We all love Girl Scout cookies, right? I try to stay away from them or I'll a whole box at a time, but I love them all the same. Well so does one scout from Michigan, who actually broke sales records.

Jennifer Sharpe sold, I kid you not, 17, 328 boxes of cookies. That's a lot of Samoa's! I can't imagine selling even a fraction of that. Apparently, though, all that selling really helped Jennifer get over being shy. Not only that, the cookie sales (about $21,000) is paying for her troop to go to Europe this winter.

Just think about that next time you buy a box of Girl Scout cookies!

Russell Stover Chocolates started back in 1923 and leads the market in terms of the sales of boxed chocolates. It is the third larges chocolate manufacturer in the US, behind Hershey's and M&M Mars (Masterfoods). Although receiving consistently decent scores in taste tests, the brand has an image of affordability and none of the cache that more upscale brands - Godiva, Lindt, Vosges, to name but a few - do. Since chocolate is an ever-growing segment of the market, Russell Stover has decided to take action and reinvent the brand to appeal to new, younger consumers, consumers who are looking for more sophistication, trendier packaging and flavors that mimic those of upscale brands.

Several new lines will launch this spring, including Russell Stover Urban, Internationale and Origin Select, as well as a Private Reserve line designed to compete directly with bars from Lindt. There will be more organic chocolates, as well. The Whitman's brand, which is owned by the same company, will also launch a new line Whitman's Soho.

Consumers will make or break the new products, but industry insiders already see potential in Vanilla Bean Brûlée with 70% Dark Chocolate squares and other similar products, with Candy Industry magazine even giving Russell Stover the Manufacturer of the year award for 2006.

Fast food restaurants are all about convenience: the convenience of getting inexpensive food quickly and not having to cook. McDonald's, long the standard of fast food, has decided to consider making a move to an even more convenient format. Modeling their change on convenience stores, McDonald's is test marketing the concept of selling prepackaged drinks in their stores. The products include sodas, sports and energy drinks from Pepsi (even though McDonald's carries Coke in their soda fountains), such as Mountain Dew, Red Bull, Gatorade, Propel Water, Lipton tea and Tropicana juices, all of which are stocked in a large, convenience store-style refrigerated case.

According to a Morgan Stanley research report, 62% of consumers "said they would drink different beverage at quick service restaurants if given the choice." McDonald's says that it is too early to judge consumer response in their Texas and Kansas City test stores, but is considering expanding the offerings and the test markets if it is positive.

Jam and honey are the new orange - orange marmalade, that is. The slightly sweet preserve is rapidly falling out of fashion in England. It first gained popularity in England in the 17th century, when citrus fruits became common and the preservation technique used for cooking quinces was applied to them. Since that time the spread has only grown in popularity and, for at least the past several decades, could be considered to be a breakfast staple in many homes. In the last year, however, 440,000 households in Britain stopped buying marmalade. Statistics indicate that the reason for the decline may be younger consumers, as most in the under 45 age group consider it to not be sweet enough. 81% of marmalade is eaten by those over 45.

With the decline of marmalade comes the rise of jam and honey, which grow more popular every year, despite reports last year that indicated that jam, too, was falling from favor. Honey is up almost 5%, while jam is up 1.5%.

Retailers and manufacturers alike are now trying to find ways to draw more children to marmalade

Admit it: every time you read another study about how one food or another has been shown to have a direct link to cancer, heart disease, good health, long life or intelligence, you roll your eyes a little. It's interesting to read the studies to find out what scientists are working on, and, even if you take the study with a grain of salt, it's not a bad idea to stay on top of what foods have been shown to have health benefits. The sheer number of studies may cause you to wonder whether or not anyone really takes them all seriously. We can't follow up every single study to see whether people are buying into them, but we do know that the at least one industry is enjoying some benefits of the well-promoted health benefits of their product: the wine industry. Red wine is enjoying a huge boost in sales, a boost the benefits producers and retailers. From October to November of this year, sales were up more than 8% over the same period last year, and the holidays are expected to boost sales even further.

Consumers say that the health benefits are just another plus for drinking something they already enjoy, but they also admit that it gives them an excuse. A Harvard Medical School researcher behind the study that said a chemical in red wine could increase life expectancy said that "wine drinkers were going overboard."

After months or declining sales and despite a good deal of negative publicity, McDonald's announced that they hit a six year high in sales both in the US and abroad, with the best performances from stores in the UK. The company cites in increase in healthier menu items, including salads and less fattening kids' choices. At UK restaurants, the new options include deli sandwiches, free-range eggs, more fruit and beef that is only "from the forequarter or flank of a cow."

While some applaud the changes and point to these new options as the reason for the sales growth, critics point out that the healthier options account for only 10% of total sales and that the company "sells eight double cheeseburgers...for every salad." The critics seem to be failing to take into account that that 10% is a huge change in the past 5 or 6 years, when the company didn't offer that many options, and that it is still primarily a fast-food burger restaurant. A sales boost should reinforce the company's desire to retain healthier menu items - and that should be a victory for the critics in and of itself.

If you haven't watched PBS, Nickelodeon or the Disney Channel lately, a new study says that you may be surprised to see that a significant portion of the advertising, as well as the sponsorships, in the case of PBS, comes from food companies, including McDonald's, Chuck E Cheese, and others. Those who support limiting the "junk food advertising" seen by children are using this as ammunition, saying that children are too young to make "critical judgments about advertising" and that they are heavily influenced by the products they see. In short, they feel that advertising is a leading cause in making children crave high-fat, high-sugar foods and leads to an increased risk of obesity.

The networks, for their part, insist that they have cut back on food advertising and that many ads are not accepted unless they are in some way promoting education, social development or physical activity.

In the past, studies have shown that the average American child from infancy to 6 watches one hour of TV per day, while 8 to 18-year-olds watch 3 hours daily. This means that they could be seeing as many as 40,000 ads. An alternative solution to heavier restrictions on advertising is that the concerned parents behind the study could simply stop allowing their children to watch that much TV. If the numbers drop even by half, they would have that much less to worry about from advertising, no matter what products were being promoted.

Single-serving wines are growing in popularity, and though they make up just under two percent of the total wine market, sales in the relatively new sector have grown by 14.7% in the past year and are increasing daily. As the market grows, higher quality wines are being repackaged, where once only lower-end wines used non-traditional packaging.

The reason for the explosion in the industry is a simple one. Although wine is enjoying an unprecedented high in popularity, many people still view it as being for a special occasion, when company comes over or they really want to kick back and celebrate. They don't want to open a whole bottle for just one or two glasses per week; they want wine to be convenient. Single serving boxes and mini bottles offer the perfect solution, since they hold 1 to 1 1/2 glasses of wine each and don't give an occasional drinker the sense that they are "wasting" a whole bottle by opening it. They make wine more more accessible to a large audience of occasional drinkers who were underserved by the market.

"It gets wine on the table every night," said one winemaker.

Ad Age reports (subscription) that sales of dark chocolate are up 40% this year, in increase leading to $1.62 billion in sales, after only a 29% increase from 2003-2005. One of the reasons for the increase is the fact that this past year has seen many reports that dark chocolate and cocoa are good for your health, in addition to chocolate bars promoting themselves as health foods. All the media coverage of the subject, on top of companies continually rolling out new dark chocolate products, has really made consumers more aware of dark chocolate and more willing to try it.

Any health benefits aside, consumers are learning to appreciate chocolates in the same way that they learned to appreciate different coffees so many years ago. Chocolate has nuances and the fact that people want to taste and learn about them is evidenced by the fact that more and more chocolates are stating their cacao percentages and countries of origin on the label.

Some of you may recall a post last fall about monks from an Oregon monastery selling their homemade fudge online. Well, it appears that the Cistercian monks at The Abbey of the Genesee in Piffard, NY, are following suit and will soon make their line of breads available via the internet. The website for the Trappist order's bakery says that sales should begin sometime next month. Their bread baking began in the 1950s, according to a recent Business First article. At present, 14 monks work several days a week to produce white, whole wheat, raisin, sunflower bran and Genesee rye breads in the Abbey's bakery. They apparently turn out some sweets, too.

KitKats have long been one of the top-selling candy bars in Britain since their inception in 1935 by Rowntree LTD. The brand has been owned by Nestle since 1988, and Nestle increased its global distribution, making it one of the most popular candies in the world. To appeal to different tastes in different markets, Nestle has been producing flavored KitKats for many years now. These have enjoyed great success, particularly in Asian and Australian markets. The Wikipedia entry lists more than 65 different flavors of KitKat.

After having success elsewhere, Nestle turned to these limited edition and exotic flavors in the UK, with releases that ranged from strawberries and cream to mango to "Christmas pudding" all over the course of one year. They flopped. And not only did the flavors not sell, but KitKat sales in general fell by almost 17%. Galaxy bars saw an 11% increase in the same time period, largely making up the deficit in the number of bars sold.

The problem was that the bars were "not what [people] expected" from KitKats and the novelty wasn't enough to sustain sales. People purchased the flavored bars and lost interest in them, as well as being slightly turned off the original because the market was so saturated with KitKats. The flavors have been discontinued and the company is going to refocus on making up lost ground.

Hershey's, which owns the rights to the candy bar in the US, has released very few limited edition flavors, sticking primarily to white chocolate and dark chocolate. The company is unlikely to try a wide variety of flavors in the US because candy bar sales are not nearly as strong as in the UK. The company is, however, planning a caramel KitKat towards the end of this year.

[via WSJ]

The idea of eating cereal with cold milk for breakfast, a staple of the Western daily diet, is not a popular concept in China and other parts of Asia, but cereal company Kellogg's wants to change that. The food giant controls 40% of the global cereal market, but only 2% of its sales come from Asia. With a goal in mind of doubling their revenue in the area by 2009 or 2010, the company is buying up local cereal companies and trying to tailor new products, including hot cereals and cereal bars, to the local palates.

While buying locally producing companies can certainly boost sales in the area, will Kellogg's really be able to convert such a huge population to being cereal eaters? It doesn't seem likely, but given that the company has set a generous deadline, they might just be able to pull it off - even if they have to target the already-present "Western" population in residence.

At Luxist, Deidre announced that the wines collected by Jacques Chirac while he was the mayor of Paris will be auctioned later this year. The city has decided that the liability involved in keeping the collection - which could be damaged by floods or other accidents in the bowels of the Hôtel de Ville, where it is kept - is too high to make it worth the risk, not to mention the fact that the wine budget for the city has been slashed dramatically and they can't really afford the maintenance. The wine budget reduction is a reflection of the fact that the Parisians aren't drinking wine at the same rates they used to. For example, despite an equal number of receptions, only half the amount of wine is consumed now as it was during Chirac's time in office.

The 5,000 bottle collection is expected to bring in at least $600,000, as it contains many fine wines, including 191 bottles of 1976 Krug champagne and several bottles of 1990 Château Pétrus (worth more than $1,700 each).

The German beer supply is in danger as a result of British World Cup fans' unquenchable thirst. According to a recent article in The Mirror, the 70,000 England fans visiting Nuremberg drank about 17 pints each-roughly 1.2 million in all. One calculation put that at 200 pints per minute. "The hardest thing for the breweries is keeping up with the thirst of the English," said one brewery spokesman. I'm a little curious about how they attribute beer sales to certain groups of fans. Sure, a beer vendor can say, "Wow, the people in the ___ jerseys were sure poundin' em'," but how do you pin large figures on one group? Surely those vendors must have been selling to other fans as well. Nevertheless, there are the personal accounts. "Never have I seen so many drink so much in such little time," said one bartender. As Andrew noted, his people are a hungry bunch, too.

[Via Fark]

Tasty, less popular grains like amaranth and quinoa are the subject of a recent Associated Press article. Apparently these grains are starting to appear more often on the average American grocery shopper's radar. And with good reason, as the AP says, amaranth and quinoa both have more iron and protein than wheat. Sales of the grains rising in big was, the AP says, citing a 25 percent increase in sales last year for the well known Bob's Red Mill brand. While these grains are probably old news to anyone who's set foot in a health food store or a Whole Foods in the last decade or two, I'm looking forward to seeing more mainstream uses for them.