Welcome to Food Week September 5, 2025, No, your grandfather or your great grandmother didn’t grow up drinking raw milk; they boiled it first. If they hadn’t you probably wouldn’t be here. Also more: salmonella, BS from HHS, rising prices, struggling restaurants, glyphosate, teetotalers, and truths from McD’s CEO. Enjoy!
MACRO
- US adds few jobs in August and actually shed them in June.
- Florida to end all mandatory vaccines! It’s not like there are any communicable diseases in the tropics.
- RFK Jr.’s health recommendation is full of beans. partially for the lack of real beans. For food and diet, MAHA promises to be nothing more than a weak PR campaign.
RETAIL AND CONSUMER
- Make up to break up, or so the Stylistics sang. Kraft Heinz merger falls apart
- The limiting – and outright banning – of soda for people on SNAP.
- Aldi abandons self checkout.
- Dollar Tree depends on cheap foreign goods ot keep retail at a dollar. How do you think that is going to play in this environment?
- Informal retail dominates in Africa. But that is about to change.
- Half the US fruits and vegetable imports are from Mexico and Canada and so coverd my the USMCA. Most of other half are facing significant tariffs.
They aren’t hard or unripe or picked to soon; they are ‘firmer eating variety’.
RESTAURANTS AND FOODSERVICE
- The CEO of McDonald’s, in addtion to quitting the Restaurant Association and pushing to get rid of the tipped minimum wage, is admitting the franchisees were fudging on their value meals, essentially eliminating the bundling advantage. It was an impressive run; I give him 6 months.
- New law in Illinois tries to prevent fraud and arbitrage in restaurant reservations.
- I guess we are to a point where taco concepts can come out of Brooklyn.
- I think they are appalling but the annual rolllout of pumpkin spiced latte is approaching something like a national holiday. Here is the bio of the war criminal that invented it.
- Global consumers boycotting restaurant US brands.
- A day in the life of a line cook, the backbone of the restaurant industry.
- Fast Casual chains – with a few exceptions – are really struggling. As are the OG, English pubs. Here’s a list of chains, about half are food, that have closed in 2025.
FOOD SUPPLY CHAIN
- Growing and glowing: more companies identified as having radioactive shrimp.
- More silliness from Texas: move to ban cultivated meat.
- US farmers are gloomy. Slowly dying, Florida citrus production falls 28%. Maybe not so slowly.
- Coffee prices are going up, even without tariffs, mostly because of weather.
- Avocado demand is causing deforestation in Mexico.
- Another egg-related salmonella outbreak and recall from the same production area as earlier this year.
DRINKS
- Got a thousand bucks laying around? Does Whistle Pig have a single malt for you! Also a vermouth from McCallan.
- Why Gen Z is drinking less alcohol.
- An all Indian bar in New York.
- A martini expo grows in Brooklyn.
- Your basil should be good and leafy by now; how about a GIn Basil Smash? The Licorice Flip. and 28 vodka cocktails.
FOOD WEEK September 5 LAGNIAPPE
- More studies showing the link of Glyphosate (Roundup) to cancer.
- The health benefits of coconut.
- A chef who specializes in preparations of invasive species.
- Upcycling your lemons at home. And don’t you dare think that the founding fathers didn’t have lemons, no matter how far they had to travel.
- Click bait: Is stevia bad for you? I’ll save you the trip: No.