Given the current obsession with plant-based cooking, cheese might seem like a food in decline. But curd consumption has risen 19% in the past decade, according to recent data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service.
Read MoreWe’ve entered a new era in our love-hate relationship with sugar. After decades of trying to make substitutes like Sweet’N Low, Splenda and Stevia work for consumers, the sugar-alternative industry is fielding contenders with a better chance at unseating that ubiquitous substance.
Read MoreKale might be a fixture on restaurant menus and with nutritionists, but vertical farmers aren’t convinced of its infallibility. Among their descriptions are that it’s “bitter,” “difficult to work with,” and “tastes like leather.”
Read MoreThere’s no denying the appeal of bacon. The pork product represents a heart-stopping 99% of the total bacon market. In 2020, sales of the breakfast staple totaled $6 billion through November.
Read MoreRegenerative farming is fast becoming the higher standard for consumers seeking to protect their health and the planet.
Read MoreRemy Labesque has a compelling day job: He’s senior industrial designer at Tesla Inc. in Los Angeles. But for three years, he’s worked on a side project that’s enviable to people outside Elon Musk’s universe. Labesque has reengineered the classic chocolate chip because, he says, the 80-year-old teardrop shape is ill-suited to its function.
Read MoreWith meat-processing workers falling victim to the coronavirus, shuttering plants and slowing supply, Americans are starting to see poorly stocked aisles where once beef and pork were plentiful. At the same time, the link between industrial meat production and deadly human viruses has become more widely understood.
Read MoreHousebound Americans looking to avoid supermarket anxiety have been bombarding FreshDirect, Kroger, Amazon and others for more than a month now. Incessant clicking in the hope of scoring a slot—followed by sudden cancellations or half-filled orders—are the new normal.
Read MoreCalifornia farmers are well versed in extreme conditions. In recent years, they’ve been forced to navigate everything from droughts to wildfires. But Covid-19 is something very different.
Read MoreIn mid February, chef David Nayfeld was still planning to take a product sourcing trip to Italy for his chic modern restaurant Che Fico in San Francisco. By March 16, his restaurant was closed because of local, Covid-19 coronavirus-related government restrictions. Nayfield posted a video to his Instagram account, announcing that he was shutting his doors.
Read MoreIn the U.S., bread sales aren’t rising the way they used to. The market in bread and bakery products is projected to grow at a dismal 1.5% from 2020 to 2023. Yet a modest dinner roll is elbowing its way into the kitchens of top restaurants across the country.
Read MoreThe search for sustainable, healthy alternatives to meat currently has two paths: the meat-mimicking veggie burger and lab-grown proteins. But in the land of dairy, there’s only plant-based alternatives like cashew “butter” and almond milk.
Read MoreCaviar has, historically, been a luxury ingredient. Now it’s garnishing everything from potatoes to waffles to donuts. But there’s one kind that U.S. consumers haven’t been able to get.
Read MoreEgg whites are universally accepted as a healthy source of protein. But because they come from chickens, one could worry about animal welfare, the environmental damage wrought by industrial poultry and even Salmonella—since the Food and Drug Administration estimates that 79,000 Americans are sickened by tainted eggs every year.
Read MoreA good bowl of ramen seems unimprovable, if not for the discrete, red-topped bottle often sitting aside it. Shake the jar and out falls an array of seasonings that brightens and heats simultaneously. This is shichimi togarashi, and it’s making its way from the ramen counter to the spice rack of fine-dining kitchens…
Read MoreAs climate change has become more destructive, and unpredictable weather more commonplace, the threat to vineyards has become unavoidable. But in the Rogue Valley in southern Oregon, a test case is unfolding that demonstrates that even in the face of sizable crop loss and broken contracts—and the resulting inability to re-sell a sensitive agricultural product before it rots—wine grapes can be rescued.
Read MorePlant-based cuisine was one of the biggest food trends of 2018. At the same time, beef sales were massive. Nielsen has reported that beef saw the biggest change in U.S. sales in the past few years, with almost 11 percent more pounds sold in 2018 than in 2015. Beef consumption is expected to continue to rise, to 58.8 pounds per person in 2019, 2.8 percent higher than last year, according to forecasts from the Cattle Site.
Read MoreHigh fructose corn syrup, the ubiquitous sugar substitute blamed for slowly killing Americans through diabetes, obesity and heart disease, has been under assault for almost 15 years. One of its biggest users—the carbonated soda ecosystem—has been shrinking in the face of public health concern and plummeting soda consumption, now at its lowest point in three decades.
Read MoreBuying rare wines is like investing in a startup: You need ten years of runway to see significant returns. But unlike a startup, wine is a lot more lucrative these days.
Had you allocated $100,000 to Cult Wines, a U.K.-based wine portfolio manager, your money—which is to say your wine—would have returned an average of 13 percent annually. In 2016, its index performance was actually 26 percent.
Read MoreEven by Napa Valley’s astronomical real estate standards, the sale of Heitz Wine Cellars for a reported $180 million raised eyebrows. It’s the new normal there, though: According to the Napa-based County Appraisals Inc., vineyard properties in the area now routinely go for $400,000 an acre.
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