"buy" news and stories

Just over a year after buying California chocolate maker Scharffen Berger, Hershey's has decided to expand their premium portfolio to include Dagoba, an organic chocolate maker from Oregon. The purchase of the company for an undisclosed amount as announced this week.

Some fans of Dagoba might be concerned that there will be a decrease in the overall quality of the product following the acquisition, or a turn away from the goals of the company in supporting the organic farming of cacao, but Hershey's says that it will strongly support the company in the pursuit of its goals. As with Scharffen Berger and Joseph Schmidt, which are also owned by Hershey, the larger company has no plans to rework the operations of Dagoba. From the perspective of the consumer, the most significant change will be an increase in the availability of organic chocolates, since Dagoba will now be able to take advantage of the Hershey's distribution network.

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The last time we checked in on GroceryLists.org, there were about 800 lists, but today they're up to more than 1,100. Though they're still working on getting a list from every state in the country, the site is sort of like Post Secret for non-creative types. In fact, like Post Secret,  they're working on a book that will present all that they've learned from reading other people's lists. For example, you can take a look at what you need to throw a great party (hint: "'boys please' in puffy, iron-on letters" is critical) and learn that some people need far more help than they can get at the grocery store.

Judging from the way the collection at GroceryLists.org is growing, it seems that a lot of people must keep lists. I know that I do. Of course, I never see anyone at the market walking around with a list besides me. Not that there's anything wrong with that.... Do you keep a grocery list, or do you just walk into the store and hope for the best?

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Taking their media empire online, Reader's Digest has just announced the purchase of Allrecipes.com for $66 million. The publisher had only 7 magazines in its organization eight years ago, but today they have 20 in publication, as well as 40 websites. Their magazines include Taste of Home and Everyday with Rachael Ray, in addition to their flagship magazine, Reader's Digest. A company spokesman said "it instantly gives us Seattle cool and online credibility." The sale also gives them a large advertising revenue, as the major source of income for Allrecipes.com was through advertisements placed on their site.

Reader's Digest plans to make Allrecipes.com the center point of its online operations, the main portal to its other magazines and websites, potentially taking content from it to put into some of its printed media. Though spokespeople from the company denied it, the move is a fairly obvious attempt to attract younger readers to the pages of Reader's Digest.

Allrecipes.com is a user-supported community comprised of 1.8 million members, the majority of whom are home cooks. Membership, which is free, allows users to create online profiles, share recipes and leave feedback on the recipes that other users have posted. In February, it was the third most popular food site on the web in terms of page views, behind the Food Network and Kraft Foods.

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