Weekly Food Industry Insights - September 1, 2023

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INSIGHTS FOR THIS WEEK

THE BULLSEYE The Taylor Swift Effect On this week's Bullseye – Last month Taylor Swift surprised her entire crew - from backup singers and dancers to truck drivers on her Eras tour with huge cash bonuses.?CNN reports that in the cities?that she performs during the tour she is giving back to the food banks in those cities. For example, in Arizona Swift’s donation in March allowed the?Arizona Food Bank Network?to send several tractor-trailers filled with 40,000 pounds of fresh produce to its member food banks, said Terri Shoemaker, a spokesperson at the nonprofit organization. Plus, it bolstered funding for programs aimed at combating hunger, including helping eligible children gain access to free and reduced-price school meals and senior citizens obtain food stamps. FULL STORY.

Foods That Can Reduce Anxiety?- #FoodNotPhones Everyone knows how today's world is full of anxiety and stress, Dr. Uma Naidoo?writes in Prevention?that one solution is what foods we eat. Naidoo is a nutritional psychiatrist and she writes that its about our gut-brain connection and how the health of one directly effects the health of the other and that the microbiome is a determinant of our anxious systems. The goal is to keep our gut healthy and keep inflammation at bay. Join the?#FoodNotPhones?movement and be a part of an initiative to bring back more human connection. Celebrate National?#FoodNotPhones?Day with us on September 19th!?FULL STORY

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Fading Food Delivery Instacart's IPO might be perfect timing. There?is a study that came out from?Bloomberg?that delivery is too expensive. Once you factor in the delivery fees, service fees and tips, plus the generally higher price of food due to inflation, delivery is down.?Chipotle Mexican Grill, Kava and?sweetgreen?have all reported significant declines in delivery sales. We don't have any number for supermarkets, except one from Instacart. In their filing, they said that the growth of its core delivery business slowed in the first half of 2023. Chipotle's delivery decreased almost 16 percent. Red Robin is showing 12 percent. Delivery check value is down. Domino's, their delivery declined 3.5 percent. So you know, Instacart might be really smart getting their IPO before this whole market blows up. But the question is, with all these delivery services, with all these gig workers working in delivery, what's gonna happen??FULL STORY

Labor Day Inflation Labor Day prices are up. And what's interesting,?according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, their most recent report is that inflation rose 3.2% for major categories of goods over the last year. But when we look at Labor Day, mayonnaise is up 16%, so maybe not so much coleslaw and potato salad this year. Potato chips are up 12%, Soda is up 5%, Ketchup up 5%, there's up 4%, American cheese up 4% and lettuce is up 4%. So even though inflation 3.2%, we're starting to see a lot of increase in some of these numbers which, for a lot of people, might change what they're going to actually serve on Labor Day. FULL STORY

Kellogg's Mexico War For those of you that might not be aware, in 2020, Mexico instituted their new labeling requirements, their black hexagons, that showcase foods high in sodium or high in sugar, and it looks like Kellogg's is really trying to keep Tony the Tiger and Toucan Sam on their packages. Part of these regulations from Mexico dictate that if products are high in sugar, they contain more than 37 grams of added sugar in 100 grams serving, they can't use cartoon characters on the package. One of the reasons for it is not just about Mexico, but clearly what we're seeing here in the US is again more movement to try to get a healthy label out there. FULL STORY

Climate Change & Cocktails Here is something that I never thought about. An article in?Food and Wine?talks about the fact that the garnishes that are on cocktails not only can be diminishing the cocktail from a taste standpoint, but also those garnishes don't help the environment. ?FULL STORY

Reducing Meat Consumption = Taking Cars of the Road? Coming from?Oxford University,?we're looking at a study here that surveyed 55,000 people on their meat eating or non-meat eating behaviors, and what they found is that someone with a high meat diet accounted for about 22.58 pounds worth of carbon dioxide production per day. The low meat diet they account for 11.84 pounds worth and a vegan would account for 5.45 pounds on average. So there is a huge amount of our carbon dioxide production that is coming from our meat consumption and this is something that I think we need to realize that a vast majority of scientists agree on. NASA says that the majority of scientists, 97%, agree that humans are causing global warming and climate change.?FULL STORY