Restaurants
Pitmaster Rodney Scott Shares Secret Ingredient In His Famous Smoked Ribs
Rodney Scott, an award-winning South Carolina chef and pitmaster, recently teamed up with Today to share the secret ingredient that makes his famous Carolina-style smoked ribs great. “It may be a controversial ingredient, but I unapologetically use MSG in my seasoning rub. It is a flavor maker!” said Scott. “All the savory and hot spices and seasonings in my famous rub and sauce make these tender ribs unbelievably delicious,” he added. Monosodium glutamate, MSG, is the sodium salt of glutamic acid. Though glutamic acid is found naturally in many common foods such as cheese and tomatoes, the ingredient has been misunderstood and the subject of controversy over the years.
35 Influential U.S. Restaurants Permanently Closed By The Pandemic
Between mid-June and July 10th, 72,842 restaurants permanently shut their doors, according to the Yelp Average Economic Report for 2020’s second quarter. 24/7 Tempo compiled a list of 35 notable restaurants that closed down across the nation, including Louis’, a classic San Francisco diner that opened in 1937, shutting its doors after 83 years. Blackbird, a Chicago favorite run brilliantly by Paul Kahan for 22 years also hung up its apron. Fat Rice, another beloved Chicago restaurant known for its Portugese-Chinese fusion closed permanently, although reasons were less related to the pandemic. In New Orleans, K-Paul’s Louisiana Kitchen, Paul Prudomme’s foundational Cajun and Creole restaurant, shuttered permanently after 40 years of nightly lines out the door. Other influential restaurants that closed include Daniel Boulud’s Bar Boulud In Massachusetts; David Chang’s Momofuku Nishi, Charlie Palmer’s Aureole, and Alfred Portale’s Gotham Bar and Grill in NYC; and Andy Ricker’s Pok Pok in Portland, Oregon, though some Pok Pok locations remain open.
Michelin Inspectors Return To Evaluate NYC’s and DC’s Starred Restaurants
In the past five months, New York City and Washington D.C. restaurants have suffered enormous economic losses due to the pandemic, indoor dining bans, high food delivery fees, and even thunderstorms that cancel outdoor food service. Under these conditions, Michelin has returned to judge the best restaurants in both cities. “Inspectors have resumed restaurant visits in some areas, including establishments in the New York selection,” said a Michelin North America spokesperson. Many feel the inspections are surprising, given the restaurant industry’s current state of disarray. “We thought maybe this year [the Michelin guide] wouldn’t be released,” says Ellia Park, co-owner of 2-starred Atomix. “I don’t know if it’s going to be fair or not because some restaurants do delivery and some restaurants can’t do anything,” she says. “We are always trying our best here, but now we’ll be worried about [the inspectors] as well,” adds TJ Steele, chef-owner of Claro, a Oaxacan restaurant in Gowanus, Brooklyn. The Michelin organization has publicly acknowledged the unique situation for this year. “Our inspection team is fully committed to support and promote restaurants by being flexible, respectful and realistic as recovery takes shape,” says Michelin’s North American chief inspector.
In Pandemic Pandemonium, Restaurants Become Both Guinea Pigs And Scapegoats
When states began to lift lockdowns a few months ago, restaurants became the nation’s reopening guinea pigs. Each state navigated its own reopening rules, instituting only partial reopenings after months of financial losses suffered by restaurants struggling to get by with only takeout and delivery. As COVID-19 cases began to rise again, restaurants and bars were labeled as hotspots for community outbreaks, and they closed again. According to Louisiana state data, about one-fourth of the state’s 2,360 cases since March that originated outside of nursing homes and prisons have been linked to bars and restaurants. In Maryland, 12% of newly reported cases last month were traced back to restaurants. Though it’s unclear how many cases are being contracted from employees, workers have seen spikes as well. Since late June, restaurants in Nashville, Las Vegas, Milwaukee, and Atlanta have been forced to close temporarily due to COVID-19’s presence among employees. Bars in Texas and Florida have closed due to employee infections as well. Epidemiologists say that the bulk of new COVID-19 cases come from indoor settings, and that the risk of contracting the virus is far less likely outdoors. “As of recently, we still hadn’t traced a major U.S. outbreak of any sort to an outdoor exposure,” said Lindsey Leininger, a health policy researcher and clinical professor at Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. Along with delivery and takeout, outdoor dining has kept several restaurants from closing permanently. Though some states are now allowing restaurants to resume indoor dining at 25% indoor, the sustained lack of sales and whiplash effect of opening and closing with little financial relief has mostly devastated the nation’s 1 million restaurants.
These 7 Chain Restaurants May Go On The Chopping Block
While chain restaurants are faring better than independent restaurants during the pandemic, massive business interruption has forced the parent companies of Chuck E. Cheese, Souplantation, and California Pizza Kitchen to file for bankruptcy protection. Franchisees of Subway, IHOP, and Pizza Hut, as well as NPC International, which runs more restaurant locations than any other U.S. franchisee, have also filed for bankruptcy. Who’s most at risk of going bankrupt next? S&P Global Market Intelligence issued a report that estimates the odds of publicly traded restaurant companies defaulting on their debts next year based on share price fluctuations and other “industry-related risks.” Sit-down and buffet chains including Denny’s and Outback Steakhouse were found to be most at risk. Eateries that combine food and entertainment such as Dave & Buster’s are also at high risk of defaulting. According to S&P Global, the median one-year probability of default for U.S. restaurants overall did drop to 10% in July, down from its peak of 35% in April.
Dickey’s Barbecue Pit Launches Nationwide Ghost Kitchen Network
Dickey’s Barbecue Pit based in Dallas, Texas, is the most recent restaurant chain to join the ghost-kitchen movement. With more than 500 units, Dickey’s is the nation’s largest BBQ chain and its new network of ghost kitchens will include virtual restaurants to expand its reach in Chicago, Houston and Orlando, as well as to enter a new market using only ghost kitchens in Providence, Rhode Island. Five ghost kitchens are opening during this initial stage of the launch, and Dickey’s confirmed there are “90 other agreements for this model down the pipeline.” The ghost-kitchen network is being marketed as a fast and cheap alternative for Dickey’s franchisees to grow their store portfolio or to allow new franchisees to enter the business without investing as much time or money as they would in a typical brick and mortar store. Dickey’s is incentivizing potential ghost kitchen franchisees by offering a discount and other benefits for existing and new operators. The chains system-wide same store sales have gone up 7.4% this July with over a third of sales from digital platforms. From February to July, the average number of digital checks per store also went up 333%.
Beverages
Bipartisan Senator Group Urges U.S. To Remove Tariffs On E.U. Food And Wine
A group of 13 U.S. senators from both sides of the aisle have asked that the U.S. Trade Representative’s Office (USTR) remove the 25% tariffs made last year on E.U. food, wine and spirits, according to a letter seen by Reuters. In the letter to USTR last Friday, seven Republican and six Democratic senators said American “restaurants, retailers, grocers, importers and distributors” are experiencing “severe economic hardship due to the increased cost of goods.” Senators also said “demand for these goods has declined, leaving importers and distributors with months’ worth of product, much of it perishable, in storage and in transit with no clear end date for the COVID-19 pandemic.” The tariffs came as retaliation for E.U. subsidies on large aircraft, and they have hampered the market for French wine, Italian cheese, single-malt Scotch whisky, E.U.-produced cured sausages, and more.
Last year, the United States was granted authority by the World Trade Organization to impose tariffs on E.U. goods by up to $7.5 billion. But at this point, the U.S. Distilled Spirits Council has weighed in, urging the E.U. and U.S. to drop beverage tariffs, saying both sides “have suffered enough.” The council pointed out that Scotch Whisky imports by the United States decreased nearly 33% from October 2019 to May 2020, marking a $378 million decline over the same period a year earlier. U.S. whiskey exports to the E.U. have also fallen by 33% or $300 million according to the group, as a separate dispute caused the E.U. to impose 25% tariffs on all U.S. whiskey imports back in June 2018.
Cooking
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.”
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.
Supply Chain
New York Sues One Of The Nation’s Largest Egg Producers For Pandemic Price Gouging
Last week, New York State Attorney General Letitia James filed a lawsuit against Hillandale Farms, accusing the egg producer of charging consumers excessive prices for eggs during the Covid-19 pandemic. According to James’s investigation, the company increased egg prices by nearly five times in March. In mid-January, Hillandale charged New York City supermarket chain Western Beef $0.59 for a dozen large white eggs. By the end of March, when New York City was scrambling to contain the virus, Hillandale charged $2.93 a dozen. At Stop & Shop, Hillandale’s price for jumbo white eggs doubled from January’s $0.85 to $1.70 a dozen by mid-March, then it nearly quadrupled by early May to $3.16 a dozen. James argues that the prices violate New York State law forbidding price gouging, which the state defines as “charging grossly excessive prices for essential goods and services” during “extraordinary adverse circumstances.”
Beef And Pork Prices Rose More Than 20% Since February
With restaurants and event venues closed, demand for meat has skyrocketed in grocery stores. Prices have shot up as well. Overall, Americans spent 4.5% more on groceries in June than they did in February. The price of doughnuts, coffee cakes, and other sweet baked goods increased 4.2%, while shelf stable seafood prices rose 4.6%. The cost of peanut butter went up 7.9%, and ham prices increased 8.7%. As for meat, fresh pork prices rose 19.9% and beef and veal prices increased by 22.2% and counting, according to market analysts 24/7 Wall St. and data from The Bureau of Labor Statistics. Rising food prices have largely been pinned on supply chain issues as demand for retail products grew dramatically when nationwide lockdowns began. Economic troubles among farmers and closures at meatpacking facilities have also hampered supply of some products.
U.S. Beef Industry Begins Adapting To Become More Sustainable
Between high prices, more vocal vegans, virus outbreaks at slaughterhouses, and the impact of conventional beef production on climate change, American beef has come under fire lately. Leaders in the U.S. beef industry are adapting to meet shifting consumer demands. Here’s how the U.S. beef industry is changing from the ranch to the butcher case to become more sustainable over the long haul.
Not all American beef comes from feedlots. Small ranches such as White Oak Pastures and Roam Ranch are using regenerative agriculture techniques to produce grass-fed beef and bison with a lower carbon footprint than conventional feedlot beef. Even on the huge feedlots, efficiencies and economies of scale are conserving resources more than ever before. About 50% of the corn fed to feedlot cattle comes from waste that would otherwise end up in a landfill. Yes, the animals are given hormones and steroids, but because that causes them to grow faster, the cattle consume 15 to 20% less feed, reducing the total acreage of corn that needs to be grown for feed. Corn-fed cattle reach slaughter weight about 13 months sooner than grass-finished cattle, which also means that a corn-fed steer produces less methane over the course of its life than a grass-finished steer. And every pound of American feedlot beef results in three times fewer greenhouse gas emissions than a pound of beef produced in Latin America or sub-Saharan Africa due to inefficiencies in the beef production systems of those countries. The Big Four meatpackers (Tyson, Cargill, JBS, and National Beef) produce about 80% of American beef, but smaller regional slaughterhouses are now beginning to chip away at that percentage. As a result of the pandemic, supply chain challenges and shifting consumer buying habits have caused a boom in small, regional slaughterhouses, which may ultimately help to decentralize the meatpacking industry and shield it against future supply chain bottlenecks. Finally, grass-finished beef is improving in quality and the number of producers is increasing, creating better and more widespread alternatives to traditional corn-fed beef. .
Agriculture
U.S. Farmers Leave Fields Fallow As Pandemic Crushes Crop Prospects
From March to June this year, U.S. corn plantings dropped by the most in 37 years, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The decrease is due in part to low demand for corn-based ethanol as travel remains restricted throughout the country. Many farmers have abandoned plans to seed other routine crops as well. Plantings of cotton crops also dropped by 10.9%, according to USDA data. “I think this may be a one-off year,” said Michael Cordonnier, president of the Soybean and Corn Adviser consulting group. “You had the pandemic. There was just a general economic malaise. It just made everybody risk-averse,” he added.
Shifting government subsidies have also influenced farmers’ decisions to leave their fields fallow. The federal aid program was meant to compensate farmers for lost sales to China during the trade war. But those payments were based on total planted acreage for 2018 and 2019. This year’s low sales forecasts have snuffed out any incentive to get more crops in the ground. “It costs money to put a crop out,” said Jim Gerlach, president of A/C Trading. “It is better to make nothing than to lose money.”
How Suffering Midwest Farmers May Determine The Presidential Election
Four years ago, America’s newly elected president promised to change the economic decline of the nation’s family farmers. However, in early 2018, the administration initiated a series of trade wars that prompted China, Mexico, Canada, and the European Union to enact tariffs on U.S. agricultural products. Canada discontinued all dairy imports from the United States. Mexico, the largest importer of Wisconsin cheese, enacted a 25% tariff on U.S. cheese that clobbered the industry at a time when closed restaurants and event venues had already soured sales of cheese and milk. While the administration did allot fifteen billion dollars in financial relief to struggling U.S. farmers, most of the money has gone to large multinational corporate farms. As a result, America’s dairyland of Wisconsin has become a re-election battleground state. Due to widespread school and restaurants closures, many of the state’s dairy farmers have been forced to cancel lucrative contracts with milk bottlers and cheese factories. By late April, one Wisconsin farm had already dumped more than five million pounds of surplus milk. The price of milk has since plummeted by over 30%, and Wisconsin farmers are looking to our country’s leaders for solutions to a deepening problem.
Midwest Derecho Devastates More Than 37 Million Acres Of Iowa Crops
A storm with hurricane-like winds (a derecho) impacted about 37.7 million acres of Midwestern farmland Monday, according to the Iowa Soybean Association (ISA) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The storm affected 8.18 million acres of corn and 5.64 million acres of soybeans, according to ISA data. Farmers are trying to pick up the pieces, from flattened cornfields to smashed steel storage bins. The derecho impacted 58,000 holders of Iowa crop-insurance policies with a total liability of about $6 billion.
Salmon Crisis Stokes Protests In Russia
Russia’s Amur River was once teeming with salmon. However, most of the fish are now gone, according to coastal residents, after Moscow permitted fishing corporations to hang enormous nets at the river’s mouth. Depleted fish stocks have angered Russians so much that they have fueled anti-Kremlin protests in the Far Eastern city of Khabarovsk since early July. President Vladimir Putin’s support there has sunk to a low point during his 20-year rule. Residents say that regulations on recreational and Indigenous fishing have compounded the problem, becoming so strict that it is nearly impossible to legally catch enough fish to subsist on, something the local population has been doing for centuries. Due to commercial overfishing, total salmon catches in the area dropped from 64,000 metric tons in 2016 to 21,500 tons in 2018, According to the World Wildlife Federation (WWF). Olga Cheblukova, Coordinator of WWF’s Amur River studies, said that the decline of wild salmon after 2016’s large catch went largely unnoticed due to poor federal oversight. For the past few years, regulators have also granted fishing quotas above the actual migrating population of the fish, essentially exterminating the salmon before they could reproduce. Protests in Khabarovsk are now in their second month.
Regulations
Mexico’s Junk Food Warning Labels Meet Opposition From The U.S. And E.U.
According to the World Trade Organization, the United States, European Union, Canada, and Switzerland have urged Mexico to delay the upcoming health warnings that it plans to place on heavily processed food and drinks. The Mexican standard will require front-of-package nutrition labels that state possible health risks of products that may be high in sugars, calories, salt, saturated and/or trans fat. The new labeling standard is set to be implemented this October and is meant to combat soaring rates of obesity in Mexico, which have surpassed those in United States, making residents of Mexico the most obese in the world. Several studies show that obesity in Mexico escalated to epidemic proportions after Mexico joined the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and the U.S. in the early 1990s. Last week, to help protect the next generation of Mexicans, the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca became the first to prohibit the sale, distribution, and advertising of junk food and sugary drinks to children. The U.S. delegation of the World Trade Organization stated that it supports Mexico’s public health goal of cutting back on diet-related non-communicable diseases. However, the delegation stated that the labels might be “more trade restrictive than necessary to meet Mexico’s legitimate health objectives.” As of now, the United States, Switzerland, Canada and the E.U. are resisting the October 1 implementation date.
Health
New Study Shows Organic Diet Reduces Pesticide Levels In Body By 70%
A recent peer-reviewed study analyzed pesticide levels in four American families for six days while they were on a non-organic diet and then six days on an entirely organic diet. The switch to an organic diet reduced levels of a common weedkiller, glyphosate, by 70% in those six days. In 1983, the Environmental Protection Agency listed glyphosate as a potential carcinogen, but aggressive marketing of Roundup (the most popular brand of glyphosate) to farmers and homeowners has only increased its use since. Since the 1970s, the percentage of the U.S. population with detectable amounts of glyphosate in its blood has skyrocketed from 12% to 70% in 2014. In the new study, researchers detected glyphosate in every participant, including four-year-old children.
After the World Health Organization also determined that glyphosate is a likely carcinogen, thousands of farmers, pesticide applicators, and home gardeners filed lawsuits linking their diagnosed cancers to Roundup use. The first three of those cases settled in favor of the plaintiffs, leaving Bayer (Roundup’s new owner after it purchased the previous owner, Monsanto, two years ago) with $2 billion in damages to pay. Despite Bayer agreeing to pay a total of $10 billion in settlements for another 95,000 cases, the company was granted permission in a recent court case to continue selling Roundup. Under the terms of the settlement, glyphosate will still be sold for use on yards, school grounds, public parks, and farms without a safety warning. The European Union announced this summer its plan to cut pesticide use in half by 2030 and a move to make at least 25% of its agriculture organic. However, glyphosate use in the U.S. is increasing, and the new study’s researchers emphasize the importance of organic food in reducing the body’s levels of the potential carcinogen, particularly among children.
USDA Issues Public Health Alert About Listeria Tainted Sausage
The Bluegrass Provisions Co. of Crescent Springs, Kentucky has produced and distributed sausage products with a potential contamination of Listeria monocytogenes, according to the Department of Agriculture. Listeria is a disease-causing bacteria, and if consumed it can have harmful effects such as listeriosis, an infection that primarily affects older adults, and severe illness in those who are pregnant or have weakened immune systems. The following 14 ounce, 6-piece packages are included in the USDA health alert: “BLUE GRASS METTWURST”, “WALNUT CREEK FOODS Smoked Sausage”, Lidl “SMOKED BRATWURST”, and Lidl “SMOKED BRATWURST WITH CHEESE, all with a freeze-by date of July 23rd, 2020.
China Found The Coronavirus On Chicken Wings, But Don’t Worry
According to Chinese authorities, samples of frozen chicken wings imported from Brazil to Shenzhen as well as the outer packaging of frozen Ecuadorian shrimp sold in Xi’an have both tested positive for the novel coronavirus. In response to the finding, the World Health Organization (WHO) issued a statement with the reminder that “People should not fear food, food packaging or delivery of food.” The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) also stated “there is no evidence that people can contract COVID-19 from food or from food packaging.” Brazil’s Aurora meat company that sold the chicken said they were never formally notified of the contamination by Chinese authorities. For the past several months, China has screened all meat and seafood entering major ports, and since June it has suspended meat imports from places like Brazil. Countering the WHO and FDA statements, Li Fengqin, head of the microbiology lab at the China National Center for Food Safety Risk Assessment, said that the chance of new infections from contaminated frozen food should not be ignored. Fengquin linked an outbreak in June to the popular Beijing food market, Xinfadi, where the virus was traced to imported salmon. In its latest update to that outbreak’s investigation, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention said it still has not determined how the virus made its way to the Xinfadi market.
Science
This 30-Ton Robot May Help Crops Thrive In Warmer Climates
Standing 70 feet tall, the world’s largest agricultural robot, called “Field Scanalyzer,” is part of a five-year, $26 million project funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The robot evaluates the temperatures of over 2 acres of crops, including wheat, sorghum, and lettuce, sending up to 10 terabytes of data a day to computers in Illinois and Missouri. According to data scientists at George Washington University and St. Louis University, the data is analyzed by machine-learning algorithms that researchers have programmed to recognize connections between specific genes and plant traits detected by the Scanalyzer. The project’s aim is to help plant breeders detect characteristics and genetic markers that maximize efficiency among crops under a variety of growing conditions. Researchers are also looking to grow crops that can produce biofuels to reduce the need for fossil fuels. As the planet grows increasingly warmer, the robot is scouting for food crops that can survive warmer climates as well.
New Tech Tool Helps Calculate Your Risk Of Restaurant Dining
The Georgia Institute of Technology has created an online tool that estimates how many of your fellow American diners might have COVID-19. The COVID-19 Event Risk Assessment Planning Tool is an interactive U.S. map using data from the Atlantic’s aggregated COVID Tracking Projectto calculate and indicate your chances of contracting the virus based on locations you choose on the map. “We want people to be informed about the risk,” Georgia Tech professor Joshua Weitz said. Of course, the risk predictor is not 100% accurate, but its data is regularly updated to offer those dining out or entering public spaces useful information on which to base decisions. Stanford University infectious disease expert Robert Siegel says “it’s more of an explanatory thing than a model for behavior,” and that it should be used as a guide rather than the sole basis of decision-making. For diners contemplating the relative risk of eating out in various locations, at least the map’s data is better than nothing.