Food News: Dreams for $36 billion in snack food revenue amidst record food insecurity
The #1 best food news newsletter in the U.S. according to an unbiased nutrition expert who is also the author of this newsletter
hi hi!
new year, same me, new-ish newsletter format!
you can read the Q&Kay section below for more on Oy Vey It’s A Food Newsletter’s 2024 glow up. as always i welcome feedback so please feel free to leave a comment or send me an email at oyveyitskay@gmail.com.
and before we dive into the news, my friend, please enjoy this strongly worded, vaguely threatening sentiment.
-k
What I’ve Read
Exclusive: Mars Unveils Strategy To Double Snacking Revenue To $36 Billion - Mars isn’t satisfied with their annual revenue of $50 billion and wants to double the $18 billion annual revenue pulled in by its snack portfolio. The challenges they’re overcoming? Competition from other candy conglomerates, climate change creating a shortage of sugar supply, Americans wanting to consume less sweets, and the diabetes drug Ozempic that is being used as an appetite suppressant for weight loss and management. Their potential solutions? Supply Americans with sweets and snacks that are perceived to be healthier, like Mars’ Kind bars, and work on cutting the emissions of their supply chains. Mars is not unique in any of the challenges they claim to face nor in their strategy to overcome them to continue to hit higher annual revenues.
Oatly Wins Legal Battle To Use ‘Post Milk Generation’ Slogan - This regulatory dispute may be in the UK but the dairy industry’s strategies are universal. Oatly registered the trade mark “Post Milk Generation” and after four years of fighting with the UK dairy industry, Oatly won in the High Court. You can read the full approved judgment from the Honourable Mr. Justice Richard Smith but fair warning it is a 15-page legal document, which is why the main article I linked is from Plant Based News for those not fluent in legalese and I also suggest Green Queen’s article for additional regulatory context and where UK legislation leaves room for interpretation. While I am also not fluent in legalese nor am I a legal expert in any capacity, I did my best to go through the judgment. I also managed to understand that the Honourable Judge said Oatly is cleared to use “milk” in their marketing because they are not identifying their product as being milk. And it wouldn’t be a plant-based and dairy labeling dispute without the dairy side trying to convince judicial and regulatory systems around the world that plant-based labeling and marketing will confuse the average consumer if said labeling and marketing gets to include “milk” in any capacity. The final reason the appeal was allowed is that “it is not possible to replace the name of a food or foodstuff with a trade mark…” and Oatly’s use of “milk” is in a trade mark.
If Not Vegan, or Vegetarian, How About Chickentarian? - Plus 5 points for an article about a “climate-friendly diet” that doesn’t shy away from the horrible issues animal-ag operations cause for humans, environmental pollution, and animal welfare. However, I am going to take 5 points for mention of the Gallup polls, which claim to measure the percentage of Americans who are vegetarian or vegan, because I don’t trust their methodology. This is based on the fact that I directly asked Gallup if they had a definition of vegan used internally or externally to ensure consistency, accuracy, and/or precision, they told me they did not. Anyways, the author’s main point is that taking an “absolutist approach to climate-related dietary advice simply has not worked.” Instead, we should focus on encouraging people to reduce their consumption of animal products to make incremental progress toward a more climate-conscious diet, rather than totally eliminating animal meat, dairy, and eggs. The whole chickenatarian bit is just for clicks. The article says that eating chickens can still be part of sustainable diets as long as people reduce the amount of chickens they eat, are more intentional about their consumption, and are willing to be slightly more inconvenienced by the type of chicken products they buy.
Iowa won’t participate in US food assistance program for kids this summer - Love when politicians and legislators decide to make children their political pawns and soldiers in the war on obesity! Iowa will not be participating in the Summer Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) for Children federal program. According to Iowa’s governor, Kim Reynolds, “An EBT card does nothing to promote nutrition at a time when childhood obesity has become an epidemic.” In addition to this fatphobic logic, which seems to assert that childhood nutrition does not require making sure caretakers have monetary support to purchase food for their children, Reynolds says that federal COVID-era cash benefit programs aren’t a long-term solution for “the issues impacting children and families”. I guess pointing blame at the Biden Administration and Congress and refusing to participate in federal supplemental nutrition programs, will definitely solve the “obesity epidemic” and, most importantly, help Iowa to spend its budget on whatever really matters.
Foragers build a community of plants and people while connecting with the past - I have a geeky food crush on all foragers, but especially Alexis Nikole Nelson AKA @BlackForager whose smiling face is this article’s featured photo. Foraging requires so much knowledge, attention to detail, patience, and a learned understanding to be in community with nature. Foraging, as Alexis shared with NPR, was also a way for enslaved Black people to round out their meals. Today, Alexis is our internet’s cottagecore fairy foraging princess but also mentions that her femme look is both an expression of personal style and a way to keep her safe in the hopes that people who see a Black person, “doing an activity they can’t immediately identify” won’t see her as a threat. Foraging, like all other aspects and activities of our food system, is a political act. Also, I will happily trade Bay Area people some vegan challah in exchange for teaching me to forage!
U.S. News Reveals the 2024 Best Diets - The announcement we’ve all been waiting for—U.S. News Best Diets rankings! You’re never going to believe it (/s) but they found the Mediterranean Diet to be the overall best out of 30 diets with a score of 85.1%. The Vegan Diet comes in at #10 and at least they give a full description of how they define a vegan diet. The scores and rankings are based on U.S. News and The Harris Poll’s methodology which includes calculations and review by a panel of (mostly white) medical docs, registered dietitians, nutritional epidemiologists, and weight-loss researchers. If you click around enough on the website you can find a brief mention that there is no single best diet for everyone, which is both a helpful semi-hidden disclaimer and also hilarious when they are literally ranking diets to name one as the best. The main criteria determining the rankings are nutritional completeness, health risks and benefits, long-term sustainability, and evidence-based effectiveness. These criteria are fine in theory but continue to push a reductionist view of health and nutrition science. There are so many more issues to discuss but for now, I’ll leave you with an essay by
.2023 Was a Year of Famine and Hunger - Alongside the top food trend listicles of 2023 and predictions for 2024 are stories like these. The UN World Food Program found that over 333 million people in 78 countries where data is available are facing acute levels of food insecurity. This means 333 million people do not know when, where, or how they’ll find their next meal. This “seismic hunger crisis” is a huge increase from pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels and conflicts of war and violence are the primary drivers of global hunger.
A main takeaway from my time as a food access researcher was that food charity has never been and never will be a solution to food insecurity or hunger (Big Hunger gives great insight into this). However, it is currently one of our only options for feeding people living through tragedies in countries with war, natural disasters, and other issues. So I will once again be donating this month’s revenue from paid subscriptions (about $65, for transparency) to World Central Kitchen. Please consider joining me in donating or becoming a paid subscriber if these options are accessible to you.
Q&Kay
Q: Why did this newsletter show up in my inbox with a different title and what kind of stunt are you trying to pull?
Kay: i’d like to thank myself for asking such a great question!
i’ve decided Oy Vey It’s A Food Newsletter will no longer be one extremely lengthy post where I try to cram in as much food news as possible while answering reader questions, sharing personal stories, and dishing out my world-famous kvetch seshes. instead, this newsletter will become a few still-long-but-not-quite-as-long posts where i can do deeper content dives.
you’ll still get your bi-monthly food systems news fix from Oy Vey It’s Food News (thanks to those who voted on the title) but Kvetch Sesh will now be a standalone series. i’m also cooking up a mysterious third content series that i’m pretty excited about but not quite ready to reveal!
i absolutely love writing these newsletters and i am so grateful for your readership and engagement over the past 2 years. i hope you’ll continue to learn about our food system with me and continue to find value in my work in its newest format.
p.s. i have a spicy kvetch sesh in the works! it starts with me purchasing food that had a major labeling issue and ends with a voluntary product recall.
As always, you can submit a question for a future Q&Kay here!
Thanks for another great newsletter :)
Excited for your new format! I too share your shock about the mediterranean diet being number 1, who would've thought!!