The Pie: The Pie: Paris Olympics Food, and the Label Catch up

July 18, 2024

•

Hello, Pies. Welcome back for a small slice of food and culture news!

What have been your personal food trends? Watching your processed gains, eating at all the summer parties? Let us know!

I recently joined a few hundred leaders at the WSJ Global Food Forum, executives from Edible Schoolyards, McDonald’s, Perdue, and the FDA shared insights on the future of the food industry, focusing on sustainability, innovation, and regulatory challenges. Jim Jones, Deputy Commissioner for Human Foods at the FDA, emphasized the importance of food safety and quality in the evolving market in a somewhat contentious interview.

There's an opportunity to grab the winds of the next election and call for U.S competitiveness and creativity in front package labeling. Below we are also highlighting emerging labeling trends in Latin America, stressing the need for the U.S. to become more politically engaged to keep pace with these countries' advancements. At Journey Foods, we've been building nutrition tags around the decisions of countries like Colombia, Mexico, South Korea and Switzerland. Let's hope the culture tides win over for collective health over gains and we see swifter change.

Finally, as the Paris Olympics approach, there are some delicious snack food partnerships and branding trends are taking center stage.

Take a bite.

Riana and the Journey Team

The Science Pie

A few wonky stories from the sky and more public retractions make us think: Who really is benefitting off of academic outputs that feed into funding if there's not enough public discourse? It surely is not the eaters.

Butter made from CO2, not cows, tastes like ‘the real thing’, claims startup | Food science | The Guardian

Astronauts don’t eat enough because food tastes bland in space. We’re trying to work out why (theconversation.com)

Food science journal retracts 10 papers for compromised peer review – Retraction Watch

The Line

The stark reality of America's persistent inflation as a TikTok by a man named Sewerlidd. While browsing through his Walmart account, he stumbled upon an option to reorder a previous grocery haul. To his shock, the order of 45 essential items that cost $127 in 2022 now totals an astonishing $414. This nearly fourfold increase leaves consumers like Sewerlidd feeling physically ill, as they confront the drastic rise in everyday expenses. It's a sobering reminder of the ongoing economic strain many are facing, despite Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen's recent dismissal of 'sticker shock.' Videos like these continue to hit the consumer chord as travelers and everyday grocery shoppers reject prices as just inflation. Companies that show more innovation and new product offerings can combat the lessened appeal with newfound distractions and aisle excitement.We continue to scan interesting channels on reddit and scrape for nutrition and pricing sentiment. In the pic below you'll see a few comments from a post about the savings at Aldi's.