Cake and Commerce

Lula's Fancy Debuts at the Farmers Market

I debuted Lula's Fancy, my line of gluten-free treats yesterday. Now that I have a state-certified home kitchen (glad that I could finally put to use that background in culinary and food manufacturing) I'm working on developing a line of products that people with wheat intolerance, allergies, and celiac can enjoy. For the next few weeks I'll be trying out different products at the Russell's Farmers Market in Wayland (the market runs from 10-1 pm) at the Karma Coffee booth.

Since this is a brand new endeavor, I'm trying to learn as much as I can from customers about what they want and don't want. The runaway hit seemed to be the gluten-free fruit tarts, made with my tart dough and summer raspberry preserves.

Oats seem to be a real sticking point - some folks I spoke with were interested in oats as long as the oats are certified gluten-free. One customer asked if my facility was certified gluten-free. The answer - until I manufacture at a dedicated bakery- is no. I bake as cleanly as possible using dedicated pans and ovens on dedicated baking days (I do not bake anything with wheat flour on days when I am baking gluten-free, and the kitchen is thoroughly cleaned before I begin baking on gluten-free days; additionally I store my gluten-free ingredients in a closed area that cannot be contaminated by wheat).

For those who don't know me, I cut my teeth in gluten-free, allergy-friendly food manufacturing when I worked for Enjoy Life in Chicago. I'm a pastry chef by training and for the last year and a half have been developing gluten-free recipes I can live with. I've been pretty disappointed with the quality of gluten-free baked goods on the market and want to offer an alternative that both tastes good and is slightly better for you than the average baked good. Gluten-free often looks great (anything made with combinations of 'white' flours like rice, corn, potato and tapioca) but lacks great flavor or texture. I won't sell anything that doesn't taste good to me first. And I'm kind of picky.

When I bake, I use a combination of whole-grain flours: teff, buckwheat, coconut, brown rice, and tapioca round out my baking mix. I NEVER use flours made from soy, potato, corn or sorghum in my baking, either because of nutritional issues (corn, potato), digestibility issues (sorghum), or allergy issues (soy). I make my own vanilla extract from vanilla beans and rum (distilled and always gluten-free), make my own fruit jam fillings, use organic ingredients where ever possible, I mostly use organic rapadura (evaporated cane juice) for sweetness and avoid processed sugar. I use a gluten-free baking powder (made, unfortunately, with potato starch) and use Enjoy Life's soy-free chocolate chips.

If you click through this blog, you'll find recipes for many of the things I bake and sell. I urge you to try baking for yourself at home. There's nothing better than home-made baked goods!

Is Big Food similar to Big Tobacco? Two researchers think the answer is yes.

(Twitter, considered by some to be 'the worst thing ever', sometimes brings vital research to the attention of many. Today, Marion Nestle posted this piece, which links to an important article by Brownell and Warner published recently in the Milbank Quarterly. Having worked in Big Food for 4 years -and hating almost every minute of it - I have been waiting for something like this article for a long time. Thank you Marion!).

I've been getting frustrated with ranting websites and blogs sounding the alarm about the vast conspiracy engineered by shadowy companies manufacturing products consumers buy every day in supermarkets, restaurants, and anywhere else food is sold. Most of the rants are, in general, nothing more than lazy coded shorthand, sloganeering and repetition of anti-big food conventional wisdom, painting big food as a monolith  (when it is, in fact, an exceptionally fragmented industry), working against consumers and public health. Information is gleaned largely from bestsellers, films, and other websites and reflect little research, experience, or genuine understanding.

Don't get me wrong - I'm no big food apologist. I don't eat processed food and haven't since I learned how to cook as a teenager. But there's one thing I can't stand -   the knee-jerk syndication of information that fits in well with that particular website's/blogger's world view. Slogans and alarmism have replaced good information - on both sides of the Big Food fight.  Even Nick Kristof of the New York Times wrote something about it on 3/19/09 in his Op-Ed in the New York Times. This passage, in particular, I found particularly resonant:

...there’s pretty good evidence that we generally don’t truly want good information — but rather information that confirms our prejudices. We may believe intellectually in the clash of opinions, but in practice we like to embed ourselves in the reassuring womb of an echo chamber.

Later in the piece he states:

The result is polarization and intolerance.

A good example of an important Food Industry report few on the Big Food side will never read (and likely dismiss out of hand based solely on the title) is  The perils of ignoring history: Big Tobacco played dirty and millions died.  How similar is Big Food? a fascinating piece of research and analysis by Kelly Brownell (of Yale) and Kenneth Warner (of the University of Michigan). The comparison between food and tobacco, already 'rejected''**  by the American Dietic Association as "not valid", is presented in a compelling manner by the two researchers, who have taken great pains to show from history and present example, how there are truly similarities between the two industries.

Let's make something clear. No one is saying food is tobacco, especially not Brownell and Warner. Food is a necessity, tobacco is a choice. Food is vital to sustain life, tobacco is not. Tobacco almost always leads to illness and death (my dad, a smoker, died from lung cancer at age 65). Food can, but it isn't inevitable or necessarily probable (though with 2/3rds of the US population currently overweight and the rates for children rising THREE times the rate for adults, it is indicated in more and more obesity-related diseases). Tobacco is clearly addictive. Food may be - the research is just beginning.  But in the tactics adopted by major food corporations in the fragmented food industry, from ingredients suppliers (ADM, Cargill, Bunge, Monsanto etc) to consumer packaged goods companies (General Mills, Sara Lee, Kraft, Nestle, Unilever, Pepsi Co, Coca-Cola etc) to the foodservice industry (McDonalds, Yum Brands, Burger KIng etc), to supermarket chains (Albertson's, Kroger, Publix, etc) the resemblance is uncanny. Obesity, the epidemic responsible for surging rates of metabolic disorder and diabetes, can be seen as a direct result of these tactics, which include but are not limited to advertising and other messaging ('push' strategies), lobbying, influencing scientific research, and flat-out denial of responsibility.

The paper highlights these details and elaborates - over nearly 30 pages - how big food has played a major role in the oversupply and the overfeeding of the consumer and how the tactics - legal challenges, PR campaigns, lobbying, and the publication of seemingly empathic recognition of the problems they are responsible for and the steps they are taking to make amends -  favored by different trade associations representing different constituents of the big food universe (National Restaurant Association, FMI, GMA and all of the industry specific associations such as the Corn Refiners Association and the Sugar Association etc) look astonishingly like those used by Big Tobacco.

The article points out that if American consumers were to eat a healthy number of calories (ie equal to or slightly less than what they need per day), these food companies would stand to lose a huge amount of revenue. It is not in these companys' best interest - and, most importantly, in the interest of their shareholders - to see consumers turning away from cheap calorie-laden snacks and processed foods and turn toward healthier, fresh, and home-made alternatives.The bottom-line consequences would be huge, paradigm-shifting disruptions.

Brownell and Warner point out the defensive 'playbook' utilized by the different constituents of the big food universe who are fighting to justify their existence. The basics of their strategy, which look remarkably similar to Big Tobacco's, include (page 7):

• Focus on personal responsibilty as the cause of the nation's unhealthy diet.
• Raise fears that government action usurps personal freedom.
• Villify critics with totalitarian language, characterizing them as the food police, leaders of a nanny state, and even as "food fascists", and accuse them of desiring to strip people of their civil liberties.
• Criticize studies that hurt industry as "junk science".
• Emphasize physical activity over diet.
• State there are no good or bad foods; hence no food or food type (soft drinks, fast food, etc) should be targeted for change.
• Plant doubt when concerns are raised about the industry.

The food industry has become a propaganda machine, adopting similar tactics as psy-ops and totalitarian states, leafletting our cities and towns with their own planted 'truths". With enough fly-overs and dumping of information designed to deflect attention from their products and methods and refocus it on personal responsibility, obesity no longer becomes their problem.

At my former employer, I worked with our company nutritionist and our R&D team on new products. When Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food came out, I copied a few choice sections and sent them to these people. When I approached them later, their response was not dissimilar to the #3 response above, "vilify critics with totalitarian language, characterizing them as food police." There was no self-reflection or a glimmer of contrition.

Nothing was getting through. 

Later, at an all-company meeting, the CEO made a speech about how we were now in the healthy food market, thanks to a few products we already manufactured that were naturally low in calories and some new products that were 'healthy' versions of existing products. Some had reduced salt, even.

I realized that I was mostly alone at my company, an industry player that - thankfully - never marketed to children but that was as responsible as any for manufacturing foods that emphasized taste and flavor and cheapness over quality and healthfulness. They hypocrisy of our organization - touting a few "healthy products" while flourishing from sales of the unhealthy ones - made me ill. While my product lines were less stomach churning (I worked on products that customers had requested), I was still contributing to a company that profited from the manufacture and marketing of foods I didn't believe in or would ever eat.

I was the hypocrite.

I was pushing the cause of real food privately while publicly supporting the food I hated and spent my life rallying against.

I witnessed the tactics, the press releases, the backroom discussions of how we were going to work on products that had a 'health halo' so that the company image would benefit. I witnessed conversations that sounded an awful lot like this: "yes, we could make (healthy product x) but our consumers wouldn't want it, and our brand is associated with indulgence."

How do you fight that kind of failure of confidence and cynicism? 

The sad part is that now that consumers have developed a taste for this kind of salty, fatty, crunchy, chewy, savory, sweet crap, they crave it. Weening the consumer of the bad food habit takes more than just an outpouring of outrage and public service announcements. It means fighting the propaganda machine with facts, with data, with real food that tastes great, with indisputable facts, with food pricing that reflects the reality of food costs - both real ingredient costs and long term impact costs. Consumers needs to push back. And change themselves. And stop believing everything they see and read and taste - especially when so much of it is part of strong PR efforts on the part of the individual companies, the industry associations, and their hired agencies.

I don't really do justice to Brownell and Warner's research and article, which concludes by urging the food industry to change its tactics and approach to avoid the same fate as Big Tobacco and to help reverse the rapid decline in health caused by the obesity epidemic.

I urge you to read the article, as It is one of the best researched and informed pieces I've read on the subject and provides a lot of food for thought. It reawakened in me a sense both of urgency and anger at an industry that has, for the last 14 years, in one way or another, been my meal ticket.

**The ADA wrote in its rebuttal to the piece:

“When it comes to public health, we have to focus on synergy,” said [ADA President Martin] Yadrick. “…Food labels, trans fat substitutions and many other recent changes have come about because everyone worked together and I think all those involved in these changes recognize that.”

"In this regard, [the ADA's President's] views were broadly resonant with those expressed by the Grocery Manufacturers Association regarding industry’s efforts to move towards healthier formulations. The GMA said that industry had reformulated over 10,000 healthier products and would continue to play its part in tackling obesity."

I worked for a company 'reformulating' many hundreds of its SKUs to be 'healthier'. Truth was, our products were still unhealthy, but they had taken the trans fat out. Portions were the same, as was the sugar content  and overall fat content. If that's what passes for healthly these days, we should be very worried about industry associations and lobbyists. Many members of the ADA are corporate nutritionists who work in the best interest of their company, not public health. Further, the ADA's annual meeting features a trade show featuring these same company's booths - showing off 100 calorie packs, whole grain products, and their healthy/organic brands. The ADA would hate to lose sponsorship or piss off its most powerful members.

So I'm tweeting. Sorta.

Add me to your feed!

http://twitter.com/cakeandcommerce

Tomatoes at the Farmers Market Simulacrum*, San Francisco

*Ferry Plaza. Ick. Its the Disneyworld for the sustainable set.

Illinois State Legislature in the Pocket of the Liquor Distributors, Local Vintners, Brewers and their Ilk...Including the Supreme Court. Argh!

I'm spitting mad...beside myself...pissed off...and fed up. But there's little I can do, or anyone, when it comes to being compliant with a ruling of the Supreme Court. A ruling which seems to limit states' rights to some degree....

For years Illinois was one of the few states that accepted shipments from liquor stores, wineries, wine clubs with little to no restriction. It was a 'state with reciprocity' meaning (according to the Wine Institute):

Reciprocity is a legislative concept whereby each state is approached to enter into an agreement of terms for shipping wine to consumers. Reciprocity requires the legislative cooperation of other states to recognize a two-way shipment privilege. Legislation can restrict the shipment privilege, making it available only to wineries in both states, to wineries and retailers in both states, etc. Further, legislation can attempt to restrict the privilege only to wine, table wine, table wine and sparkling wine, etc. In its simplest form, a reciprocal law says “a winery in your state can ship to a consumer in my state, only if a winery in my state can ship to a consumer in your state." The reciprocal state category is now shrinking as more states transition to limited direct / permit status. For now though, this means that only wineries in another reciprocal state can ship into the reciprocal states. A winery in a prohibited state wouldn't be able to ship into a reciprocal state. The Supreme Court last May ruled that this is a violation of interstate commerce law - this is why we are moving away from these and towards more permit states.

Well, on June 4th, Illinois House Bill 429 passed by a vote of 92-6...The bill prevents any out-of-state entity from shipping into Illinois without a state-issued permit. It also requires adult signatures on shipments of alcohol. Did the lawmakers vote yes because of the signature issue -- did they think that someone would say, "representative x is all for underaged drinking because they didn't support 429"?

The bill was sponsored by Rep Edward Acevedo (Chicago) and amended by Rep Lou Lang, 16th District (Skokie). He's worked on some 'protectionist' legislation before. This google search shows his involvement in a few other bills that were ugly, but not nearly as ugly, as this one.

This article explains some of the legislation and even includes some completely delusional quotes from Lou Lang.

Here's what the article says the bills allows:

House Bill 429 is a product of nearly two years of negotiations among Illinois and out-of-state wineries, liquor distributors and Illinois retailers, said Rep. Edward Acevedo, D-Chicago, sponsor of the bill. The legislation would allow Illinois and out-of-state wineries producing up to 25,000 gallons of wine per year to ship directly to consumers under a winery shipper's license. However, retailers from other states would not be able to ship wine to Illinois consumers legally.

And here's what Lou Lang says, quite mysteriously:

“You will be able to buy any wine you want from any winery in the world,” said Rep. Lou Lang, D-Skokie. “Consumers will now have a wider variety of choice, particularly over the Internet, from buying directly from the wineries.”

Meanwhile, the rep from Evanston, Julie Hamos, paints a different picture:

“You are no longer going to be able to buy wine from a retailer, or no longer going to be able to buy wine from a broker, or no longer going to be able to buy wine from an auction house (out of state),” Hamos said. “You're no longer going to be able to buy wine on the Internet from any of those other entities that don't happen to be wineries. This is not the way we should be going in the era of the Internet.”

One of the groups supporting the law published a press release. Here's one of the less-biased paragraphs:

Under HB 429, wineries are permitted to ship up to 12 cases of wine per person per year after obtaining a winery shipper's license. It also requires winery shippers to agree to Illinois regulatory jurisdiction and pay Illinois' excise and sales taxes. The legislation also includes safeguards to prevent shipments to underage individuals and gives the Liquor Control Commission the power to conduct Internet stings and revoke the license of violators. In addition, it allows small wineries both in-state and out-of-state that produces less than 25,000 gallons of wine per year to sell up to 5,000 gallons of their wines per year directly to retailers as a means to develop a market presence.

Just reading the above makes me queasy! So even the teeny-tiny wineries must have a legit Illinois license to ship into state. Please tell me which winery producing no more than 10,700 cases per year is going to apply for an Illinois license to ship in a few lousy cases? The whole thing is absurdly protectionist...why are state vintners, retailers, brewers, etc afraid of out-of-state vintners, retailers, and brewers shipping product to individual consumers? What is going on here?

And another thought...

The reason auction houses, brokers, and retailers exist is to sell wine that, in many cases, cannot be purchased directly from the winery. Some wineries are not set up to sell to consumers, and many do not have rare or sold out vintages available. A prohibition buying from large wineries (if they produce over 10,700 cases, they're big, according to the definition of the bill) makes this bill even more suspect. This is not a 'pro-winery, anti-auction house, broker, retailer' law, this is a law to protect the mammoth distributors who maintain a firm lock on what gets into the state. The under 10,700 cases is a concession to the wealthy and a small number of vocal collectors who insist that their purchase of uber-allocated wines does not threaten the distributors.

Now the bill is off to the senate. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, but I have little faith in them. Perhaps I can buy off my state senator with a nice meal or a magnum of Harlan Estate?

Click here for a run-down on state shipping laws from the Wine Institute.

Click here for a view of an excellent map detailing state laws, with definitions.

Hey Ethicureans and Sustainable-types: Big Business is on to you, and it ain't pretty

It was only a matter of time before marketing/research consultants to the packaged goods industry figured it all out. Yep, thanks to the Hartman Group, CPGs (consumer packaged goods manufacturers, like Kraft and SC Johnson and Unilever and P&G and Nestle) can actually strategize about how to give their products a 'Brand Halo' around sustainability.

From data gathered from a qualitative and quantitative study of the Organics market, the Hartman group has outlined the pros and cons of developing a 'halo' around consumer products. You need to read this article.

Here's the Hartman Group's take on growth in the awareness of 'sustainable' grown or manufactured goods (all material copyright The Hartman Group):

We believe, as interest in sustainability grows, we will see the following happen:

• The distinction will continue to dilute as it comes to mean many more things to many people.
• Nearly every company or product can and will produce a sustainability narrative (i.e., anybody can be "green").
• Simply designating your product as sustainable or "environmentally friendly" will do little to differentiate your brand or drive a brand halo.
• Only a tiny percentage of very core consumers will even be interested in adjudicating between competing sustainability narratives to identify the most authentic sustainable products or services.
• While there always remains the possibility for product and service brands to achieve a sustainable halo, we believe it will likely be easier for retailers, especially food retailers, as they can more easily tap into the "local food" angle.

Get it, get it? There's no point, really, for CPGs to go down the sustainable path because the only barrier to entry for competitors is the cost of raw materials. Additionally it will likely never be as mainstream in understanding as it needs to be to generate the kind of sales a large company would be interested in. So lets see, if cost of entry is high and there's not necessarily an early mover advantage, and it only really make sense for retailers, wouldn't it make sense for the big CPGs to do nothing?

No. Not at all.

As the largest consumers of raw food materials, the CPGs owe it to the consumer (and, to an equal extent, the planet) to develop and maintain sustainable sources of ingredients and raw materials. Every small change they make has a large incremental impact on the type of agriculture done, the pesticides used, and the health of the planet. Since I'm just conjecturing and not using research, I don't have data to back this up, but it seems obvious - sustainable agriculture/products emphasis a polyglot approach to farming and production, which will have less of a negative impact on agriculture than the monoculture - and big organics - are having today. I'm taking a page out of the Omnivore's Dilemma (on organic monoculture and big agriculture) but it makes sense that the larger the buyer of a certain commodity, the bigger the impact a switch to a less damaging form of agriculture will have.

But there's hope for those still dreaming of a sustainability brand halo. The Hartman group advises:

1. There will always be a small number of successful entrepreneurs able to generate a sustainability halo through very specific, often technical, innovations. The Toyota Prius would be an example here. While there is no question that this is a desirable space, the fact that it requires groundbreaking innovation is a significant obstacle to those interested in simply offering "sustainable" versions of existing products or services.

2. Curiously, the more conventional pathway toward a sustainability halo may not necessarily even require many of the attributes one might otherwise imagine are necessary to craft such a halo. Our recent research reveals that firms currently generating a sustainability halo have managed this task by generating several key consumer perceptions that can be grouped loosely under the rubric "good person." Companies included in the top ten list consumers most often associate with social AND environmental responsibility include Whole Foods Market, Trader Joe's, Starbucks and Wild Oats.

OK CPG company folk, let me summarize: Sustainability is more than just a line extension. It is a commitment, not to be taken lightly or discontinued when costs run too high and your shareholders are complaining at your annual meeting. And in case you think you are going to be credible just because you have the right products, think again. Look at Wal-Mart and all they've done with organics in their stores (and, adversely, diluting the meaning of organics). Yet because of their labor practices, no matter what they stock, they will always be reviled by consumers who care about more than just 'stuff'. 'People' is part of the equation too.

End of rant.

The SuperFan! What do Americans eat?

Have you ever come across something so incredible it leaves you speechless? Something so incredible, but due to resource constraints you can never experience it again?

That's how I felt the other day when I was visiting Burger King HQ and came across a book called, more or less, "Two weeks in the life of a Superfan." What is was was a soft-bound book filled with color photos of food. A small group of SuperFans -- Burger King fanatics who include the restaurant as one of their regular meal stops -- were given cameras and told to photograph everything they ate for two weeks. It was unbelievable, and a telling look into the eating habits of a good portion of the US Population.

SuperFans were male and female and multicultural. Most were between 18-35. Some ate little Burger King, some ate none. All ate fast food several times a week. Some ate fast food multiple times a day. All shared a lack of knowledge about what 'good' food is. Breakfast was a handful of Skittles, breakfast cereal, a glass of soy milk. Some pages of the book were almost empty - an indication that the participant had eaten almost nothing that day. Other pages were full - detailing every snack and meal eaten from morning until night. Some photos were disgusting, others funny - bites taken out of a bagel and photographed, a cookie bitten and placed back on a plate.

Each SuperFan had a section all to him or herself, along with a polaroid and a brief description of her background. The header of each page for any given section had the participants name and her age and demographic.

This was, without a doubt, one of the most interesting books I have ever seen on American eating habits. Although it contains almost no text or analysis, it is a valuable piece of cultural commentary and a document that would benefit nutritionists as a window into behavior that is only growing worse, not better, with increased choice around food.

Unfortunately the book is privately published by Burger King and will likely never be seen outside the tower. If you can get your hands on this book, it is, without a doubt, one of the most enlightening reads you will have on the subject of food.

File under bad, bad idea

So you've got a good thing going. You've been selling 'em like crazy, advertising 'em on your billboard for the last year, and by your account they've been flying out the door, despite their, uh, questionable name. So why issue a press release? A press release! You gotta be wanting some publicity, or have a death wish, or both.

"Ghetto Fries" are all over the news in Chicago right now. Apparently they've been on the menu at Max's Famous Italian Beef for over a year now, but a brand-spanking new press release has only just started making the rounds. And pissing people off. The fries, a combination of -- what else-- french fries, cheddar, giardiniera, gravy, barbecue sauce and raw onions. You wouldn't find me within a mile of the place, but I guess that's why I only just heard about it today.

Mark Brown, a columnist at the Sun-Times, wrote about the origin of the name and the controversy in an article published today:

"One of those workers [at Max's], whose nickname was Ghetto Girl, became so enamored with the cheese-giardiniera-gravy-barbecue sauce-onion concoction that she ate it every day as her main meal. Ghetto Fries, he said, were named after her. Eventually, the employees prevailed upon Estes to put it on the menu.

"It's been flying out the doors ever since," Estes said. "The rest is history.""

And now, almost March '06, the sign is still up. Eh.