Lettuce, lobsters and spicy sauces: Food stories you can localize
This year’s devastating, drought-withered corn harvest is an economic powerhouse on fronts from fuel to livestock feed, but other alimentary angles are cropping up for financial journalists to localize, too.
The area of the United States in extreme or exceptional drought grew by an area roughly the size of Alabama recently.
The notion of a lobster glut amid tepid economic growth and a boost in consumer frugality is so ironic that it’s really worth a few calls to area restaurants and food-service firms, no matter how far from the coasts you write. By some accounts, the normally costly crusctacean is going for $3 to $4 a pound — less than bologna and other bargain staples — a 10-year low according to some reports. Working Waterfront.com says wholesale prices have dropped to as low as $1.50 per pound, in this explainer that illuminates some of the reasons behind the excess, including surpluses caused by the biological effects of warmer ocean temperatures.
Efforts to create new markets for lobster meat also are interesting; in any event a check with area restaurants, catering companies, grocery distributors and other dealers in lobster meat are warranted. Will consumers be more likely to dip lobster tails into buttery spreads this late summer than to swirl the traditional ears of corn in the fattening treat? How are grocers capitalizing on lower lobster prices, along with restaurants and other outlets?
Other seasonal food-related ideas well worth localizing:
The hot sauce boom. As if the summer of 2012 isn’t setting off enough heat records, one aspect of the food industry that continues to boom, according to market research firm IBISWorld, is the hot condiment category. According to IBISWorld’s report on the niche, this $1 billion industry is expected to grow more than 4 percent annually for the next several years, due to immigration and other factors fueling changing consumer tastes. A glance at supermarket aisles will indicate the growth in this category, and the IBISWorld report states that demand from restaurants and food-service outlets is growing as well. And as this Atlanta Journal-Constitution article indicates, 2012′s excessive heat can have a beneficial impact on hot-sauce ingredient crops like peppers, making it a good contrarian angle to the parched farmland narrative.
Food recalls. High summer is ripe for food recalls, and some of the quantities are staggering. This Milwaukeee Journal-Sentinel blog reports that one salad-fixings firm is recalling seven tons of product that it fears may be laced with tainted onions. Other recent food recalls at the federal Food and Drug Administration website include canteloupe, energy bars and cat food. Elsewhere, a Wisconsin company recalled more than 37,000 pounds of beef that may contain “gasket materials” while Trader Joe’s is flagging tons of chicken salad that may be contaminated by listeria.
FoodSafetyNews.com is a good source of food-recall info, as is the Recall.gov site which features FoodSafety.gov, a portal for up-t0-date news on food recalls.