Welcome to FoodStuff November 15, 2025. Week before Thanksgiving but a world of food full of contradiction and conflict: Amazon and Whole Foods, Italians and pasta, Italians and tomato sauce, Ben & Jerry’s, Chipotle and youth, the carnivore diet, sweeteners and weight loss and chefs who are also bank robbers. But we’ll always have Costco. Enjoy
MACRO
- Shutdown ends and with it the potential hunger crisis that would have ocurred with a prolonged SNAP suspension.
- Reducing coffee and tomato tariffs aren’t going to fix inflation. Manufacturing is already in a recession, largely due to tariffs.
- The bodies are mounting, 7 and counting, from Listeria in pasta in 18 states. But have you heard of this?
RETAIL AND CONSUMER
- Amazon is completing the takeover of Whole Foods. I am sure their employment pricatices will do wonders for customer service.
- Conversely, will Costco ever stop wining?
- Processed foods that sabotage the diet.
- The fight over the meaning of the Ben & Jerry’s brand.
- Warning signs at delis. (No, it’s not the Boars Head logo).
RESTAURANTS AND FOODSERVICE
- Roil in restaurant chains contionues as Denny’s takes itself private amid declining sales. Chipotle also stuggling with its core youth cohort. Meanwhile, Wendy’s pivots to chicken.
- First Chili’s and now Sizzler. The old dogs making comebacks.
- Yum considering spinning off Pizza Hut as it struggles, as its sister KFC shows some signs of recovery. SIgnificantly, both these brands depend heavily on international revenue, so it isn’t just the US economy causing their woes.
- Is the key to turning aound Fast Casual the abandoment of traditional meal times?
FOOD SUPPLY CHAIN
- Mexico is the largest consumer of corn per capita in the world. But its domestic production is shrinking.
- Do you like pasta from Italy. It will now be harder to find, thanks to tariffs.
- How suppliers fake scallops.
- China is the largest producer in the world of tomato paste. However, right now, they aren’t the biggest seller of tomato paste, thanks to rejection of their products by the Italians.
- What does a post-cocoa world look like?
- Meats that are illegal in the US.
DRINKS
- Heaven for Japanese Whisky in New York city.
- Cities with great pub culture.
- Chinkapin white oak is all the rage for bourbon distillers. Learn about it here.
- My BS meter red lined the first time I heard a Tito’s vodka ad. I wasn’t wrong.
- About the Coquito, the national drink of Puerto Rico
- A primer in digestifs. Plus a Vieux Amaro which sounds cool if not dangerous. A Poitin cocktail.
FOOD WEEK November 15 LAGNIAPPE
- The myth of the carnivore diet.
- Scientists make shitake mushrooms into storers of memory.
- Drink Tart Cherry juice if you wan’t to sleep.
- A study arguing, contra trend, that sweeteners can help you lose weight. But, the study may be tainted by Nestle researchers, others.
- Lost in translation: 10 things people in the US eat that the rest of the world won’t touch.
- A professional gin forager is actually a thing.