Articles — Larissa Zimberoff

Inside Silicon Valley’s Mayo Marketing Madness

The war on eggs started back in the ’70s, not with the company formerly known as Hampton Creek but with a little café-grocery store in Los Angeles.

WiredLarissa ZimberoffJune 1, 2021Mayo, Eat Just, Follow Your Heart, Wired, Food tech

There’s a New ‘Organic’ Food That Fights Global Warming

Regenerative farming is fast becoming the higher standard for consumers seeking to protect their health and the planet.

BloombergLarissa ZimberoffApril 23, 2021regenerative, organic, farming, agriculture, crops, retail, whiskey, gourmet oils

How to Grow Better Lettuce … in Space

A novel technique for manipulating light could prove a boon to agriculture on our planet—and beyond.

This high-tech coffee brewer thinks it can help save our favorite cafés.

At least one habit wasn't upended by the pandemic: We're still sipping coffee in the mornings and during the workday, albeit at home.

How Restaurants Retooled for Takeout—and Survival

You do not want to be an independent restaurant right now. Depending on where you’re located, first you had to close, then you got to open, then you had to close again. Over 100,000 establishments have shuttered either permanently or long term since March, according to recent numbers from the National Restaurant Association.

How a San Francisco pizzeria transformed into a ghost kitchen when the pandemic hit.

When Danny Stoller and Marc Schechter opened Square Pie Guys in 2019, they anchored their Detroit-style pizza shop with what they thought was essential to turning a profit: tables and chairs.

A Tesla Designer Reengineers the Chocolate Chip

Remy 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.

A California chef just signed the lease on his first restaurant during a pandemic — here's why he has no doubts.

Seth Stowaway signed a lease for his first restaurant in San Francisco just two weeks ago. While the hospitality industry is still struggling to pay bills and wondering how to reopen, the 36-year-old chef has been meeting with architects, designers and lawyers to open Osito, a live-fire, fine-dining establishment in San Francisco's Dogpatch neighborhood. "It's scary for sure, but you only have one shot to try," he said.

Tofu Goes Mainstream in America Thanks to Big Meat’s Covid Crisis

The coronavirus made American meatpacking plants even more dangerous than usual, with outbreaks forcing shutdowns that in turn led to producers euthanizing livestock. Consumers suddenly found themselves in empty meat aisles, searching for protein.

Larissa ZimberoffJune 11, 2020

The U.S. Maker of Fake Mayo Pitches China on Fake Eggs

On a recent Monday morning in a Shanghai conference room, four executives from a major Chinese food producer and distributor sat socially distanced from one another, pulled down their masks, and tried some fake eggs. In a makeshift basement office in San Francisco, 15 hours behind, Josh Tetrick, the chief executive officer of egg-substitute maker Eat Just Inc., watched via Zoom.

BusinessweekLarissa ZimberoffJune 4, 2020EatJust, Just Eggs, China, Josh Tetrick, Plant-based, food-tech

Fake-Meat Startups Rake in Cash Amid Food Supply Worries

With 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.

Grocery Upstarts Race to Exploit Food Delivery Overload

Housebound 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.

Farmers’ Markets Are Crisis Lifelines to U.S. Growers and Shoppers

California 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.

BloombergLarissa ZimberoffMarch 27, 2020farmers market, AIM, CUESA, San Francisco, San Rafael, Covid, Pandemic, Shopping

Former Twitter CEO and Pals Help Restaurants Dish Out Free Meals

In 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.

Why Classic White Bread Dinner Rolls Are Suddenly Trendy

In 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.

The Rise of the Pea: How an Unassuming Legume Emerged as a Frontrunner

No one denies peas are nutritious. Whether they’re delicious—that’s debatable. But arguments over taste no longer matter because peas, specifically yellow peas, are being formulated into so many products, they’re unavoidable, and often invisible.

Forget Synthetic Meat, Lab Grown Dairy Is Here

The 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.

BofA, Google, and the Mets Are Using Software to Take Out the Trash

On the field, the Mets are trash, struggling to clamber out of fourth place in their division for the third straight year. Off the field, the New York baseball team is making a serious effort to clean up its act, albeit more literally than fans might hope.

The Men With a Monopoly on Beluga Caviar in the U.S.

Caviar 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.

Intermittent Fasting Made My Life Easier, and Happier

At the urging of doctor friends and a few popular books, I embarked on a diet plan earlier this year called intermittent fasting. The basics are that I could eat the foods I enjoyed and most of my regular meals, but it had to be within a short time frame of eight to 10 hours. Outside of that, I would stick to water, tea and black coffee.