The big news in the plant-based food world last week was Beyond Meat’s retrenchment and legal hassles.   Here’s how these issues are being covered by the food business press.

• Beyond Meat lays off 200 employees and slashes its revenue outlook: The plant-based meat company, which is eliminating about a fifth of its workforce after cutting staff in August, said the latest job reductions can drive more sustainable growth.
• Beyond Meat to lay off 200 staff, shake up exec team, as it targets cash flow positive operations in late 2023:  Loss-making plant-based meat co Beyond Meat – which is currently squaring up to former co-packer Don Lee Farms in a trial in L.A. – has unveiled plans to lay off approximately 200 employees (19% of its global workforce) in a bid to cut costs and achieve cash flow positive operations within the second half of 2023…. Read more
• 64-strong witness list unveiled as Beyond Meat squares off with former co-packer Don Lee Farms in LA court: Former executive chairman Seth Goldman, CEO Ethan Brown, Mattson CEO Justin Shimek and a cluster of senior Beyond Meat executives, past and present, are listed among 64 potential witnesses in the plant-based meat co’s trial with former co-packer Don Lee Farms starting today (Oct 11) in Los Angeles…. Read more
• Beyond Meat’s corporate shakeup sees 3 exec departures, including suspended COO:  Doug Ramsey, who was arrested on assault charges last month, officially lost his job, and the CPG eliminated the position of chief global growth officer. Its CFO also announced his departure.
• Big Meat retrenches as meat alternatives lose their luster: The nation’s leading meat companies all got in on the action on meat alternatives, with investments in plant-based and cell-cultured meat startups and their own dedicated consumer brands. But with category sales weakening in recent months amid surging inflation, where do they stand today?… Read mor
• After billions in investment, plant-based meat is a branding catastrophe: There is zero differentiation or branding in the space; all the players are stuck in Motorola Land, going no further than saying “We are plant-based,” writes Adam Hanft.Read More  
• Plant-based products are globally growing but do they cater to all?  Plant-based foods such as meat and dairy alternatives have been around for many years, but they’re becoming more popular and of higher quality than ever…. Read more

Right now, this sector looks bleak, but who knows how this will play out.  Not me, for sure.

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The bookstore is on Broadway between Washington Place and Waverly Place, close to the Astor Place (6) and 8th Street (R, W) subway stops.  Admission is free and does not require registration.  I will talk about the book, answer questions, and be happy to sign any that are offered.  Should be fun!

The headline says it all: Kroger to acquire Albertsons for $24.6bn solidifying its position as #2 grocery retailer with 11.8% market share.

This will make Kroger second only to Walmart’s 17.1% share.

Take a look at what this means.

The Kroger Co. Family of Stores

• Baker’s
• City Market
• Dillons
• Food 4 Less
• Foods Co
• Fred Meyer
• Fry’s
• Gerbes
• Jay C Food Store
• King Soopers
• Kroger
• Mariano’s
• Metro Market
• Pay-Less Super Markets
• Pick’n Save
• QFC
• Ralphs
• Ruler
• Smith’s Food and Drug

Now add in the Albertsons Companies’ Family of Stores

• Albertsons
• Safeway
• Vons
• Jewel-Osco
• Shaw’s
• Acme
• Tom Thumb
• Randalls,
• United Supermarkets
• Pavilions
• Star Market
• Haggen, Carrs
• Kings Food Markets
• Balducci’s Food Lovers Market

All of these will now be Kroger’s.  Monopoly capitalism, anyone?

Kroger’s press release says:

Kroger has a long track record of lowering prices, improving the customer experience and investing in its associates and communities. Consistent with prior transactions, Kroger plans to invest in lowering prices for customers and expects to reinvest approximately half a billion dollars of cost savings from synergies to reduce prices for customers. An incremental $1.3 billion will also be invested into Albertsons Cos. stores to enhance the customer experience. Kroger will also build on its recent investments in associate wages, training and benefits. Kroger has invested an incremental $1.2 billion in associate compensation and benefits since 2018. The combined company expects to invest $1 billion to continue raising associate wages and comprehensive benefits after close.

Who will hold Kroger accountable for these promises?

It needs to be held accountable.

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The Alliance for Potato Research & Education is explicitly “Dedicated to advancing the scientific understanding of the role potatoes play in promoting the health of all people.”

As the Alliance explains:

Potatoes are a nutrient-rich vegetable and one of the top sources of potassium in Americans’ diets, yet they are often singled out as a food to limit. This recommendation is often based on misperceptions that eating potatoes is linked to increased cardiometabolic disease risk, even though potatoes contribute to overall fruit and vegetable consumption.  However, a newly published study in the Journal of Nutritional Science finds that advice may be unwarranted

Guess who sponsored that study.

• The study:  Potato consumption is not associated with cardiometabolic health outcomes in Framingham Offspring Study adults

• Conclusion: In this prospective cohort, there was no adverse association between fried or non-fried potato consumption and risks of T2DM/IFG, hypertension or elevated triglycerides.

• Funding: This work was supported by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute …with additional support from the Alliance for Potato Research and Education. The funders had no role in the design, analysis or writing of this article…The authors have declared that no conflict of interest.

Comment: We can argue about the effects of potatoes on insulin and blood sugar levels, a contentious issue because the ways they are cooked and prepared influence digestion of their starches to sugars and how quickly those sugars are absorbed.  But industry funding confuses the arguments, as it has a high probbility of inducing more than the usual level of bias into the results.  Much industry influence occurs at an unconscious level where it is unrecognized by rsearchers, so much so that they do not see it as a conflict of interest.  I think it is.

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Information and registration is available HERE.  

Watch LIVE HERE.

As a follow up to the White House Conference on Hunger, I’ve been collecting fact sheets (my version of what happened at the conference is here)

Official information is available on the conference website.   You can even watch it; links to videos of the sessions are posted here.

Note that everything in the fact sheets refers to the conference “Pillars.”  As a reminder, these are:

1. Improve Food Access and Affordability
2. Integrate Nutrition and Health
3. Empower Consumers to Make and Have Access to Healthy Choices
4. Support Physical Activity for All
5. Enhance Nutrition and Food Security Research

Fact sheet #1: The Biden-⁠Harris Administration Announces More Than $8 Billion in New Commitments as Part of Call to Action for White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health

These [commitments] range from bold philanthropic contributions and in-kind donations to community-based organizations, to catalytic investments in new businesses and new ways of screening for and integrating nutrition into health care delivery. At least $2.5 billion will be invested in start-up companies that are pioneering solutions to hunger and food insecurity. Over $4 billion will be dedicated toward philanthropy that improves access to nutritious food, promotes healthy choices, and increases physical activity.

Fact sheet #2: From Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow:   Anti-Hunger and Healthy Food Successes

As long as we have hunger and food insecurity in America, we have work to do…We’ve put policies in place that take big steps to strengthen the food safety net, incentivize purchases of healthy fruits and vegetables, and provide more resources for food banks and other organizations to address hunger and nutrition issues in their communities.

Fact sheet #3: From USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service (FNS): Leveraging the White House Conference to Promote and Elevate Nutrition Security.

FNS’s work aligns closely with the National Strategy, which outlines steps the government will take, while calling on the public and private sector to address the intersections between food, hunger, nutrition, and health.

It is fair to ask what the conference will produce and how government and private agencies will be held accountable for their commitments.  For that we must wait and see.

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My book talk today: Online with Hunter’s Food Policy Center in conversation with Charles Platkin, 9:30 to 10:30 a.m.  Registration is HERE.

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The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) announces that it and the Consumer Federation of America and the National Consumers League are filing a lawsuit calling on the Treasury Department to compel a decision on mandatory alcohol content, calorie, ingredient, and allergen labeling on alcoholic beverages.

Plaintiffs seek relief from Defendants’ nearly nineteen-year delay in responding to a 2003 petition submitted by Plaintiffs, 66 other organizations and eight individuals, including four deans of public health.  [See Petition]…The Petitio urged TTB to reequire alcohol labelig with the same basic transparency consumers expect in foods.  For alcohol, that means labeling that has alcohol content, calorie, and ingredient information—including ingredients that can cause allergic reactions.

Nineteen year delay?  Yes.  Why?  The alcohol industry would much rather that you don’t know what you are drinking.  It has opposed virtually every attempt to expose what’s in its products.

Just for fun, I looked up the alcohol labeling chapter in my book with Malden Nesheim, Why Calories Count: From Science to Politics.

We titled the chapter, “Alcohol labels: industry vs. consumers.”

Here, for your amusement, is the table illustrating current labeling requirements.

CSPI deserves much applause for trying to fix this situation and for its patience.

We need something a lot better than this.

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My book talk today:  Online with NYU’s Fales Library in conversation with Clark Wolf.  5:00-6:00 p.m.  Registration is HERE.

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The FDA has come under heavy criticism this year for its failure to handle the infant formula crisis adequately and for its internal disorganization and lack of leadership.

To deal with this, the FDA commissioned the Reagan Udall Foundation for the FDA to do an operational evaluation of its human foods and tobacco programs.  This Foundation is “an independent 501(c)(3) organization created by Congress ‘to advance the mission of the FDA to modernize medical, veterinary, food, food ingredient, and cosmetic product development, accelerate innovation, and enhance product safety.’”

As announced on July 19, 2022, the Reagan-Udall Foundation will facilitate, via two Independent Expert Panels, operational evaluations of FDA’s human foods and tobacco programs. Each evaluation will yield a report with operational recommendations to the FDA: one for human foods and the other for tobacco. Each evaluation, and therefore report delivery, is on its own 60-business-day timeline. Both reports will be delivered to the FDA Commissioner and made available to the public.

The Foundation began its work by

• Appointing a committee to oversee the evaluation
• Opening a stakeholder portal where you can file anonymous comments
• Holding hearings: Agenda

The two-day hearings were held right after the White House Conference on Hunger.  Videos are posted on YouTube

• First day
• Second day

As far as I can tell, no reporter covered these hearings except for Helena Bottemiller Evich at Food Fix, which is what makes her newsletter an invaluable resource and essential to subscribe to (at least for me).

Her overview:

Wow, were people honest in their assessment of shortfalls at the agency.

There was a strong consensus among the nearly three-dozen experts who spoke that things are not working very well and serious changes are needed. The panel got an earful about problems with leadership structure, culture, inadequate funding and staffing, poor oversight of inspections and a lack of responsiveness to the public and Capitol Hill – as well as plenty of complaints about how painfully long it takes to get anything done.

If all of this sounds familiar, that’s because it is. I’m sure you are all tired of me referencing this, but I did an investigative piece on FDA earlier this year, based on more than 50 interviews, that found many of the same things.

Her piece goes into the details.  Subscribe and you can read them.

More complaints

• One criticism of this entire procedure is that the Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM) was excluded from the review.  This is a serious oversight, as noted by a letter from several groups to the FDA.
• Senator Richard Burr says in a letter to the FDA that he won’t support funding until the agency cleans up its ac

We only have one food supply: it serves people and animals inextricably (an issue discussed in my books Feed Your Pet Right and Pet Food Politics).

In the meantime I want to know:  Why aren’t more journalists covering this issue?

The FDA is responsible for regulating the safety and health of 80% of the foods we eat.  If we want foods to be safe and healthy, we need a strong, vigilant FDA willing to stand up to lobbying and industry pressure.

This needs press attention.

The Reagan Udall Foundation has to issue reports within the next couple of months.  Let’s see how well those reports reflect what was said at the hearings.

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