Library of Congress Includes AmazingRibs.com In Foodways Archives
The United States Library of Congress has picked AmazingRibs.com to be added to its historic Food and Foodways Web Archive. Only 43 other websites are currently archived at the Library of Congress, including sites such as the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, James Beard Foundation, Southern Foodways Alliance, Grub Street, Jose Andres, Pioneer Woman, and US Food & Drug Administration. The Library of Congress is the country’s oldest federal cultural institution, a national library that maintains important “cultural artifacts” and gives US citizens access to them. Entirely independent, AmazingRibs.com has no corporate parent and has been in the barbecue game for more than 15 years. AmazingRibs.com began in 2005 just as a hobby and has grown into a professional website with an experienced staff and a Pitmaster Club that has more than 16,000 members.
Chocolate “Snow” Dusts Swiss Town After Lindt Factory Malfunction
The Swiss town of Olten was treated to a light dusting of chocolate “snow” after the ventilation system malfunctioned at a local chocolate factory. Leading Swiss chocolate maker, Lindt & Spruengli, which also owns Ghirardelli, Whitman’s, and Russell Stover chocolate brands, said that the ventilation issue occurred during the production of roasted cocoa nibs. Strong winds that day, combined with the malfunction, caused a fine chocolate powder to lightly blanket the area surrounding the factory. Many locals in Olten reacted positively to the malfunction, saying things like, “2020 is turning around” and “My dream come true.”
DoorDash Launches Grocery Delivery Service
Restaurant delivery platform Doordash is partnering with regional grocers to offer on-demand grocery delivery. Partner grocers currently include Smart & Final, Meijer, and Fresh Thyme. In the next few weeks, D’agostino, Gristedes and Hy-Vee will join DoorDash as well. Other grocery chains, including Wegmans and Gelson’s, will give DoorDash customers access to their apps, which customers can use to order prepared foods.
Prior to the pandemic, the market for online grocery shopping was growing, but slowly. Delivery demand has since shot through the roof in all sectors. During a recent call to discuss second-quarter results, Amazon/Whole Foods CFO Brian Olsavsky, reported that “online grocery sales tripled year-over-year.” Other players in the grocery delivery market are capitalizing on changing consumer habits, including market leader, Instacart, which announced a partnership with Walmart that allows customers same-day delivery from Walmart locations in Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego and Tulsa. Not to be outdone, DoorDash pledged that groceries from its providers will be ready for “Dasher” pick up within the hour. DoorDash charges a $3.99 delivery fee for each order unless customers are members of its $9.99/month subscription service, DashPass.
46-Year-Old Association Of Food Journalists Shuts Down
After 46 years of serving America’s food editors and writers, the Association of Food Journalists has dissolved. The organization is known for its journalism ethics code, including strong commitments to diversity and transparency while avoiding conflicts of interest. The association also held a popular annual conference and gave prestigious food media awards. Hanna Raskin, AFJ board president and food editor at South Carolina’s Post and Courier newspaper, explained the closing in a letter: “To make a sad story short, AFJ’s financial model was long based on print newspapers footing the cost of members’ dues, contest entries and conference attendance. Unfortunately, it didn’t shift course until it was too late, leaving the organization fiscally dependent on the magnanimity of laid-off staffers and underpaid freelancers.”
Company Offering Home Cooked Meals Delivered On Demand Raises $8.8 Million
As tens of thousands of restaurants remain partially or fully closed due to the impact of COVID-19, food delivery has dominated the restaurant industry. A new home-cooked meal delivery platform, Shef, recently raised $8.8 million in funding to expand its network of chefs who prepare home cooked meals for delivery. Chefs who apply to the Airbnb-like platform must have their home kitchens certified and inspected to meet food safety laws. “Shefs” then set up a profile and a menu, and each dish has a detailed ingredient list. The company’s co-CEOs Alvin Salehi and Joey Grassia prioritize immigrant cooks, first-generation cooks, and newly laid-off restaurant workers, and they currently have more than 4,000 pending “Shef” applications. The platform offers home cooked meals in a wide variety of cuisines, including Shanghainese, Bangladeshi, and Maldivian, and the company estimates that some “Shefs” earn up to $1,000 a week. Shef currently operates in areas of California and New York, and Salehi regularly lobbies other state governments to ease restrictions on selling food prepared in certified home kitchens.
Grocery Stores Adopt Reusable Food Packaging To Reduce Waste
Take one look at a Blue Apron dinner and you’ll see that food packaging can be excessive. Chief executive and founder of TerraCycle, Tom Szaky, has a solution: reusable containers for products like ice cream and deodorant. As part of TerraCycle’s “Loop” platform, consumers pay a refundable deposit when checking out. The packaging deposit ranges from $1 to $10 according to the size and material of the container. When empty containers are returned the store and cleaned, deposits are refunded to the consumer. When you buy another product, the cycle continues. Kroger Co. plans to implement TerraCycle’s refillable packaging platform in its stores next year. In the next few months, Tesco in the U.K. and Carrefour SA in France also plan to establish in-store Loop “corners” in their stores, where products are packaged and displayed in Loop’s containers. Loblaws Inc. in Canada and Woolworths Group Ltd. in Australia also plan to implement Loop stations in 2022. Japan’s largest supermarket group, Aeon Co., aims to start Loop corners in 16 stores next March in the greater Tokyo area. So far, TerraCycle has made reusable packaging for 400 popular products but has only sold them through the internet to consumers in parts of the U.S., France and the U.K. That will be changing very soon as Kroger and other grocery companies bring TerraCycle products inside their stores.
Kroger Takes On Amazon And Walmart With Its Own Online Grocery Marketplace
Kroger Co. recently launched its own e-commerce platform open to third-party vendors. The grocery-store and retail company partnered with Mirakl to build a marketplace offering an array of goods such as toys and housewares as well as groceries. As the platform’s operations expand to include third-party vendors, the number and variety of goods available to customers with increase exponentially, according to Jody Kalmbach, the company’s vice president of product experience. As demand for contactless delivery of groceries increases, the move by Kroger brings direct competition to established players like Amazon.com and Walmart.com. .
Nearly 20% Of American Families Can’t Afford Food, Says U.S. Census
More Americans are going hungry as food prices and unemployment both increase. As of late last month, about 12.1% of adults lived in households with limited food supplies, up from 9.8% in early May, according to Census data. Around 20% of Americans couldn’t afford to feed their children enough food, up from 17% in early June. As a result, food banks have been overwhelmed. Feeding America, a Chicago-based nonprofit network of food banks, has distributed 1.9 billion meals since March, about 50% more than normal, according to chief operating officer, Katie Fitzgerald. “We have already responded in an extraordinary way to the elevated demand,” Ms. Fitzgerald said. “Our fear is that we very much need federal supports to continue, because we may be struggling to respond if we have to go much higher than that.” The number of Americans on food stamps (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) is also rising, at a rate of 16% between March and April alone, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That number is predicted to grow as unemployed Americans no longer collect supplemental unemployment checks of $600 per week. “It is clear to me that there is a big problem here,” said Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, a Northwestern University economist, “and the problem seems to be worse than it was at the height of the Great Recession.”
U.S. Milk Sales Soar During Pandemic And “Got Milk?” Ads Return
U.S. sales of milk have been declining for decades as consumers have sought new beverage options such as fruit juice and plant-based soy, almond, oat, and other alternative “milks.” Last November, the country’s largest milk producer, Dean Foods, filed for bankruptcy protection. Borden Dairy, another major producer, also filed for bankruptcy in January. However, the pandemic has triggered a spike in milk sales, as children eat more at home and adults purchase more milk for home cooking and baking. From January through July 18 this year, U.S. retail sales of milk were up 8.3% to $6.4 billion, according to Nielsen. During the same period last year, milk sales were down 2.3%. To capitalize on recent increases in milk consumption, the popular “Got milk?” ads, which had been retired six years ago, are now back. The original “Got milk?” campaign, created by the ad agency Goodby Silverstein & Partners for the California Milk Processor Board, debuted in 1994 and frequently featured celebrities with milk mustaches. The current campaign features curated internet videos of people doing funny things with milk such as opening a gallon with their toes and jumping into a kiddie pool filled with milk and cereal.
Cereal Sales Skyrocket As More Americans Eat Breakfast At Home
With more Americans at home, cereal sales have shot up 11.8% year over year, according to Nielsen data. Companies like Kellogg’s, General Mills, and PepsiCo say breakfast product sales have soared in recent months. At fast-food and fast casual chains, however, the opposite is true. “There’s not much recovery in the breakfast day part right now. In terms of day part, breakfast has dried up,” said Panera CEO Niren Chaudhary. To capitalize on sales of breakfast foods eaten at home, several competitors have entered the marketplace. Magic Spoon is one such product, a keto-friendly cereal start-up aimed at adults. “We have seen a bigger demand in our cereal,” said Magic Spoon cofounder Gabi Lewis, “from both new customers discovering Magic Spoon for the first time…but also our longtime customers who have been ordering more cereal at a time while at home.” While many industry analysts question the longevity of the sales spike, others aren’t worried. “We’re pretty confident that the at-home consumption is going to remain elevated,” said Kellogg’s CEO Steve Cahillane. “And we’re assuming a deceleration, obviously, from the height of it as people become more mobile and things do return back to normal, but we’re still seeing good overall consumption.”
