they do anyway.
- The fight over SNAP data.
- Comparing the veggie burgers.
- Kroger getting serious bad PR for pricing and misleading shelf tags.
- Prebiotic Pepsi. Sure it is full of sugar which will do more damage to your gut than any benefit from any additive, but whatever.
- Amazon raises prices after saying it won’t raise prices.
RESTAURANTS AND FOODSERVICE
- US Foods trying to buy Performance Food Group (PFG) but it won’t be easy.
- Restaurant leaders coming to grips with th idea that tariffs are going to happen.
- People don’t see McDonald’s as a value anymore.
- The cult of memorization among waiters.
FOOD SUPPLY CHAIN
- Screw worm in Mexico and shrinking herds means beef prices through the roof
- Visas for 200 employees at JBS plant revoked.
- A fight over groundwater in East Texas. Poultry producers leading the resistance to more drilling.
- Importers freaking out over tariffs But hurting domestic wine makers too.
- Parmagiano Reggianno dramiano over tariffs.
- Brazil ag exports could get the old tariff double-whammy as most of its fertilizer comes from Russia
DRINKS
- Is the Tonga Room in San Francisco the ‘Greatest Place in the World?”
- Old Fashioned crafting knowledge.
- Sales of American liquor in Canada fall by 60%.
- Blind taste test of American Lagers picks …Brooklyn Beer, an old favorite. And here’s a bunch of beers I stopped drinking as a teenager.
- The Knickerbocker. The Cantaritos. The Kingston Club. The Frozen Irish coffee.
FOOD WEEK July 25 LAGNIAPPE
- The great black plastic spatula panic. Honestly we were part of this. Turns out it isn’t as bad – due to mathematical errors – as previously stated. Still the PFAs aren’t great.
- The cortisol cocktail (not a cocktail).
- Trump’s fixation on fast food as a cultural touchstone.
- Peach season – using the palm method to test ripeness.
- Trying to understand who is responsible for PFAs
