Posts Tagged ‘Food’

The Economy of Sandwiches

Friday, July 8th, 2011

chihuahua-sandwich.jpg
(photo credit: Toronja Azul)

We all know eating out is more expensive (and more fattening) than eating in. But how much more expensive, exactly? Intern Anna did a little experiment:

Your stomach is grumbling and you’re trying to decide – do I head out the door or hit the kitchen?

Say you’re craving a good old turkey sandwich. That’s it. And you decide to stay in rather than roam the streets. So you grab…

- 2 slices of bread ( = grainy-goodness), $0.50

- 3 slices of turkey, $0.60

- 1 slice of cheese (the nice stuff), $0.35

- a bit of lettuce, $0.10

- 2 slices of tomato, $0.20

- a squeeze of mustard, $0.05

You’re all set and the total is… $1.80! Head to the local deli or grab a pre-packaged sandwich and you’ll probably be paying $5.00 – or more.

One New York City native really took the plunge and decided to only eat in – ever – and she wrote a book about her experience. She’s still blogging about not eating out in NY.

If you keep sweaters in your stove and have a taste for the gourmet, eating out might be a priority for you. But if you’re not opposed to spending more time waltzing down the grocery store aisles and dancing in the kitchen, eating in could keep your piggy bank nice and heavy.

High Cost Of Food Causing Riots, Widespread Poverty Around The World

Thursday, February 24th, 2011

“The World Bank says food prices are at “dangerous levels” and have pushed 44 million more people into poverty since last June.

According to the latest edition of its Food Price Watch, prices rose by 15% in the four months between October 2010 and January this year.

Food price inflation is felt disproportionately by the poor, who spend over half their income on food.”

What do you think?

As a philanthropist, how would you approach the problem of unaffordable food?

Imagining A New Food Supply

Monday, February 14th, 2011

vegetable-garden-thomas-euler.jpg

(photo by Thomas Euler)

Did you see this? NYTimes foodman Mark Bittman is the kind of guy you want thinking about the food supply.

Says Mark:

“For decades, Americans believed that we had the world’s healthiest and safest diet. We worried little about this diet’s effect on the environment or on the lives of the animals (or even the workers) it relies upon. Nor did we worry about its ability to endure — that is, its sustainability.

That didn’t mean all was well. And we’ve come to recognize that our diet is unhealthful and unsafe. Many food production workers labor in difficult, even deplorable, conditions, and animals are produced as if they were widgets. It would be hard to devise a more wasteful, damaging, unsustainable system.”

Everyone needs food, so it’s funny (and okay, scary) that we have so little control over how our food gets to our plates. And like everything, food production has an economic story behind it.

Read Mark’s suggestions for shaking up the system, reclaiming our diets, and ensuring clean, nutritious food that’s good for us and the planet.

Think you can out-Batali Batali?

Friday, February 4th, 2011

According to this surprising breakdown of the costs of opening a high-end restaurant in San Francisco, you could easily drop $2,697,000 before your first customer even walks in the door!


credit: cyclonebill

Chicken Gas Chambers For Humanity

Friday, October 22nd, 2010

If nobody wants to be reminded that their chicken was slaughtered before arriving in the supermarket, then how can chicken producers advertise their new “humane” slaughtering process?

  • Your typical chicken arrives at the slaughterhouse on a truck. It’s plucked from its cage and hung upside-down with its legs shackled to a rail that takes it first to an electrical stunner, and then to a machine that slits its throat and bleeds it to death.
  • But electrical stunners aren’t perfect, and the ethics of hanging already-stressed live chickens upside-down for the last minutes of their lives are sketchy. So some producers are starting to use a gas-based alternative to the electrical stunner.
  • You can call it “controlled atmosphere stunning,” “sedation stunning,” or “slow induction anesthesia,” but the new method uses a carbon dioxide gas chamber to knock the birds out before they’re slaughtered, vastly reducing the stress, pain, and suffering that come with traditional methods.

Facts & Figures

  • Bell & Evans, one of the companies using the new gas-stunning method, “processes” 200,000 chickens a week.
  • Tyson Foods, which uses electrical stunners, slaughters more than 1 million chickens per week.
  • Companies in Britain and Nebraska that already use “controlled atmosphere stunning” tend not to advertise this fact on their product packaging.

Best Quote

“People don’t want to know too much. It’s hard to sell humane killing as a concept.” – Marc Cooper, Senior Scientific Manager in the Farm Animals Department of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, London

Cabbage Shortage Causes Big Kimchi Problem in Korea

Friday, October 15th, 2010

In an interesting spin on food consumerism, Koreans are universally appalled at having to eat commercially-made kimchi instead of the homemade variety.

  • There’s a shortage of Napa cabbage in South Korea, and it’s threatening the national dish. Kimchi is a spicy fermented cabbage concoction used as a condiment, a main dish, and an alternative to salad. It’s eaten at pretty much every meal, every day.
  • The shortage is probably related to heavy rains this year, which reduced the cabbage harvest. To compound the problem, farmers may have planted fewer crops this year in response 2009′s overproduction (which resulted in lower profit).
  • Traditionally, kimchi is made by women at home. Whole heads of cabbage are salted and spiced, then buried in earthenware jars until they have pickled. When they’re opened – voila! – kimchi.

Facts & Figures

  • In 2009, the price of a head of Napa cabbage was about $1.40. Now it’s about $14.
  • Homemade kimchi can cost twice as much as pre-made.
  • A typical batch of kimchi includes cabbage, radishes, red chili peppers, salt, and garlic.

Best Quote

“The prices will go down. Sometimes they’re high, sometimes they’re low. Easy come, easy go. That’s life.” – Lee Young-ae, Food Vendor at Mo Rae Ne Market

Nestle Seeks Customers in the Amazon

Monday, July 12th, 2010

Nestle is adapting to the needs of lower-income areas in order to take advantage of a new market opportunity.

  • Nestle is sending a supermarket barge down the Para and Xingu rivers, two tributaries of the Amazon, in order to reach customers in Brazil who cannot get access to name-brand goods otherwise.
  • The company has created smaller and cheaper versions of its products so that lower-income consumers will be able to afford them.
  • If the project is successful, Nestle plans to expand it in Brazil or even in other countries like the Philippines.

Facts and Figures

  • Nestle predicts that as many as one billion people in emerging markets will become able to afford its products in the next decade and that it will make as much as $18 billion per year from selling the smaller and cheaper forms of its products worldwide. The company also plans to increase the proportion of its sales that come from developing countries from 35% to 45% in the next decade.
  • The supermarket barge makes a circuit that brings it to 18 cities and 800,000 potential customers.
  • Nestle has invested one million reais ($560,000) in creating smaller and cheaper products and establishing partnerships with local suppliers.

Best Quote

“In Para, rivers act as streets and avenues. We have to adapt to this reality. [People’s] daily lives here are linked to fishing, to the region they live in. They don’t have the time or money to get to the capital.” – Ivan Zurita, President of Nestle Brazil

Does Hummus Really Even Need To Advertise?

Monday, June 7th, 2010

Apparently there are people out there for whom hummus is uncharted food territory. PepsiCo is targeting those people. You’ve been warned.

  • Sabra, maker of popular hummus and other pre-packaged dips and spreads, is one of several food companies that plan to spend significantly more money than usual on advertising this year.
  • In leaner economic times, marketing for affordable products like food tends to overshadow ads for flashy cars and other symbols of conspicuous consumption.
  • Sabra intends to entice “adventurous eaters” who haven’t tried hummus yet with a media campaign including television, print, online, and in-store advertising.

Facts & Figures

  • The Sabra Dipping Company is owned by PepsiCo
  • Sabra fits into PepsiCo’s “good for you portfolio,” which is responsible for $10 billion (or about 23%) of PepsiCo’s $43.2 billion in revenue last year
  • Sabra Dipping spent $3.3 million on advertising last year; this year it will spend “significantly more” than that

Best Quote

“We use the term ‘epicurious’ to describe the target audience.” – Chip Walker, Partner and Head of Planning at StrawberryFrog New York