Archives
Pollan Makes the Rounds
By Dan Mitchell
Posted Wednesday, April 29, 2009 - 2:43pm
Michael Pollan—journalist, author, and science-journalism professor—has been elevated to a leadership position in the movement to transform the food system. But, as he will tell you, he doesn't really belong there.
A Starbucks Solution—Get Another Chain
By Dan Mitchell
Posted Tuesday, April 28, 2009 - 12:24pm
Can the cure for what ails the Starbucks (SBUX) coffee chain be ... another coffee chain?
Even as Starbucks is closing locations and cutting jobs, it is expanding the presence of Seattle's Best Coffee, the chain it purchased in 2003.
The company is looking for new franchisees to operate stores and kiosks. That will allow it to expand without increasing operating costs.
U.S. Pork Industry Avoids Swine Flu (So Far)
By Dan Mitchell
Posted Monday, April 27, 2009 - 8:55am
Despite the speculations of a couple of bloggers over the weekend, there is as yet no known hard evidence linking the swine flu epidemic to the American pork industry, or in particular to Smithfield Foods (SFD), which owns pork plants in Mexico, including in the area where the outbreak may have originated.
New World Food Crisis Warning
By Dan Mitchell
Posted Friday, April 24, 2009 - 5:36pm
Last year's food crisis has eased, but prices remain very high in developing countries, and the conditions that caused the crisis are likely to return without intervention, says a new United Nations report.
"Rising unemployment and falling incomes are putting additional pressure on the poor and vulnerable," according to the report, issued by the U.N.'s Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific.
Venn and the Art of Snack Development
By Dan Mitchell
Posted Thursday, April 23, 2009 - 1:47pm
I don't know how original it is, but this Venn diagram posted on GraphJam, a site for graph enthusiasts, should hang on the office wall of every snack-food marketer.
Have I Got News for You
By Dan Mitchell
Posted Wednesday, April 22, 2009 - 4:48pm
At first blush, the New York Times' decision to force Josh Friedland, editor of the popular blog The Food Section, to drop the slogan "All the News That's Fit to Eat" seems a bit silly. After all, it does amount to a publishing giant going after a tiny, one-man operation.
Mini-Wheats Fail A Test
By Dan Mitchell
Posted Tuesday, April 21, 2009 - 11:03am
The Federal Trade Commission had to step in Monday to provide the marketers at Kellogg's with a conscience, declaring that Kellogg's claims that Frosted Mini-Wheats will help kids pay better attention in school were false. The company reluctantly agreed to stop making the claims.
Early Debut for McDonald's Angus Burger
By Dan Mitchell
Posted Monday, April 20, 2009 - 12:21pm
Crain's Chicago Business reports that McDonald's (MCD) is planning to introduce the Angus, its first new hamburger product in eight years, much earlier than expected.
Pepsi Giving Up Soda?
By Dan Mitchell
Posted Monday, April 20, 2009 - 11:34am
Perhaps the bluntest assessment of PepsiCo's (PEP) announcement that it will try to buy its two biggest bottlers for $6 billion comes from Bob O'Brien, a blogger for Barron's. The move, he wrote, is "the clearest indication yet that the soft drink giant has given up on the future of its flagship brands..."
Dr Pepper Scoops Up TV Ad Space
By Dan Mitchell
Posted Thursday, April 16, 2009 - 11:26pm
Can you recall the last time you saw a television spot for A&W root beer? It's been at least seven years. But new ads are appearing now, thanks to a deft bit of commercial ghoulishness on the part of Dr Pepper Snapple (DPS).
Crab Industry Considers Prison Labor
By Dan Mitchell
Posted Thursday, April 16, 2009 - 10:42am
Something like this is bound to make Lou Dobbs' head explode: A shortage of foreign crab-pickers in Maryland is forcing the seafood industry there to consider using state prisoners to do the hard, nasty, low-paying work.
"At issue is finding workers willing to spend their days picking the meat from pile after pile of steamed crabs so the product can be packaged for sale in little plastic tubs," writes the Baltimore Sun's Stephanie Desmon.
Bye-Bye, Bluefin?
By Dan Mitchell
Posted Wednesday, April 15, 2009 - 11:01am
More fallout from Japan's particularly conspicuous brand of conspicuous consumption: The bluefin tuna might vanish within three years thanks to it being "such a sought-after delicacy in the Far East," as the Times of London .
Gatorade vs. Powerade
By Dan Mitchell
Posted Tuesday, April 14, 2009 - 11:21am
PepsiCo (PEP), maker of Gatorade, is suing Coca-Cola (KO), maker of Powerade. The accusations come down to Pepsi complaining thusly: The dubious benefits of your product are slightly more dubious than the dubious benefits of my product, so stop making your dubious claims.
Surprise: Bad Imported Beer Isn't Selling
By Dan Mitchell
Posted Monday, April 13, 2009 - 12:43pm
Admittedly, I don't follow the beer business any more intensively than any other part of the food business. Still, I was surprised I didn't know this fact that I gleaned from recent coverage of the shrinking imports market: Just two beers—Heineken and Corona—make up nearly half of all imports to the United States.
Is Big Food as Evil as Big Tobacco?
By Dan Mitchell
Posted Friday, April 10, 2009 - 12:54pm
Last month, the Milbank Quarterly published a paper (pdf) with the provocative-if-unwieldy title "The Perils of Ignoring History: Big Tobacco Played Dirty and Millions Died. How Similar Is Big Food?"
Eerily similar, according to one of the authors, Kelly Brownell, a psychologist and director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University.
The Catch-22 of Food Aid
By Dan Mitchell
Posted Thursday, April 9, 2009 - 12:40pm
The world's poor are caught in a Catch-22. When food prices rise, they suffer. When food prices fall, they suffer.
That, according to Robert Paarlberg, writing in Foreign Policy, is because "prices are not the only factor at work."
Why Fad-Diet Books Fly
By Dan Mitchell
Posted Wednesday, April 8, 2009 - 1:47pm
Everybody knows, or should know, that fad diets don't work. How often do you have to hear it? Still, diet books continue to find their way onto the best-seller lists with astonishing regularity.
The Women in America's Kitchen
By Dan Mitchell
Posted Tuesday, April 7, 2009 - 12:13pm
Ilene Gordon has been named the new chairwoman and CEO of Corn Products International (CPO), continuing what seems to be a trend of women heading major food companies.
It was enough for Greg Burns of the Chicago Tribune to take note and ask, "Is it something about the food industry?"
Aussies Call Out 'Myth-Busting' Coke Ad
By Dan Mitchell
Posted Monday, April 6, 2009 - 12:23pm
Coca-Cola ran an ad in Australia recently that it probably never would have tried to run in the United States. As it turns out, Coke shouldn't have tried to run it in Australia, either.
Tropicana: Mob Rule Marketing
By Dan Mitchell
Posted Friday, April 3, 2009 - 12:44pm
The saga of Tropicana's redesigned orange-juice package leaves us with an ugly truth: Thanks largely to the Internet, companies are increasingly being forced to cater to the unpredictable whims of angry, insensible, irrational mobs.
Is the Deal Market Coming Back?
By Dan Mitchell
Posted Thursday, April 2, 2009 - 1:36pm
Scanning the headlines this morning, I thought for a second that I had time-traveled back to 2006. IPOs? Private equity? M&A deals? What gives?
Not that there is a flurry of deals anywhere, including in the food business, but there are more than there have been in months.
Several of the deals involve Asia. For instance, there is actually hard competition in the bidding for Anheuser-Busch InBev's Oriental Brewery unit.
The Great Pizza "Bailout"
By Dan Mitchell
Posted Thursday, April 2, 2009 - 12:17pm
If cincy007's Internet comment can be believed, he or she has a freezer full of free Domino's pizzas after the company left its Web site vulnerable to an abandoned promotion that was revealed by accident on Monday night and spread quickly across the Net.
Whole Fools' Day
By Dan Mitchell
Posted Wednesday, April 1, 2009 - 2:27pm
As April Fools' jokes go, the one on Whole Foods' homepage is pretty good, with plenty of loopy self-mockery like "When milk goes bad: 12 daring recipes"; an offer of "one free spider with every 50-lb. purchase of organic bananas"; and a recipe for "Spicy Spelt Balls."
Down a Martini, Plant a Tree
By Dan Mitchell
Posted Wednesday, April 1, 2009 - 1:32pm
There is, according to a public relations pitch that landed in my inbox Wednesday morning, "MAJOR BREAKTHROUGH NEWS" to report. Tru Organic Spirits—vodka and gin—are "the most radically carbon-negative consumer products on the market."
That's quite a claim, and best for Modern Spirits, the company that makes Tru, it's impossible to either verify or refute.
Nut Growers Bristle at FDA's Warning
By Dan Mitchell
Posted Wednesday, April 1, 2009 - 11:29am
Not surprisingly, pistachio growers are complaining about the Food and Drug Administration's blanket warning against eating any pistachio products.
The warning came after the discovery of salmonella-tainted nuts from a California plant operated by Setton Pistachio of Terra Bella, owned by Setton International Foods.
