"recession" news and stories

Burger King Double Cheeseburger. Photo: sjeemz, Flickr.

The King has had a change of heart. Starting Oct. 19, Burger King will offer its quarter-pound double cheeseburger for $1 nationwide. This comes after we reported back in July that franchisees turned down a plan to instead sell the double cheeseburger for a buck, forcing the chain to plan a coupon campaign targeting nearly 80 million households nationwide.

But Nation's Restaurant News reports that the $1 promotion is just the fast-food giant's latest attempt to boost sales following a 4.5-percent drop in the last quarter.

Photo: Hardee's.

Hardee's is having startling success with a humble Appalachian lunch meat long considered too provincial for nationwide tastes, and nobody's more surprised than the fast-food chain's top brass.

"We were concerned it would be too regional," Executive Vice-President of Marketing Brad Haley says of Hardee's new Oscar Mayer Fried Bologna Biscuit. "But sales have increased every week we've had it."

While bologna is a staple of lunch counters and school cafeterias across the South, Hardee's found inspiration for its menu item at a few roadside diners that sandwiched grilled bologna between biscuit halves for breakfast. For Hardee's, the preparation stood seductively close to the final meat frontier.

"We've done virtually every other meat you can think of on a biscuit," Haley concedes. "We've had country ham, chicken, pork chops, smoked sausage. We even had turkey."

Rachel, of the wonderful Coconut & Lime blog, has a new entry on cost-saving tips on her Food Maven blog, which is dedicated entirely to food tips. We've written about how to save on the food bill before here at Slashfood, but there are a few entries on Rachel's list we hadnt thought of. Here are two of my favorite tips:

I pay attention to cycles in sales, baking stuff goes on sale in December, yogurt about once a month, roasting chickens in the winter etc and stock up the best I can.

I plan meals around what is on sale rather than rushing out and buying (full price) ingredients for a specific dish.

Check out the blog for the full list of ten tips.

What are your favorite grocery cost-saving tips?

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There's one sector of the economy that's growing because of the recession: Seed-sellers. The number of homes with vegetable gardens will jump more than 40 percent this year compared with two years ago, according to projections from the National Gardening Association, reports USA Today.

At W. Atlee Burpee, the world's largest seed company, seed sales are projected to jump 25 percent this year. This boom is spawning some good deals for the home gardener. Burpee recently unveiled its "Money Garden" package, a collection of tomato, bean, red pepper, carrot, lettuce and snap pea that sells for $10 and can produce up to $650 worth of vegetables.

"As the economy goes down, food gardening goes up," says Bruce Butterfield, research director at the National Gardening Association. "We haven't seen this kind of spike in 30 years."

Have you decided to grow your own fruits or veggies to save money?

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I've always split food at restaurants, not only because of cost concerns, but because of room-in-stomach considerations: a person my size does not need her own entree, appetizer and dessert. Or, given the portion sizes at many American restaurants, even her own entree.

Now, an article in Raleigh's The News & Observer discusses how, because of the recession, splitting food is becoming ubiquitous even in the kind of upscale restaurants where hamburgers go for $18. David Pogrebin, general manager of the French restaurant Brasserie in New York, says he's even seen three people splitting an ice tea with free refills. The owner of a Raleigh barbecue restaurant says he'll often have two people come in to split a $3 dollar, four wing appetizers. And drink water. Some restaurateurs will assess a small splitting fee, to recoup some of their losses.

I sometimes do feel a little guilty if I come in to a restaurant during dinner and just want an appetizer or to split a single entree with my companion, but I usually assuage my guilt by leaving a decent tip.

Do you split dishes more often these days? Do you ever get static from wait staff?

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