January 2012
3 posts
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Food TED Talks: The 8 Best Lectures On Eating And... →
via HuffPost Food
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Chick-fil-A Joins McDonald’s in Cutting Calories... →
Bloomberg, 1/6/12
August 2011
1 post
The Rise of the Social Food Truck [INFOGRAPHIC] →
The Social-Savvy Food Truck Series is supported by the Ben and Jerry’s Scoop Truck. For more information on the scoop truck and where it stops, click here. If the average person was told five years ago that she could nab a delicious and buttery lobster roll from a truck without getting food po…
April 2011
1 post
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Calorie Rules Make Diets a Federal Affair →
WSJ, 4/2/11
March 2011
6 posts
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Avoiding recalls by tracking food from seed to... →
From Marketplace Radio
A new food safety law that requires stores, growers, and distributors to be able to trace every stop in the supply chain is creating a whole new business
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Groupon's ambitious plan to change how and when we... →
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“Buoyed by savings from payroll-tax cuts and improving job prospects, households...”
– Dining Out Is In as Tax Cuts Help Fill Cheesecake Factory, Texas Roadhouse
Bloomberg, 3/15/11
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Fast Company: The 10 Most Innovative Companies in...
Below is the full-text of the article (Fast Company3/14/11).
01 / PepsiCo »
For its ambitious nutrition R&D. Does better nutrition require curbing our appetites for Cheetos and Fritos and Mountain Dew (oh, my!)? Not if PepsiCo can help it. The snack-food giant recently opened a clinical research center charged with making its products healthier—slashing fat, sugar, and sodium by...
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New Pork Slogan. Are you inspired?
I had no idea the slogan “Pork: The Other White Meat” had been around since the 1980s. Personally, as far as meat slogans go, I think it’s pretty good. It’s descriptive. It’s relevant. Despite it’s age, I don’t think there was an overwhelming need for an update.
However, the National Pork Board felt differently. They decided that it was time to move on...
Rich Americans flock to fast food →
CNN, 2/28/11
I couldn’t help but click on that headline. The first paragraph reads:
When it comes to cutting back, the rich are learning a little secret the rest of us have always known: fast-food is cheap and good (if not good for you).
I thought I just heard that more affluent Americans are increasing spending again, which is why upscale retail outlets are starting to thrive once...
February 2011
14 posts
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Wegmans freezes prices on basic necessities →
CNNMoney, 2/23/11
Supermarket chain Wegmans Food Markets has pledged to not raise prices on 40 products this year, despite rising commodity and energy prices.
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Why Are Food Prices Going Crazy? →
NPR | Planet Money
NPR’s Jacob Goldstein tries to get some answers from Abdolreza Abbassian, a food economist at the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization. Abbassian’s answers, in a nut shell:
1. The rise of biofuels
2. More demand from the developing world
3. Disappearing stockpiles
4. Speculation
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Why Biofuels Help Push Up World Food Prices →
Very much following the Food vs. Fuel debate. Here is an excerpt from yesterday’s TIME article by Bryan Walsh:
No one is arguing that biofuels are solely responsible for driving up food prices. Rising demand and bad weather play significant roles — droughts, heat waves and floods could become more common in the future as the climate warms. Speculators who buy up food futures as investments...
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Food inflation isn't in every grocery aisle →
CNNMoney.com/Fortune, 2/9/11
It’s getting more expensive to eat around the world. But there are bright spots — a few food staples have remained relatively steady in price even as inflation sweeps the globe.
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Pork Industry Responds to Bittman
Turns out the pork industry wasn’t very happy with Mark Bittman’s inaugural New York Times food opinion column, A Food Manifesto for the Future:
Pork Industry Takes Aim at Bittman’s New Column
In a letter to the editor published Tuesday, Randy Spronk, chairman of the National Pork Producers Council’s environment committee, said the industry disagreed with Bittman’s...
Why the Poor Have Less-Healthy Diets
The Daily Stat, Harvard Business Review
The higher cost of healthy food is a major factor in the finding that wealthy people have more nutritious diets than the poor in the U.S., says Pablo Monsivais of the University of Washington. In a study, people in the top income group had diets that were 9.3 percentage points higher in nutrient density, on average, than those of the lowest-income...
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USA Today: Our View vs. Opposing View, Nutrition...
Although the day got away from me, I wanted to note that the featured opinion pieces in yesterday’s USA Today focused on the new front-of-package ”Nutrition Keys.”
USA Today’s Our View: Food industry’s good first step should become mandatory
CSPI’s Michael Jacobson’s Opposing View: Food industry’s idea won’t help
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The Healthification of Restaurants
I can’t help but feel overwhelmed by the number of stories focused on restaurants and “healthifying” menus. Yes, healthifying. Do consumers really care or want these modifications? Is this just the latest fad for everyone involved (health advocates, food policy folks, food companies). I’m anxious for the dust to settle to see what ideas take hold and become long-term...
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Higher Prices Help Tyson Foods →
The WSJ article notes strategies that food companies are employing to tackle higher food prices without hurting sales by passing on prices to consumers. At Tyson they are “relying on productivity gains, astute hedging and higher prices helped by strengthening export demand.”
The story quotes Tyson Foods Chief Executive Donnie Smith on restaurant strategies, saying:
Mr. Smith said he...
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Opinion: A Food Manifesto for the Future →
Mark Bittman, an Opinion columnist and the New York Times magazine’s food columnist, wrote this post for the NYT blog Opinionator earlier this week. I am going to read it in greater detail before commenting but wanted to know if anyone else agreed or disagreed with his proposals.
They include:
Begin subsidies to those who produce and sell actual food for direct consumption
Break up the U.S....
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Food Headlines from February 1
Below are two food headlines from yesterday that are worth calling out:
Fast food battle heats up in China, FT.com
Chinese consumers may have more spending power, but they also have less time to cook: a perfect recipe for the growth of fast food in China, where western and Asian chains are battling over the increasing appetite for restaurant meals.
6 vie to becomes next chief of UN Food...
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New Dietary Guidelines Draw Industry Reponse
Reaction to the 2010 Dietary Guidelines, released today, ranged:
From Nutritionists and Health Experts, who discussed the merits of the updates…
Marion Nestle, food and nutrition expert: “That’s politics, for you. Let’s give them credit for ‘drink water instead of sugary drinks.’ That comes close. But I listened in on the press conference and conference...
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WatchYes! Consumers should take more responsibility for what they eat. I know this isn’t always easy or wholly feasible. However, the message from Eatocracy’s Kat Kinman is solid: empower yourself, read the label, look into what you’re eating.
Eatocracy’s Lunchtime Poll: Fast Food Label Perusing
January 2011
21 posts
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Rising Food Prices Can Topple Governments, Too →
NPR, 1/30/11
Political unrest has broken out in Tunisia, Yemen, Egypt and other Arab countries. Social media and governmental policies are getting most of the credit for spurring the turmoil, but there’s another factor at play.
Many of the people protesting are also angry about dramatic price hikes for basic foodstuffs, such as rice, cereals, cooking oil and sugar.
The Food and...
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Christopher's Blog: What Makes Facebook Fan Pages... →
Data from eMarketer that references Coke’s, Starbucks’, and Oreo’s success and engagement strategies using Facebook fan pages.
christopherdente:
Engagement, interest and constant connection keep fans coming back on Facebook
Well-known brands like Coca-Cola and Starbucks have had success turning their Facebook fan pages into popular sites with millions of fans. Local...
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Foursquare 2010 Infographic: Food Check-Ins...
Foursquare, the location-based social network that raced onto the scene in 2009, released an infographic to visualize the amazing activity it generated in 2010, including 3,400% growth with 380 million check-ins. If you’d like to read about some of the broader findings, read Brian Solis’ post from Friday: Checking-in to the State of Foursquare. I’ve pulled out information...
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New Dietary Guidelines Should Arrive Monday
Stay tuned. The long-awaited 2010 Dietary Guidelines should be released on Monday. The Dietary Guidelines for Americans, first released in 1980, are published every five years by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Department of Agriculture (USDA).
To tide you over, here is a related article from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
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USDA expects food prices to rise 2% to 3% this... →
By P.J. Huffstutter, Los Angeles Times, 1/26/11
The agency attributes the possible increase to rising commodity prices, shrinking supplies of key ingredients and growing demand for corn-based ethanol for vehicle fuel.
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Restaurants and the State of the Union →
This post is by Restaurant SmartBrief contributor Janet Forgrieve.
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Marketplace Photo Gallery: The value of a dollar →
A neat look at a dollars worth of food. Kai Ryssdal talks to photographer Jonathan Blaustein about his “Value of a dollar” project, where he photographs a dollar’s worth of various types of food.
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Even as recovery picks up, eating out wanes →
Associated Press, 1/24/11
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"Nutrition Keys" Front-of-Pack Nutrition Labeling
New nutrition labels coming to the front of food packages (excerpt)
USA Today, Nanci Hellmich
Grocery shoppers will soon see the amount of calories, salt, sugar and saturated fat per serving plastered on the front of many popular food and beverage packages.
On Monday, the food industry unveiled its voluntary front-of-pack labeling, called Nutrition Keys, designed to help make healthful...
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This Week: Two Major Healthier Food Announcements
Two major companies, Walmart and Domino’s, announced significant healthy food initiatives this week:
1. Walmart’s Initiative to Make Food Healthier and Healthier Foods More Affordable [client]: The nation’s largest retailer (and, did you know, grocer) announced a five-year plan to make thousands of its packaged foods lower in salts, fats and sugars, and to drop prices on fruits and...
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GOP: Health waivers too easy on biz →
The health care waivers continue to draw debate. Many of the companies that received an HHS exemption employ large numbers of low-wage workers and stated that they might have to cut health coverage altogether, rather than be forced, under the Health Care Bill, to increase the minimum annual benefits they provide workers. Several large restaurant companies received waivers—McDonald’s...
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Meet the 'most social' restaurant brands; New... →
Nation’s Restaurant News, 1/12/11
“The key is about innovation and staying relevant while continuing to be ingrained in the consumer’s mind,” Reggie Bradford, Vitrue’s chief executive said. “It’s not so much how [brands] manage social media, but how they build their products to deliver a great consumer experience and appeal to young adults.”
He said winning social media brands are now...
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Panera's Pay-What-You-Wish Locations
In May, Panera announced a pretty novel concept for a restaurant and typically for-profit business, a nonprofit pilot in a suburb of St. Louis that allowed customers to pay what they wanted.
When I first read about it, I was skeptical and, honestly, still am. I love the idea but generally think people are more likely to avoid the situation altogether by going to a normal Panera or another...
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USDA to Announce Healthier New School Lunch... →
More to come on this later today when the the U.S. Department of Agriculture announces the first new school lunch guidelines in 15 years!
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Doctors' group sues USDA over vegetarian... →
Thought this was an interesting story, in light of all the vegetarians and vegans out there:
A nonprofit doctors’ organization is suing two federal agencies for ignoring a vegetarian alternative to the traditional food pyramid — despite skyrocketing obesity and diabetes rates.
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Obama Signs Food Safety Bill
Also known as the Food Safety Modernization Act… For those of you following this, I’ve included three articles to offer some different perspectives:
Obama signs legislation to improve food safety (USA Today)
President Obama signs food safety bill; New law overhauling nation’s food safety system has backing of restaurant groups (Nation’s Restaurant News)
Funding to meet...
December 2010
4 posts
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Drug Industry Dismayed by FDA Delay on Digital... →
Advertising Age, 12/22/10
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WatchDomino’s Pizza Face-lift: Sincere or Sinister?
I remember earlier this year when Domino’s launched its new ad campaign in which the company hunted down focus group participants that knocked their pizza (for taste, quality of ingredients, and so on) and announced that Domino’s had taken the comments to heart, reassessing its recipes and reformulating its pizzas. The critic was...
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Selling Health Food to China; Multinationals Use... →
An interesting article about the battle over the growing health food market in China, with food-product giants, such as Nestlé SA and PepsiCo Inc., getting into the fray.
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