"stores" news and stories

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.

Source

The California Center for Public Health Advocacy (CCPHA) just released the results of a study they conducted on California's Food Landscape, entitled "Searching for Healthy Food." Basically, the study started with the facts that the state of California had " more than four times as many fast-food restaurants and convenience stores as supermarkets and produce vendors" back in 2005 and the CCPHA wanted to see if California was in a better state today.

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like things have improved all that much during the course of 2006. There are still an average of just over 4 times as many fast-food restaurants and convenience stores as supermarkets and produce vendors, with a range of 1.84 in Santa Cruz County to 5.72 in San Bernardino County. CCPHA suggests trying to encourage supermarkets and farmers markets to develop in underserved areas to try to stop the spread of the convenience-types of stores and restaurants, as the greater their concentration, the higher the obesity risk tends to be.

The worst counties were: San Bernardino, Sacramento (5.66), Fresno (5.34), Orange (5.13), Solano (5.08), Kern (4.87), Stanislaus (4.79), Contra Costa (4.66), Riverside (4.63) and Alameda (4.61).

The worst cities were: Bakersfield (6.63), Fresno (6.23), Long Beach (5.80), Riverside (5.58), Sacramento (4.97), Anaheim (4.79), Stockton (4.73), San Jose (4.62), San Diego (4.58), Santa Ana (4.40) and Los Angeles (4.24), with San Francisco (3.85) and Oakland (3.81) just barely cutting under the state average.

Source

The USDA's nutritional guidance system, MyPyramid, has not been the smashing success that organizers hoped it would be when it was unveiled almost two years ago. The problem seems to be that the new pyramid, as opposed to the old one, only provides guidance, not hard and fast numbers to follow. This means that diners need to take responsibility for their health and their choices - and motivating them to do so is not an easy task.

Trying to help the public to better understand and make use of the already in-place system, food manufacturers and retailers have joined together to create the Take a Peak program. The program aims to get people thinking more closely about health and using MyPyramid with in-store advertising, banners, signs and kiosk. Displays will how reminders of how many servings of whole grains should be eaten per day and what serving sizes look like. Some products will be given a logo indicating why it maybe a good choice.

The trial run of the program will cover 2,000 stores in 17 states and includes Publix, Raley's and SuperValue. Depending on the response from consumers, it may not be long before the plan (or propaganda, if you prefer to look at it that way) ends up in stores at the rest of the US, as well.

Source

California has been hit by an unusually bad cold snap this year and the effects of the freezing weather have really taken a toll on crops - and the bad weather isn't even over yet. Some estimates say that at least 75% of the citrus crop has been destroyed and others say even more, drawing from the more than 80% that was ruined the last time the state suffered a severe cold snap. The weather is so bad that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency in the 10 agricultural counties that have been hardest hit by the weather.

86% of the lemons and 21% of all the oranges sold in the US are grown in California, which makes it the largest citrus-producing state in the country. The loss of crops is devastating to the farmers, but it will also hit consumers hard at the grocery store. Orange and lemon prices are already increasing and the wholesale price has more than doubled in the last seven days alone. Juice prices will increase as well. "The price spike is expected to hit supermarkets in the next two weeks, when the present inventory dwindles."

While citrus is taking the biggest hit, basically every winter crop in California has been damaged, from avocados to lettuce, and consumers across the country will feel the effects of doubling and tripling prices in the produce department, especially if they want to buy US-grown fruits and vegetables.

Source

Trader Joe's is sometimes criticized for the way that they package their produce. Much of it, with the exception of apples, is packed in little plastic containers that protect the fruit from being damaged or bruised and, in general, make it easy to grab a pre-set amount of tomatoes or other fruits and veggies. The pre-set amount is usually four or five items, depending on size, and can be inconvenient if you either need a lot of things or just want one. One of Trader Joe's newest offerings appeared in stores just this week and takes advantage of the grab-n-go nature of this packaging. It is a little kit containing all the ingredients you need to make fresh salsa: three tomatoes, a jalapeno pepper, a large shallot, garlic cloves and a lime. The instructions are printed right on the label and simply direct you to five up all the ingredients, combine and stir with lime juice.

I opted to make mine in the food processor, mincing the garlic, shallot and most of the jalapeno, then pulsing in the tomatoes and extra pepper. I used everything that was included and added a little bit of salt and pepper, too.