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Food

The Egg Crisis – A Billion Dollar Problem

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Suganya Anand, a tech executive and mother of two in Washington’s upscale Sammamish
neighborhood, has been working harder to meet her family’s protein needs.

Whereas she’d previously whip up a batch of boiled eggs without a thought, now Anand must go to great lengths to source eggs due to the ongoing egg crisis.

Large eggs in New York’s wholesale markets sold for $7.46 per dozen by the end of January, a
significant rise from $4.52 the previous year. By early February, the price rose even further to
$8.01 per dozen.

The higher prices have largely been spurred on by the Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza
(HPAI), or bird flu that has led to a reduction in supply, as farmers look to minimize exposure to the illness by culling flocks. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has reported that since February 2022, the HPAI has caused a significant loss of birds, with 116.9 million egg-laying birds affected.

While the chaotic egg market has led to notable changes in consumer behavior leading those
who can afford it to shell out the extra case or turn to plant-based egg substitutes, the Trump
administration has proposed a one billion dollar relief plan alongside much political rhetoric and calls-to-action.

“Eggs are an unusual product in that there are few substitutes.  For most households they have
no choice but to simply bear the cost,” says Joseph Foudy, Professor of Economics at NYU’s
Stern Business School.  “But as a frequent household purchase, it has taken on an outsized
psychological significance in the minds of many consumers as a barometer of inflation”.

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Bring Marijuana to Dining Table

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Chef Miguel Trinidad is making cannabis-infused plates for guests. Photo: 99th Fl.

New York’s third legal recreational marijuana dispensary just opened near Union Square. The city has accelerated opening doors for legal marijuana sales and more customers have gathered at the scene. Cannabis users are more active than ever to adapt this joyful moment to their daily routines, even in food.  [Read more…] about Bring Marijuana to Dining Table

American sake breweries turn to crowdfund for expansion plans

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Shinobu Kato. Courtesy of Shinobu Kato

 

What is the smartest thing to do with $100? Shinobu Kato tried asking his supporters and fellow Brooklynites to invest in his craft sake brewery, Kato Sake Works – to support brick-and-mortar businesses shaping the community and also earn financial return.

“Everybody is like, hey, we want to help you. But we didn’t have a way to ask for their help,” said Kato, who lives in Brooklyn. Customers – mainly from the Bushwick neighborhood – have been actively looking for ways to back Kato Sake Works, including free video advertisements production, before he launched his latest crowdfunding campaign in December. 

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She swapped press releases for pressed juices: Inside a PR maven’s mission to launch a health empire and empower her community

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Credit: Dawn Kelly
Credit: Dawn Kelly

On a sleepy street in Jamaica, Queens, lies an inconspicuous small shop. It’s a quiet corner in an easy-to-miss part of town, where a dark green awning adorns the entry to a juice bar. 

In a family home a few steps away, the smell of steaming ginger tea fills the air. White block letters on a black stoneware mug spell out “THE BOSS”.

The clock shows 4:30 AM. Dawn Kelly’s day begins.

By the time corporate America awakes, Kelly has worked for three hours – responding to customer queries, making social media announcements, researching collaboration opportunities, and scheduling afternoon meetings with journalists. 

She doesn’t own a PR agency, nor does she work as a communications executive in a large corporation – not anymore. Dawn Kelly runs The Nourish Spot, a salad and smoothie bar in Jamaica, Queens. But pressed juices haven’t always been her gig. Prior to opening her shop in 2016, Kelly had spent three decades working in public relations. 

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The ex-vegetarian butchers helping New Yorkers eat better meat

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Credit: Hudson & Charles

SOME PEOPLE WEAR their hearts on their sleeves. J. Fox wears his on a hat. The simple black baseball cap covering his mop of brown hair is stitched with just one word – “grassfed” – but it is a promise he has been making to customers for ten years.

Mr. Fox and his husband, Kevin Haverty, own Hudson & Charles, a whole-animal butcher shop which sells locally-raised, sustainable meat at two outposts in New York City. He knows these buzzwords make people’s eyes glaze over – “sustainable is even on shitty cereal boxes now” – but in his world, they are an ethos and not just a label.

“We give people an alternative to conventionally-raised animals that you buy in the supermarket,” Fox says. And when “conventionally-raised” can be code for “animals in cages having their beaks snipped off, wallowing in their own manure and getting prophylactic antibiotics because they’re living too close to each other and passing diseases back and forth,” the stakes are high.

Hudson & Charles is part of a growing crop of butchers who buy whole animals from farms, break them down and use as many parts as possible from nose to tail. This approach was long a staple of neighborhood butchers, but many met the chopping block in the mid-20th century with the mass industrialization of the meat industry and advent of grocery stores. As neatly-packed boxes of tenderloins and skinless chicken breasts became available, messy carcasses riddled with tendons and bones lost their appeal.

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What does the exodus of fast food companies from Russia mean for Russians?

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Fast-food chains are making their loyalties clear.  joined the long list of companies exiting Russia including McDonald’s and Coca-Cola after the country waged war on Ukraine nearly three weeks ago. 

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Wheat prices soar on bleak outlook for Ukraine-Russia war

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Farmers use combines to harvest a wheat field near the village Tbilisskaya, Russia, on July 21, 2021. (AP Photo/Vitaly Timkiv)

Wheat futures jumped a record 40.6% this week as fighting in Ukraine intensified, fueling concerns that the conflict could have long-term ramifications on the production and export of grains from the fertile Black Sea region.

Contracts for soft red winter (SRW), the most actively-traded wheat futures on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, notched a 14-year high of $12.09 a bushel on Friday. The commodity was “limit up,” meaning that prices had hit the maximum gain allowed for one trading session.

In addition to widespread fighting which threatens to destroy crops in Ukraine, snarled transport networks and punishing sanctions on Russia may also halt their shipment. Ukraine and Russia collectively export more than a quarter of the world’s wheat, according to the Observatory of Economic Complexity, so even a minor hiccup could reverberate across the global food chain.

The impact is likely to be felt most acutely in developing countries like Yemen and Ethiopia, which are heavily reliant on foreign suppliers for staple crops. Respectively, 41% and 45% of their 2019 wheat imports were from Ukraine or Russia, according to data from Investment Monitor.

“Interruption to the flow of grain out of the Black Sea region will increase prices and add further fuel to food inflation at a time when its affordability is a concern across the globe following the economic damage caused by the Covid-19 pandemic,” said World Food Program Executive Director Steve Beasley in a statement. 

Beyond wheat, Ukraine and Russia account for an estimated 32% of global exports of barley, 17% of corn and over 50% of sunflower oil and seeds, according to the EU’s Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development.

The prospect of supply disruptions for these commodities have already led politicians and NGOs to call on food-rich countries to boost their agricultural aid.

“As both the immediate and long-term effects on Ukraine’s agriculture sector become clearer, the United States should work quickly to provide the necessary commodities through sale or donation to meet countries’ unsatisfied food and commodity needs,” said U.S. Senator Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) in a letter to United States Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.

“Doing so will help alleviate a greater humanitarian crisis than has already been caused by the unprovoked invasion and will help foster political stability in food insecure countries.” 

California Entrepreneurs Bring American Coffee Lovers a New Brewing Choice

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Busy American coffee lovers can enjoy a new way of brewing coffee at home, with a novel drip bag coffee gaining traction as the work-from-home population continues to rise. 

Hangover Coffee is a specialty coffee brand that sells single-serve drip bag coffee pouches designed to ‘hang over’ any cup rim, allowing coffee to be brewed directly into the mug. The pour-over method creates a clean coffee since the grounds are kept separate from the coffee, with a longer brewing process and better taste compared to instant coffee. 

The relatively niche coffee vertical with a little more than $2,000 million market in 2020 is gaining momentum during the pandemic, providing an alternative for busy Americans homeworkers who normally order coffee delivery and likely do not own coffee brewing equipment. It is expected to reach $2,833.3 million by 2025 at an annual growth rate of 6.54 percent, according to Straits Research. 

“We want customers to associate Hangover Coffee with an approachable but high-quality coffee experience without sacrificing taste,” said Natalie Ma and Melody Jung, co-founders of Hangover Coffee who sold over 2,000 pouches in their first week launch. “Since drip bag coffee is still a novel product in the States, our biggest challenge is to promote brand awareness.”

Jung, the 26-year-old female founder and engineer at Google said she got her inspiration from a trip to Japan with her UC Berkeley college friend-the 27-year-old Natalie Ma, who currently works in sales & operations at Autodesk. The Asian way of efficient home brewing they tried during the quarantine made them hopeful of its popularity in the U.S. “People are gonna love this,” said Jung. 

Ma and Jung are now working with a Texas-based roaster to roast, package and deliver the product to consumers nationwide. Hangover Coffee currently offers two roasts with thematic names: “Happy Hour,” a light roast Ethiopia Guji and “Breakfast Buzz,” a medium roast Nicaragua.

The young founders said they are seeking partnerships with hotels, gift boxes, corporate micro kitchens, and bakeries this year to expand their offline presence. They are currently preparing for a pop-up event in farmer’s market in San Francisco, where their Instagram and TikTok subscribers can get a free coffee.

Ma looks up to Whitney Wolfe Herd, founder and CEO of Bumble, while Jung said she was inspired by Lisa Cheng Smith, founder of Yun Hai Taiwanese Pantry. “I can really relate to her story of bridging cultures, ” said Jung. 

Bars scramble to stock up and staff up

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File photo. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)

Parties have returned to Biny Karaoke Bar — but drinkers may not be able to find their favorite tequila and bartenders.

Even though bars in New York City are now allowed to reopen after shutting down for months because of the coronavirus pandemic, supply chain restraints mean business owners are struggling to stock up partygoers’ alcohol for cocktails, and staff have refused to return.

As one of the oldest Karaoke bars in the city opened in 1997, Biny has been through many challenges, but nothing like a pandemic that shut down the city to slow the spread of the virus, and forced the bar to close for 15 months.

Jack Ho, the owner of Biny, said the bar used to operate smoothly on its own before the pandemic, but now he has to go back three times a week to make important decisions like securing liquor and fish balls supply.

“They don’t have enough [tequila] for everybody,” said Ho, bartender-turned owner of Biny. Suppliers have been limiting the purchase of a specific brand called Casamigos tequila and some premium Japanese Whiskey. 

Shortages in supplies stemming from snarled supply chains have hit restaurateurs and retailers across the country.

Sometimes, Ho also has to act as a part-time bartender because out of his nine original employees – apart from the two managers and the two chefs- have refused to return.

He is not alone. A survey by the National Federation of Independent Business showed that 47% of all owners reported job openings they could not fill in January. 

“Small business owners are managing the reality that the number of job openings exceeds the number of unemployed workers, producing a tight labor market and adding pressure on wage levels,” said NFIB Chief Economist Bill Dunkelberg. 

“Reports of owners raising compensation continues at record-high levels to attract applicants to their open positions.”

BINY’s nature as a bar makes it more difficult to hire the right people.

“It is not like an office job where you sit there for the whole day. You have to talk to people and remember all the drinks.” He said he has rejected some applicants despite the hot job market.

“For me this is more than just a business, it is a culture, it’s my memory over there.” He worked in a bar as a bartender for nine years before taking it over. He is also planning a mini-concert in the bar to nurture local singers, and maybe attract more customers.

Regardless, Ho is still very optimistic. “It survived the financial crisis, so many different difficulties, but we’re still here.”

Global food tech funding soared to record-breaking $39.3 billion in 2021

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Venture capitalists are hungry for food tech companies – and willing to pay a premium to take a bite. Investors plowed nearly $40 billion into the growing industry last year, more than double the $15.7 billion they spent in 2020, according to Pitchbook’s annual report on the sector.

While investments were spread across 1,358 deals, more than half of the funding was concentrated in two categories – online grocers and apps & marketplaces – reflecting consumers’ increased appetite for e-commerce and delivery during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Companies offering ultrafast, on-demand delivery were notable recipients of this shift. Gorillas, which has expanded to over 60 cities and hired 14,000 employees since launching in 2020, raised around $1.3 billion last year across two funding rounds. Gopuff, another instant delivery startup, brought in over $2 billion in 2021 at a valuation of $15 billion. 

Pitchbook logged 34 venture deals in the ultrafast sector last year, but noted that activity peaked in the first quarter. Many of these companies are facing pressure from regulators and investors over the legality of their business practices and the sustainability of their steepening losses.

“It remains to be seen whether this trend can maintain momentum and deliver on its value proposition in 2022,” Pitchbook said in a press release.

Bio-engineered foods were also in favor, with funding for alternative-protein companies growing by triple-digits. While interest in alt-proteins and other non-traditional alternatives has been on the rise for years, the sharp uptick in investor enthusiasm is driven in part by technological advances which have made these alternatives more appealing to consumers.

Plant-based meat company Impossible Foods brought in $500 million in November, capping a burst of new product launches, from Impossible Sausage to Impossible Chicken Nuggets. Their products can now be found in 22,000 grocery stories – up from only 150 in March 2020.

High prices and tough competition have led to a slowdown in plant-based meat sales among many publicly-traded companies, but Pitchbook expects momentum for bio-engineered foods to continue in 2022 as startups continue to deliver more realistic alternatives to meat and dairy.

Seven weeks into the new year that prediction is holding water. As reported by Food Dive, three bio-engineered food companies have already announced $100 million or more in fresh financing: Redefine Meat ($135 million), Remilk ($120 million) and Next Gen Foods ($100 million).