That sound you (virtually) heard on January 26, when Pizza Hut debuted its Udi’s-crusted gluten-free pizza to 2,400 locations nationwide, was a collective cheer from the GF blogosphere. “The beautiful partnership of Pizza Hut and Udi’s,” said one blogger, is a celiac’s dream come true. “Excited” was the word du jour. Gluten free-ers are excited that the world’s largest pizza company is catering to their dietary needs. Excited that the move will spur other restaurants into GF action, and excited ...
February 9, 2015The last few years have not been kind to frozen foods. Overall sales have for the most part been flat or shrinking. Any increases have been minimal and short-lived. The recent damage to this once essential grocery segment can largely be traced to a growing consumer taste for fresh, natural, and organic foods. Like most food trends, the strength of this trend may be overstated but it is real and it is growing as can be seen from the double-digit sales increases for organic foods reported by the...
February 2, 2015Chobani recently announced that it is expanding its product range to appeal to more consumers and eating occasions. Central to the expansion is its new Chobani Kids and Chobani Tots lines, which will prominently feature Disney and Marvel characters on packaging. Such efforts by Disney are an essential strategic maneuver to not only potentially boost present-day sales, but to also build a vital rapport with the next generation of consumers that will endure even as today’s kids grow to adulthood. ...
January 22, 2015It wasn’t that long ago when street foods would too often bring to mind, for many American, ambivalent associations with foreign and “underdeveloped” countries, along with trepidations about cooking hygiene and food safety. Sure, nothing could be more American than street, fair, and festival foods such as pizza, hot dogs and corn dogs, soft pretzels, ice cream and snow cones and cotton candy. And there was even occasion for more pronouncedly ethnic or regional options. Ordinarily speaking, non...
December 5, 2014For more than a decade, the notorious failure of Webvan scared many potential entrants away from the online grocery business. Now, the field is swiftly becoming crowded with trials by competitors and new operating models, with online grocery services apparently poised to take off on a high growth trajectory, according to Online Food Shopping and Grocery Delivery in the U.S.: Future of Food Retailing by Packaged Facts. Meeting at the crossroads of technology and service, online grocery shopping...
November 12, 2014In September 2014, cereal king General Mills Inc. (GM) announced it was acquiring Annie’s Homegrown Inc. for approximately $820 million. Known for its macaroni and cheese and its bunny logo, Annie’s is a well-known natural and organic food producer, and very much conveys the feeling of a small environmentally-oriented company even with $204 million in sales reported for fiscal year 2013, according to Natural and Organic Foods and Beverages in Canada by Packaged Facts. The deal saw General Mill...
October 8, 2014Recent research suggests that the upward trend in obesity that has vexed public health officials for decades may have leveled out, while the healthy eating movement remains on the upswing. Still, nearly 100 million Americans are watching their diet to lose weight or to maintain their current weight. Successful weight management remains a tough and never-ending battle for many Americans trying to stay on a traditional diet plan. The majority of overweight Americans find that the very idea of a st...
September 25, 2014Discussion of the merits of nutritional supplements can be tricky, in the same way topics such as politics and religion are sometimes best avoided. That’s because you have two very polarized types of people when it comes to supplements: the “true believers” who believe that the supplements they take help to keep them healthy, and may have personally experienced positive results from taking specific supplements, and the “unfaithful,” who may point to studies that prove (to them) that vitamins and...
September 4, 2014Our love-hate relationship with sugar and sweeteners is intensifying as concern about added sugars mounts and negative consumer sentiment related to zero calorie sweeteners is slow to wane. Sugar, especially white granulated sugar, is being compared to tobacco and cigarettes in terms of the serious danger it poses to health, even being called toxic by some public health advocates. Sugar is considered a culprit when it comes to obesity, rising rates of diabetes and, more recently, it is implicate...
August 6, 2014An increasing number of U.S. businesses are concerned with managing their ecological footprint, and in recent years this dedication to going green has trickled down to the U.S. coffee market. In particular, to have a competitive foodservice coffee platform, being environmentally and socially responsible is increasingly important, according to Coffee and Ready-to-Drink Coffee in the U.S.: Retail and Foodservice, 8th Edition , a recent report by Packaged Facts. To illustrate this point, consider...
July 16, 2014