Irish pub landlords are resorting to radical measures such as cutting holes in the roofs of their pubs to create open-air smoking rooms in attempts to bring back smoking customers and restore sales, reports the Independent on Sunday. Signs in Ireland show a shift in public opinion against smoking and a downturn in the number of smokers since the ban – a worrying indicator for European bar owners and tobacco companies.
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Fast food is embracing fast fruit.
https://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/food/2004-11-07-fresh-fruit_x.htm
McDonald’s buys more apples than any other restaurant chain. Wendy’s is testing a fruit bowl entree. Arby’s chops apples into chicken salads.
But will folks go as gaga for fruit as they have for salads? In a world of increasingly nutrition-conscious consumers, many top names in fast food think so. Almost every major chain has some sort of new fruit salad or fruit side on the menu, in test or in planning.
Fresh fruit presents special problems. It has a short shelf life, is costly to store and requires refrigeration. Special packaging is needed to let nitrogen out, but keep air from getting in.
But consumers want it. Convenient fresh-cut fruit has ballooned into a $3.8 billion business at supermarkets. The fast-foodies want a piece of that.
“
“How we feel about ourselves is linked to what we eat,” says Jeff Davis, a consultant at SandelmanEdge.com, which tracks consumer feedback on restaurants. “You can get a kid to eat fruit before you can get him to eat a carrot.
VIP-chip under huden
https://weblog.innovationlab.net/a/etik/index.html
Slut med at rode med ID, plastickort eller kontanter på Baja Beach Club. Her
får gæsterne frivilligt skudt en RFID chip på størrelse med et riskorn ind
under huden. Chippen giver adgang til bestemte lounges i klubben, og
gæsterne kan betale for drinks ved at chippen tilknyttes en konto, hvorfra
pengene kan hæves direkte.
Tanken om at få en lille chip skudt ind under huden, kan nok få de fleste
til at stejle, men Barcelonas unge, rige og smukke er fri for at koncentrere
sig om hvor pungen er henne og hvad PIN-koden er. Meget praktisk på en bar,
hvor påklædningen er bikini eller board shorts.
Ideen med en chip ind under huden er kontroversiel og kan lyde som ren
science fiction. Men fænomenet er ikke ukendt: Husdyr er blevet tagget med
RFID chips i over ti år, så metoden er gennemprøvet og RFID chips under
menneskehud er altså ikke forbundet med sundhedsmæssige farer. Imidlertid er
indgrebet mod den personlige frihed den største fare ved implanterede RFID
chips. For hvis personlige oplysningerne altid er tilgængelige, hvem vil så
kunne tilgå data? Anvendelsen i Baja Beach Club har rusket op i
eksistentielle og religiøse diskussioner ? som her på news.com, der også
byder på en grafisk præsentation af systemet i funktion.
VeriChip, som løsningen kaldes, er netop blevet godkendt til brug i
sundhedssektoren. Her vil chippen give let adgang til fx patientjournaler og
oversigter over medicinforbrug eller allergier. Det vil kunne redde
menneskeliv, siger fortalerne. Det er Antikrists værk, siger modstanderne.
Spørgsmålet er om vi er klar til en verden med chips under hud
Dinner at Wal-Mart?
It may not be the most romantic setting imaginable, but a Wal-Mart store in
Dortmund, Germany, is attracting a new market of shoppers — those looking
for love. The store hosted its first singles shopping event last year, and
the concept has become so popular that every Friday night at the store is
singles night, with single shoppers identified by carts with bright red
bows. The Wall Street Journal
SIAL 2004 report from Just Food com
https://www.just-food.com/features_detail.asp?art=915&lk=rss
SIAL Paris is the world’s second-largest food show and the largest food show to be held this year as it alternates with ANGUA in Germany every other year. This year its three halls divided into six food areas contained over 5200 exhibitors from 98 countries and offered 15 product sectors and numerous sub-categories of foods and beverages. [Read more…] about SIAL 2004 report from Just Food com
Slender servings
https://www.washingtontimes.com/business/20041013-092341-4568r.htm
Smaller portions are the newest focus in the food industry’s quest for convenient, ready-to-eat foods, said analyst Miss Smith of Argus Research Co., a New York research firm.
“But there is a limit for small-portion sizes. People aren’t going to buy a small bag of chips if they get maybe three or four chips. They’ll buy a bigger bag and try to moderate their snacking,” she said.
Still, food and beverage companies have jumped on the small-serving bandwagon.
Good Humor-Breyers Ice Cream sells mini-ice-cream pops. Coca-Cola sells 12-ounce and 10-ounce bottles, while Pepsico. Inc. sells 8-ounce cans and 10-ounce bottles for people with less thirst.
Coca-Cola’s six-pack of 10-ounce bottles costs $3.49, while the price of the regular six-pack of 24-ounce bottles is $4.99. Pepsi’s 10-ounce bottles are $2.99 for a six-pack, while its six-pack of 24-ounce bottles costs $3.99.
Even restaurants have taken note.
Quiznos Sub restaurants offer 16-ounce sandwiches with 4.5-ounce minimelts for customers who want less.
McDonald’s Corp. earlier this year said it would phase out its supersize portions. The decision followed government pressure and attacks from health advocates and trial lawyers who sought to pin some of the obesity blame on the fast-food chain.
The hamburger giant also offers smaller sizes of its popular items, such as small french fries and side salads, on its $1 menu.
High in protein, low in fat – it's chargrilled super guinea pig
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/10/24/wmmmmm24.xml
To most people they are lovable pets, but guinea pigs could soon be on the menu at British restaurants after the development of a “superpig” designed to offer diners a nutritious low-fat meal.
The new “Raza Peru” variety has been bred by scientists in Lima, who say that it contains more protein and less cholesterol than beef, pork, lamb or chicken.
The animal has already been sent for consumption in America, Spain and Japan, and exporters say they are ready to market it in Britain if there is sufficient demand.
Vegan, "cruelty-free" fashions .
https://reveries.com/cool_news/2004/november/nov_2b.html
“Hopefully, we will change people’s minds about what a vegan looks like,” says Jeremy Crown, “owner of Otsu, a San Francisco store selling vegan accessories,” as reported by Ruth La Ferla in The New York Times. “A lot of people still assume we are granola hippies or that we are overtly political,” Jeremy adds. But Jeremy and others are tapping into a market for “cruelty-free” fashions that apparently is expanding beyond “the roughly six million Americans who call themselves vegetarians.” The attraction, at least in part, is that prices of animal-free goods “are often 60 percent to 75 percent lower.”