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.”
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.”
BIPOC Bon Appetit Staff Depart From Popular Test Kitchen Video Series Citing Racial Discrimination
Bon Appétit magazine’s video series lost three employees of color nearly two months after management publicly pledged to work on dismantling racism within the organization. Priya Krishna, Sohla El-Waylly and Rick Martinez announced last week that they are leaving the Test Kitchen series after weeks of failed contract negotiations. Senior food editor Molly Baz also announced her resignation from the series in an Instagram post saying she would not appear on Bon Appétit’s YouTube channel out of respect for her colleagues. Test Kitchen manager Gaby Melian has also left the series due to unsuccessful negotiations. The departures came soon after Bon Appétit’s parent company, Condé Nast, named Sonia Chopra, the former managing editor at Vox Media’s Eater, as the new executive editor. The popular food magazine’s inequitable treatment of staff was first made public in June when staffers and contributors alleged racial discrimination. Assistant editor El-Waylly was the first staffer to call for the resignation of editor in chief Adam Rapoport, accusing the magazine of only paying White editors for appearing in the popular Test Kitchen videos. Despite her experience as a restaurateur and chef, El-Waylly said hired her for a $50,000 salary to help White editors who had much less experience. When a photo of Rapoport appearing in a racist Halloween costume resurfaced online, the editor in chief resigned his post. He had been Bon Appetit’s editor in chief for 10 years. In an interview with Business Insider, El-Waylly explained that her new contract offer on June 8 included a raise but wasn’t even close to what White co-workers were being paid.
On Second Thought: Trader Joe’s Decides Against Changing Its Food Product Names
After a Change.org petition earlier this month aimed to eliminate Trader Joe’s “racist” packaging, the company released a statement saying it was working toward doing just that. Now, Trader Joe’s has reversed course and says it will keep its product names such as Trader José’s for Mexican food, Trader Ming’s for Asian food, Trader Giotto’s for Italian food, and Trader Joe San for Japanese foods. In a statement on its website, the grocery store chain said, “We want to be clear: we disagree that any of these labels are racist,” and added, “We do not make decisions based on petitions.” San Francisco Bay Area high school senior Briones Bedell, who launched the petition, said she and her family frequently shop at Trader Joe’s and had always found the labels to be offensive. Despite the fact that more 5,000 people signed the petition, Bedell caught flak from conservatives for encouraging cancel culture and also from liberals for wasting time on a minor issue. Caught in the crossfire, Trader Joe’s has opted to make no changes to its product packaging.
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.”
Some Good News: 20 Inspiring Stories In The Food World
Despite the disruptions and extreme challenges faced by restaurants, food producers, distributors, and farmers, there are good things happening in the food world. Civil Eats compiled a list of 20 uplifting stories in which “people across the country are still demonstrating compassion, ingenuity, and solidarity as they work together to solve problems and stand up for what they believe is right,” according to Civil Eats editors. There has been surge in community supported agriculture (CSA) subscriptions supporting regional farmers; there is more local, fresh milled flour available than ever before; community food co-ops and food banks have reshuffled to become stronger than ever; and there is a marked increased in access to healthy food in so-called “urban food deserts.” There is even a group of young adults flipping an abandoned North Carolina Prison into a sustainable farm.
New Carbon Footprint Label Appears On Food Packaging
Quorn, a major producer of plant-based products since 1985, has launched a new label on its food packaging to indicate the food’s carbon footprint. Quorn employs environmental scientists to calculate each product’s carbon footprint, and calculations are verified by the Carbon Trust, a third-party nonprofit certifying organization that has administered carbon footprint labels since 2007. Other food companies featuring carbon footprint labels include Quaker oats and Pompeian olive oil. Restaurant chain Just Salad also just announced that as of September 21 all its menu items will include a carbon footprint label.
A recent Tulane University study found that food production accounts for roughly 25% of greenhouse gas emissions, and 66% of Americans say they want to help reduce their carbon footprint to mitigate climate change, according to the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. To help consumers achieve their goals, an increasing number of food manufacturers are including carbon footprint labels on their products. Even multinational food giant Unilever, which owns brands such as Hellmann’s, Knorr, Lipton, and Ben & Jerry’s, has committed to reduce the carbon footprint of its products by 50% by 2030.
