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Tag Archives: food business

A World without Chocolate?

27 Wednesday Sep 2017

Posted by Dwight Furrow in Contemporary Food Culture, Food Science

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chocolate, food business

a world without chocolateWe don’t really need another crisis at the moment and there are more important things to worry about than the supply of chocolate. Nevertheless, a world without chocolate would be a diminished form of existence.

Cacao crops are under constant threat from disease and environmental pressures. Yet producers continue to plant only a narrow range of varieties and that has experts concerned.

“Most varieties produced worldwide belong to a narrow set of clones selected in the forties,” said Wilbert Phillips-Mora, who oversees this collection of 1,235 types of cacao trees and heads the Cacao Genetic Improvement Program at C.A.T.I.E. (an acronym in Spanish for the Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center).

A narrow gene pool means that most commonly cultivated varieties of cacao are susceptible to the same diseases, and these blights can spread quickly.

In the early 1980’s frosty pod rot virtually killed off cocoa production in Costa Rica and Phillips-Mora argues it could happen anywhere

“For me, the cacao industry is in permanent risk, because intentionally or unintentionally this disease could be spread in just one flight,” said Dr. Phillips-Mora. Increasing travel and commerce in the developing world have provided new pathways for infection.

The threat of disease, especially exacerbated by climate change, makes growing cacao a risky business.

These difficulties make cacao ever less appealing to producers; yields and profits are low, and the average cacao farmer is aging. The next generation seems to be abandoning the family business.

Yet demand for chocolate is rising, especially as gargantuan markets like China and India indulge a taste for what used to be a treat primarily for American and European consumers. A chocolate shortage may be on the horizon.

Dr. Phillips-Mora’s project of creating greater genetic diversity in the cacao plant population may be all that stands between us and a world without chocolate.

In the early 1980s, Dr. Phillips-Mora worked to identify the most naturally tolerant and productive cacao trees, then painstakingly hybridized the candidates to create novel varieties.

Apparently, these new varieties are more productive and more disease resistant than conventional varieties, yet have all the flavor characteristics that chocolate lovers crave.

Dr. Phillips-Mora, a grateful world turns its lonely eyes to you.

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The Food Revolution Cannot be Co-opted

17 Thursday Aug 2017

Posted by Dwight Furrow in Contemporary Food Culture

≈ 5 Comments

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Applebees, authenticity, Chain restaurants, food business

applebeesOrdinarily I wouldn’t be much concerned about the closing of chain restaurants but this story caught my eye because of the clueless reasoning behind it.

Applebee’s announced this month that more than 130 of its restaurants will close by the end of the year.

The casual dining chain rebranded itself in the past few years as a modern bar and grill.

Applebee’s executive John Cywinski recently told investors that the company had hoped the effort would attract a new kind of customer.

The chain aimed to lure “a more youthful and affluent demographic with a more independent or even sophisticated dining mindset, including a clear pendulum swing towards millennials,” he said.

Applebee’s wanted to lure millennials with dishes like barbecue shrimp in a sriracha-lime sauce; chicken wonton tacos; and a pork, ham and bacon sandwich.

But that triple pork bonanza — and the rest of the company’s makeover — didn’t seem to catch on with customers. Sales at Applebee’s dropped more than 6 percent from last year.

The interesting part of this is the aim to attract “a more youthful and affluent demographic with a more independent or even sophisticated dining mindset,”

So young people with an “independent” mind set who are also “sophisticated” about dining are going to frequent a chain restaurant because chain restaurants just scream “independence” and “sophistication”. Because, of course, anyone who is independent and sophisticated immediately salivates when sriracha or pork-3-ways appears on the menu.

The intellectual standards for CEO’s must be dropping. People who are independent and sophisticated will avoid chain restaurants because chain restaurants by their very nature are homogeneous and cater to conventional tastes. It doesn’t help that Applebee’s was latching onto trends that are at least a decade old.

I “sympathize” with the plight of chain restaurants who want to capitalize on the food revolution. You can’t package and market authenticity and difference because, once packaged and marketed, it’s no longer authentic or different. I suppose they have to try to stay relevant in order to mollify shareholders, but it’s a losing proposition.

Which is why I argued in American Foodie that the food revolution might actually survive attempts to co-opt it.

You’ll Be Hearing More Stories Like This

10 Thursday Aug 2017

Posted by Dwight Furrow in Contemporary Food Culture

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food business, immigration

rotting cropsI’ve been predicting problems at grape harvest this year as our country’s insane immigration policies will discourage migrant labor from showing up to pick fruit. The brunt of the grape harvest is still many weeks away but stories of crops rotting in the fields are already beginning to appear.

Vegetable prices may be going up soon, as a shortage of migrant workers is resulting in lost crops in California.

Farmers say they’re having trouble hiring enough people to work during harvest season, causing some crops to rot before they can be picked. Already, the situation has triggered losses of more than $13 million in two California counties alone, according to NBC News.

It’s tempting to say this was an entirely avoidable problem. But that would presuppose it is possible to overcome bigotry with facts, apparently an unwarranted assumption in America today.

The End of Restaurants?

11 Wednesday Jan 2017

Posted by Dwight Furrow in Contemporary Food Culture

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food business, Restaurant business

closedThis is a disturbing story.

The American restaurant business is a bubble, and that bubble is bursting. I’ve arrived at this conclusion after spending a year traveling around the country and talking to chefs, restaurant owners, and other industry folk for this series.

In a series of articles for Thrillist, Kevin Alexander makes the case that our very own golden age of restaurant dining is coming to an end. The reasons are many. For starters, there are too many similar, hip restaurants competing for the same customers. Everyone wants in on the Food Revolution. But new ideas are hard to execute and sell, and the plethora of wanna-be pretenders are soaking up too many dollars. In addition, all those restaurants need chefs so there is a real shortage of qualified people to work in kitchens and that drives labor costs up. And that in the end is the real problem.

Across the nation, restaurants like AQ — chef-driven, ambitious, fine-casual dining spaces that straddle the gap between neighborhood fixtures and destinations — are the ones closing their doors most quickly, mainly for a reason above: labor costs. And it’s happening everywhere — research firm NPD Group reported that in 2016 the number of independent restaurants in the US dropped 3%, while chains increased, and said the majority of those independent restaurants closing were sit-down. The reasons the costs are going up are complicated, involving a mix of laws and taxes and other inherently unsexy things.

As Alexander points out, everyone supports better wages and benefits for restaurant workers. But it’s becoming apparent, according to Alexander, that restaurant margins are too small to absorb higher labor costs so something has to give. And inflated, unrealistic consumer expectations are also part of the mix:

One of the unintended consequences of the Golden Age of Restaurants was unreasonable customer expectations for virtually every eating experience. “Customers now think life should be one endless brunch,” says New Orleans’ chef Cullen. “With freshly made bottomless mimosas.” It is no longer impressive that things are local, farm-sourced, and handmade — it’s expected. But, as Cullen explains, the rise of the Golden Age “scratch kitchen” (in which everything is made in-house), long a point of pride for fine-dining kitchens, isn’t usually financially realistic in the more casual kitchens.

And consumers expect all this without increases in prices.

Right on cue, of course, in larger cities the big money guys with their food delivery apps are swooping in hiring chefs and stealing customers from the sit-down restaurants.

And so gradually, but inexorably we will see fewer sit down restaurants and more “hip iterations of fast-casual restaurants, with smaller menus, counter service, and a skeleton crew of front- and back-of-the-house staff.” Of course, the Michelin-starred will survive and flourish along with the uber-efficient low end, fast-casual establishments. But, like the rest of society, the middle-class where a lot of the creativity in the food scene takes place is being hollowed out.

What’s the solution? Well we could start by recognizing that always seeking the lowest price has consequences. Quality is expensive. But don’t hold your breath waiting for that recognition to take hold.

In the end, the solution will be the one we always latch onto—technology. Welcome to the golden age of robot chefs.

Bringing Back Local Agriculture

19 Wednesday Oct 2016

Posted by Dwight Furrow in Contemporary Food Culture

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agribusiness, food business

hydroponic towerAs I travel about the country visiting rural areas it is obvious that many of these small towns are dying. Big agriculture has undermined the small farm economy that used to support them, extraction industries have fallen on hard times, and manufacturing has moved out in search of a larger, cheaper work force. With too few people to support a service economy it is not clear what can be done to revitalize vast areas of the country.

But stories like this one from West Virginia provide a clue if not an answer:

In the parking lot of the Five Loaves and Two Fishes Food Bank in McDowell County, squash and basil are growing in 18 tall white towers without any dirt. It’s a farming method called hydroponics. The vegetables sprout from tiny holes as water and nutrients flood the roots.

Joel McKinney built this hydroponic garden because it produces a lot of food yet takes up just a little space.

“So like for right here I can grow 44 plants, whereas somebody growing in the ground can only grow four,” McKinney says. “So I want to do as much vertical space as I can and really amaze people with the poundage of food, because I’m growing up instead of out.”…

“People have the ability to grow their own food. I want to help them learn to market their product and earn some money,” he says. “Like people who quilt or make necklaces, the same thing with growing food — people have just never seen it as a marketable skill.”

Obviously not a global solution to a global problem. But revitalizing local agriculture even on a small scale is a start.

Bite the Hand That Feeds

21 Thursday Jul 2016

Posted by Dwight Furrow in Contemporary Food Culture

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farm workers, food business

farmworkersIt never ceases to amaze me how we can vilify the people who harvest our food; and it’s beginning to have an effect:

Fruit and vegetable farmers across the country are complaining about a growing shortage of farm laborers. The shortage is largely due to a slowdown in immigration from Mexico. From time to time, there are predictions of disaster, with crops rotting in the fields because there aren’t enough people to harvest them.

Explain to me again why we shouldn’t have a generous immigration policy?

The quote is from a post  by Dan Charlespost  by Dan Charles summarizing  a series of articles he has written about the lives of farmworkers based on interviews. In some ways their lives are improving but they still suffer from inconsistent opportunities to work and the lack of legal status. The interviews are interesting and enlightening. Check them out.

But skip the comments; they’re mostly disgusting.

Prosecute Farm-to-Table Fraud

02 Monday May 2016

Posted by Dwight Furrow in Contemporary Food Culture

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farm-to-table, food business

farm to tableLaura Riley’s investigative reporting for the Tampa Bay Times on the outright fraud going on with claims about farm-to-table dining has received lots of warranted attention.

This is a story we are all being fed. A story about overalls, rich soil and John Deere tractors scattering broods of busy chickens. A story about healthy animals living happy lives, heirloom tomatoes hanging heavy and earnest artisans rolling wheels of cheese into aging caves nearby.

More often than not, those things are fairy tales. A long list of Tampa Bay restaurants are willing to capitalize on our hunger for the story.

I doubt the problem is unique to the Tampa area. The idea of eating locally when possible is at the heart of the food revolution; restaurant lies about where their supplies come from threaten the sense of community and pursuit of peak flavor that are so important to contemporary food culture. But as chef Hari Pulapaka points out, the worst consequences are not suffered by the consumers who are ripped off. It is the small farmers who are really being harmed:

Restaurants and chefs can sustain by continuing to serve delicious food on the plate at a competitive value. After all, “that’s what the future of farm-to-table should be: food that speaks for itself without having to tell you where it comes from.” But the small and medium farmer, whose livelihood depends on seasonal demand, is at risk because of potential backlash stemming from a questioning of authenticity.

Pulapaka puts the onus on consumers to find out where their food comes from. But “buyer beware” won’t solve the problem.  Consumers are not investigative reporters.

There are laws against false advertising. Maybe they should be enforced.

Running Out of Scotch

17 Thursday Mar 2016

Posted by Dwight Furrow in Contemporary Food Culture

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food business, whiskey

scotchI’m basically a wine guy, with an appreciation for beer. But when I want a change of pace it’s a toss up between mescal and single-malt scotch, especially the peat-infused bottlings from Islay.

But for people who love good scotch, the news is not good.

Enthusiasm for single malt Scotch — whisky made from the product of a single distillery rather than a blend — continues to surge. In the U.S., annual sales nearly tripled between 2002 and 2015, according to the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States.

Global single malt exports jumped 159% between 2004 and 2014, according to the Scotch Whisky Association. Asia now accounts for one-fifth of all Scotch exports, buying up a quarter of a billion bottles a year.

“In China, everybody is talking about it,” said Stephen Notman of the Whisky Corporation, a whisky investment firm. “Nobody thought in a million years that there would be a market there for 30-, 40-year-old whisky.”

The result is skyrocketing prices and a serious shortage which people in the business think may last 15 years. The big producers are ramping up production to catch up. But by law, Scotch must be aged for three years, and aficionados prefer 10, 12,  and 15 year old scotch. So there are limits to how quickly production can be increased. The result is bound to be a loss of quality. Get ready for distilleries pushing it out the door with no age on the label.

As the wine world has discovered, the Chinese can be fickle. The Chinese market for fine wine exploded a few years ago, only to retreat when when their economy began to struggle. The same may happen to the Scotch market.

But for the next few years a serious scotch habit may get seriously expensive.

Are You Ready for a $15 Cup of Coffee

17 Wednesday Feb 2016

Posted by Dwight Furrow in Contemporary Food Culture

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coffee, food business

pricy coffeeThis story has been all over the press the past few days

A Bay Area based coffee company has introduced a new type of limited-harvest variety of bean that is selling for $15 per cup and a whopping $140 per pound.

Founded by partners Booke McDonnell and Helen Russell in 1995 when the pair started roasting coffee in a Marin County garage over 20 years ago, Equator Coffees and Teas is a boutique roasting company that also runs three cafés in Mill Valley and San Francisco.

Their pricey Finca Sophia bean grown at Equator’s high-altitude Panamanian farm of the same name is harvested from exotic Gesha plants that only produce a limited amount of coffee. With green unroasted beans from the fragile plant selling for as much as $170 per pound on the worldwide roasters market, perhaps the high price-tag isn’t so surprising.

It took eight years for these plants to produce a first crop of less than 200 pounds. So of course they will be expensive.

As you can imagine the “proletarian snobs” (an appropriate term coined by Blake Gray as far as I know) are out in force in comments threads or on the TV lamenting the decline of Civilization when people are willing to spend $15 for a cup of coffee. These are the same people that claim the pricey bottle of Margaux is no better than the bottom shelf $10 wine at the grocery store.

The question I have is, if you like coffee and can afford it, why wouldn’t you spend $15 for a genuinely stellar cup.

If you love basketball, don’t you want to watch Stephen Curry play? If you love cars, don’t you want to drive a Lamborghini? And no one criticizes you for these aspirations. But when it comes to taste why is there something pretentious about wanting the best?

Proletarian snobs are a strange sort—they take pride in their bad taste and look down their nose at anyone who doesn’t share it.  I don’t understand the psychology; my guess is childhood trauma but I’ll leave it to the Freudians to figure out.

I have not had the opportunity to try Finca Sophia beans so I can’t speak to their quality. As with wine, price is not always a reliable indicator of quality. But I’ll put them on my increasingly long list of things to do next time I’m in the Bay Area.

Big Firms and Lethal Germs

07 Thursday Jan 2016

Posted by Dwight Furrow in Contemporary Food Culture, Food Science

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

food and health, food business

industrial food2As reports of Chipotle’s problems continue to make headlines, it may seem to you that the occurrence of outbreaks of food-borne disease that cover many states is increasing. According to this report in the Washington Monthly by Ann Kim you would be right:

From 2010 to 2014, the CDC reported 120 total multistate outbreaks, or an average of twenty-four per year. By comparison, from 1973 to 1980, the median annual number of multistate outbreaks was just 2.5.

So what’s going on? Is our food supply becoming unsafe?

Not necessarily. When compared to the amount of food produced, the amount of contamination is relatively small. Remember the outbreak of E. Coli in fresh spinach in 2006. As Kim reports, only 1000 lbs. of spinach was actually  contaminated compared to the 587 million pounds of spinach consumed in in the U.S. that year. And the CDC is not reporting any overall rise in foodborne illnesses.

Matthew Wise, who leads the Outbreak Response Team for the CDC’s Division of Foodborne, Waterborne and Environmental Diseases, also notes that the overall number of foodborne illnesses hasn’t appreciably grown. What might be happening, he says, is that “the types of outbreaks might be shifting over time.”

And indeed that is the problem. What we are seeing is an increase in large, multistate outbreaks which are more lethal than local outbreaks:

According to an analysis by Samuel Crowe, an Epidemic Intelligence Service officer who works with Wise at the CDC, multistate outbreaks accounted for just 3 percent of total foodborne outbreaks over the past five years, but were responsible for 34 percent of hospitalizations (1,460 out of 4,247) and 56 percent of deaths (66 of 118). That’s because multistate outbreaks typically involve the most noxious pathogens—salmonella, listeria, and Shiga toxin-producing E. coli.

And the culprit? Industry consolidation of course. An industry that can efficiently deliver convenient, cheap food to the whole population can also efficiently deliver E. Coli.

“Consolidation has eliminated redundancies in the food system in the name of efficiency,” says Mary Hendrickson, assistant professor of rural sociology at the University of Missouri-Columbia. “But redundancies help protect us.”

In other words, if you have lots of small producers supplying local markets, a producer selling contaminated food will effect only a small, local population. By contrast a large, nationwide producer can spread contamination far and wide.

And our food supply is increasingly supplied by large firms. Take eggs for instance:

In 1969, according to a study by a group of CDC researchers led by Jeremy Sobel, the nation’s eggs were produced by 470,832 layer-hen farms with an average of 632 hens per farm. By 1992, the number of farms had dropped by 85 percent, while the average number of hens per farm increased by 470 percent, to nearly 3,000 hens per flock. Today, according to the American Egg Board, approximately sixty-three companies—each with flocks of one million hens or more—produce roughly 86 percent of the nation’s eggs. Seventeen of these companies, says the American Egg Board, have flocks of five million hens or more.

This trend towards large conglomerates is a industry-wide trend. When you go to the supermarket it looks like you have lots of choice. But in reality all those brands are created by the same large producers with different packaging for different markets.

I’ve argued repeatedly that consolidation in the wine business will harm quality and limit consumer choice. But consolidation in the food business seems to bring with it even greater harms. Efficiency is an important value, but it isn’t the only value; sometimes it can be positively dangerous.

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