The duo hang a beef leg from a rail, and follow the meat’s natural seams to separate the bottom round from the rest of the leg.
“I think the only reason to talk about the bottom round is for making roast beef,” says Brent. “The bottom round is not a steak, it’s a roast, hence roast beef. It has much thicker muscle grain, so it needs to be cooked at a lower temperature for a longer period of time in order for it to actually be somewhat tender.”
The two then heavily season the roast with salt, pepper, and fresh rosemary, and cure it for two days. They give it a blast of heat at the beginning to give the meat a nice crust, then cook it low and slow at 275 to 300 degrees for about three hours to keep it rare in the middle.
Once the roast beef is done, there’s only one thing left to do according to Ben: “This isn’t going on a charcuterie platter, let’s make some sandwiches.”
“They slather another layer of nacho cheese on their product and call it a new product. There’s something about that that’s similar to writing, metaphorically.”
Instead of taking CSA members’ cloth bags and returning them filled with fresh vegetables, farmers Jesse Frost and Hannah Crabtree delivered mid-April shares in plastic bags. And for the weekly farmers’ market in Lexington, Kentucky, they used smaller plastic bags to individually package their greens, which would normally be loose in bins for shoppers to reach into.
Single-use plastic doesn’t align with Rough Draft Farmstead’s commitment to environmentalism. But as they hustle to reinvent their business plan for 2020 while continuing to produce and sell food during a pandemic, they’ve had to adjust the hierarchy that determines their priorities, Frost said.
“Everything’s kind of been scrambled,” he said. “The first thing we have to do is figure out what our marketing approach is. Then, figure out what the distribution looks like. Then, we have to figure out how to keep all of those things sanitary.”
As farmers, farmers’ markets, grocery stores, and restaurants have all raced to confront a quickly reordered reality, the qualities that contributed to single-use plastic becoming such a ubiquitous problem over decades — it is incredibly cheap and convenient — are contributing to a resurgence in use. And it’s happening at a time when the recycling of plastic has been severely curtailed.
“I’m probably using more plastic from one grocery trip than I normally would in months,” said Abby K. Cannon, a Long Island-based nutritionist who also coaches clients on low-waste living.
While there is no evidence that the coronavirus is transmitted on food or that wrapping food in plastic is safer, all of the activities that surround the use of reusables — reaching, swapping, and sharing — are off limits. And throwing something away that came from outside the home and was touched by unknown hands simply feels safer.
Some grocery stores and counties have banned cloth bags, and more people are shopping for groceries online, which generally results in more plastic packaging. Farmers’ market tables are now stocked with vegetables pre-packed into plastic bags, and CSA pick-ups that were once self-serve now involve plastic bags inside larger plastic bags or boxes. In addition, coffee shops that used to give discounts for bringing cups from home have stopped allowing them.
In the midst of this, the plastics industry has stepped in to spread misinformation about the dangers of reusable bags and has successfully reversed plastic bag bans in some states and cities. And news came out this morning that plastics industry trade association is now asking for a $1 billion bailout from the U.S. government.
It’s clear that at the moment, concerns about the waste generated from single-use packaging, and especially plastic, in the food system will have to take a backseat to the immediate health, safety, and economic concerns that have arisen during the pandemic.
But activism to fight plastic waste during the pandemic persists: On April 22, a new documentary on the costs of plastic pollution premiered. And some say the temporary shift will be gradually worked out as we learn more about COVID-19 and the shape of the new economy — and that it could even lead to Americans asking deeper questions about sustainable habits.
Grocery store plastic and the campaign against reusables
Around the country, restrictions on reusable bags at grocery stores began to pick up steam as the coronavirus pandemic worsened.
The governor of New Hampshire banned reusable bags in the state in late March; San Francisco banned reusable bags in stores citywide at the beginning of April, and the state of California lifted a fee on plastic bags for two months at the end of April; and Maine delayed the implementation of a plastic bag ban that was set to go into effect in late April. Meanwhile, supermarket chains have implemented their own policies: Trader Joe’s, for example, is not allowing reusable bags at any of its locations.
While many of these policies sprung out of an abundance of caution, Mother Jonesrecently documented how the plastics industry and affiliated think tanks are attempting to use the momentum to reverse plastic bag bans around the country. To do so, they are spreading false information about the dangers of coronavirus on reusables and asking the federal government to back that misinformation.
“We are asking that the Department of Health and Human Services… make a public statement on the health and safety benefits seen in single-use plastics,” Tony Radoszewski, the president and CEO of the Plastics Industry Association, recently wrote in a letter to the Secretary of Health and Human Services. The federal government has not obliged, but the coordinated PR campaign has resulted in misleading news coverage, influenced public opinion, and led to local bans on reusable bags.
The strategy is nothing new: In the past, industry groups have funded studies that found bacteria on reusable bags. While scientists said the research merely pointed to the importance of washing bags, the industry has wielded it to fight plastic bag bans. In a new report, Greenpeace documents how exploiting concerns about COVID-19 is a continuation of a long-running misinformation campaign to overturn plastic bag bans.
However, expert after expert has detailed how there is no evidence that COVID-19 lives longer on cloth or cotton compared to plastic. (There have been no studies specifically on the coronavirus and reusable bags.) One study found the virus can live on plastic for a few days, versus 24 hours on cardboard. Overall, experts emphasize that the risk of contracting coronavirus from touching any bag is very low, and that most transmission occurs from breathing in particles when in close proximity to other people.
Still, at a time when more deaths of grocery workers are being reported, it makes sense to take every precaution to minimize contact with shoppers. Some stores, like Target and Mom’s Organic Markets, are doing this not by banning reusable bags, but by requiring that shoppers bag their own groceries.
At Whole Foods, Long Island nutritionist Cannon normally does most of her shopping by filling her own containers in the bulk section. But the first time she hit the supermarket after the shelter-in-place order had been issued in New York, she couldn’t bring herself to handle the shared scoops. “It made me afraid,” she said. “Right now, I’d much prefer to get something prepackaged. I don’t trust other people washing their hands, or even myself and my bags.”
Plastic is also having a moment thanks to an increase in grocery delivery. A recent Pew Research Center survey found that one in five adults in the U.S. say they’ve used a “food delivery service” instead of going to a grocery store or restaurant, due to COVID-19.
On a recent afternoon, a delivery person, wearing plastic gloves and a disposable mask, carried about 15 plastic grocery bags from her van to a Baltimore, Maryland rowhouse and crammed them into the vestibule. Even companies like Whole Foods that deliver orders in paper bags often package individual food items inside those bags — like a bunch of bananas — in plastic. Grocery delivery relied on plastic before the pandemic, but shoppers who would have grabbed an unwrapped bunch of bananas and used reusable bags before are now relying on it.
However, there are exceptions to the new tendency toward plastic. Brooklyn-based the Wally Shop, for example, applies bulk bin principles to online grocery, sending staple foods in reusable jars that shoppers send back to be cleaned and put back into circulation. In early April, the company opened up nationwide shipping for the first time and has been struggling to keep up with demand. In other words, many consumers are still okay with reusable packaging, it turns out, if social distancing is maintained.
“This is certainly a galvanizing moment of starting to take your food safety practices incredibly seriously [as a farmer], in the same way that we’re all suddenly doing so much better with not touching our faces and washing our hands,” Fraver said.
Some of those farm practices that are being adopted involve single-use plastic, like lining produce boxes with a new liner each time they’re reused (a practice that was already required for some farms) and using lots of throwaway gloves. “That is a little antithetical to a lot of the reasons we see people excited about farming from an ecological standpoint,” she said.
At farmers’ markets, “everything is more likely to be pre-bagged,” she said, and market-style CSA pick-ups that are especially popular on the East Coast are increasingly shifting to handing out pre-bagged or boxed shares. Some of these changes, Fraver noted, are being made to ease eaters’ concerns at a time when everyone is scared and reliable information on the virus is not always easy to find.
“It’s not just what is safe, it’s also what is perceived as safe,” she said. A good example is that while strict hand washing protocols can be more effective than wearing gloves (especially if gloves are not being utilized properly), farmers wearing gloves at markets send a visual signal to shoppers about preventative measures.
Fraver also noted that a lot of the increase in packaging is not about food or containers being contaminated with the virus, it’s about getting people out of markets and CSA pick-ups faster, since transmission is more likely to occur when individuals congregate.
Finding creative solutions to plastic bags
Farmer Michael Protas of One Acre Farm in Dickerson, Maryland, was worried about that issue at his four CSA pick-up sites, which in past years have been executed market-style, with members bringing their own produce bags and totes to walk down a line while grabbing their food. “On Capitol Hill, we had 40 families that would come into a smallish garage … and that’s not gonna fly at the moment,” he said.
Protas had always provided compostable BioBags for members who forgot their reusables, but switching to a pre-packaged system meant a major increase in the number of bags he’d need. “We’re gonna be flying through these things,” he said. He knew that would be cost prohibitive and that other small farms in the region were likely facing the same dilemma.
Instead of switching to much cheaper plastic bags, he proposed organizing a bulk purchase with other farmers in the Mid-Atlantic. Local nonprofit Future Harvest helped organize the endeavor, and 13 farms signed on; Protas placed an order for 27 cases of produce bags and 13 cases of T-shirt bags for the farms to use throughout the coming season.
More markets and farmers will figure out creative solutions as they gain confidence about safety and are able to calibrate to new systems. “Things are changing so dramatically and fast,” Frost said.
At Rough Draft Farmstead, he sees space in the future to place bulk orders for boxes or paper bags or to reconsider reusable cloth bags. “We hope as the season goes on and we learn more about how the virus is transmitted, we can make decisions that keep us safe and the customers safe,” he said.
It’s the kind of push-and-pull decision making that nutritionist Cannon said is necessary right now. While she’s alarmed (but not surprised) by industry efforts to reverse bag bans, for most individuals producing, shopping for, and eating food, cutting back on single-use packaging waste just might not be possible for a while.
That doesn’t mean Americans are putting their concerns about the environment aside. In fact, Kearney, a consulting firm, released the results of a new consumer survey on Earth Day. Nearly half of the respondents said the pandemic had made them more concerned about the environment. Fifty-nine percent said they are likely to use reusable shopping bags in the future; the biggest plans for future behavioral shifts that respondents reported were to decline plastic utensils and buy food in bulk.
For now, Cannon is focusing on other aspects of sustainable living. “I was crazy about food waste before, but it’s next-level now. If something is going to go bad, it goes in the freezer, or I’m repurposing it and we’re eating it. We’re shopping less. We’re working from home and not getting food on the go; we’re not driving,” she said. “I will be able to go back to bulk buying [at some point], I’m confident in that. But I think what this has made me realize is the conversation is about so much more than plastic and how I shop for food.”
While learning to bake her own bread, signing up for a CSA to support local agriculture, and changing her three-month-old’s cloth diapers, Cannon is thinking about self-sufficiency. “I hope that at the end of this, people are more mindful and are more open to having conversations about what it means to be sustainable,” she said. “Right now, everything is very stressful, and things are going to come in plastic.”
In most states, SNAP recipients aren’t allowed to use their benefits for hot meals from restaurants. The SNAP CARRY Act wants to change that.
opoIn an effort to help both food-insecure Americans and the struggling restaurant industry during the COVID-19 pandemic, Senator Chis Murphy (D-Connecticut) and Representative Jimmy Panetta (D-California) will propose legislation to allow Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients to use their food benefits to purchase food from restaurants. Currently, provisions restrict most SNAP recipients to purchasing cold foods and ingredients; advocates for changing the program have long argued that the policy discriminates against those unable to cook and unnecessarily polices food choice.
“We have these twin crises: People are going hungry, and restaurants are going under,” says Sen. Murphy. “You address two problems with one simple, temporary change in law.”
An existing SNAP Restaurant Meal Program (RMP) has existed since the ’70s, and already allows homeless, elderly, or disabled people — populations more likely to face barriers to cooking — to use their food-assistance benefits to buy prepared meals from restaurants and stores. But currently, just three states, California, Rhode Island, and Arizona, participate in the voluntary program. Sen. Murphy and Rep. Panetta’s legislation would expand that existing system to cover all SNAP recipients during a nationally declared disaster or public health emergency, such as this one.
Murphy and Panetta plan to introduce the legislation, known as the SNAP COVID-19 Anti-Hunger Restaurant Relief for You Act of 2020, or the SNAP CARRY Act, at the next legislative session, which could be called as soon as next week. “I think we have to pull out all the stops to make sure people don’t go hungry right now,” says Murphy.
RMP has actually been the focus of expansion efforts since well before the COVID-19 crisis: California, Illinois, and Maryland all passed recent laws to allow RMP expansion to all SNAP recipients. But those states still need — and haven’t received — permission from the USDA to expand the program, and under the Trump administration, the department has appeared more interested in restricting SNAP benefits than expanding them.
In a letter on April 2, Sen. Murphy called on USDA director Sonny Perdue to expand RMP participation to all SNAP recipients until the end of the COVID-19 emergency. So has the Western Center on Law and Poverty, which has advocated for SNAP RMP expansion for over a decade. But the USDA hasn’t budged. “It’s a failure to lead in a time of crisis,” says Jessica Bartholow, a WCLP policy advocate.
Now Murphy and Panetta hope to legislate the solution. The National Restaurant Association, the National Council of Chain Restaurants, and Congressional Hunger Center have all expressed support. “This is a private-public partnership that works,” says Bartholow. “We have food rotting in restaurants and workers that want to work and can’t.”
SNAP CARRY would only apply to states, and restaurants, that opt into it. To sign on, a restaurant would need to offer a low-cost meal option, sign a Memorandum of Understanding with the state or county, and be equipped with a point-of-sale system that can process EBT transactions.
Critics of RMP expansion have often expressed concerns about SNAP recipients using benefits on unhealthy items like fast food. “I think there’s been some hesitancy in the past because the worry was only chain restaurants with fairly unhealthy menus would participate,” Murphy says. “But during this time, you’ll have a line of restaurants that want to be a part of this program.”
More food options could also relieve pressure on grocery stores and keep supply chains running smoothly, says representative Panetta. “It’s really killing three birds with one stone — because our restaurants get their fresh fruits and agriculture locally, and so it’s helping our farmers.”
The ingredients and production of Cheez Balls and Dunkaroos are murky, but these snacks retain a nostalgic pull for anyone who ate junk food in the ’90s
“It’s one part nostalgia, one part pure love for cheddar-dusted corn snacks,” says Lindsay DiMarcello, a 29-year-old freelance editor and proofreader, of Planters Cheez Balls, the gumball-sized puffed corn snack in a blue canister. “I remember being very small and sitting under a coffee table in my living room that was right next to a heater vent, and eating a whole can.”
In 2006, Planters discontinued the snack, and in 2014, DiMarcello published a petition on Change.org called “Bring back Planters Cheez Balls and P.B. Crisps!” It received 818 signatures, a reasonably small response. One day, during the summer of 2018, she opened the front door of her home in Oaks, Pennsylvania, to a camera crew recording her.
She had nearly forgotten about the petition by then, but when she saw a peanut-shaped trailer parked in her driveway and someone in a full-body Mr. Peanut costume, she figured it out: Planters, the nut brand owned by the Kraft Heinz food conglomerate, was bringing back the snack. The Planters marketing team had gotten in touch with her boyfriend, who helped plan the surprise visit to coincide with the relaunch.
“I still desperately miss P.B. Crisps. It sucks that didn’t happen,” says DiMarcello.
“There is a bit of a nostalgic halo to the brand,” says Samantha Hess, brand manager at Kraft Heinz; compared to other bright orange cheese powder-dusted corn puffs on the market, she believes Cheez Balls excels. Around since the late 1970s, the product was most popular in the ’80s and ’90s, she explains, and that’s why Kraft Heinz marketed the relaunch as a throwback to the ’90s. It was shelved in the mid-2000s as part of an effort by the company to refocus on its core products: nuts. The look and taste of the snack have been carefully preserved to assure customers that it’s the same product they remember. The only noticeable difference is a burst on the canister that reads: “It’s Back.”
Cheez Balls are not the only ’90s snack food to reappear. The Coca-Cola Company reintroduced its discontinued soda Surge in 2014, also employing a ’90s nostalgia marketing strategy. General Mills recently announced Dunkaroos will return this year, writing on its blog, “’90s kids now have a new reason to rejoice.” The kangaroo-shaped cookies in a plastic tray with a pool of frosting for dipping, which were available in the U.S. from 1990 to 2012, had received shout-outs from Kim Kardashian West, Chrissy Teigen, and Lilly Singh.
With today’s ’90s kids in their late 20s and 30s, big food makers are tapping into deep reserves of childhood brand recognition for their “new” items. “It costs a lot of money to introduce and market new products, so you see a lot of repackaging and re-introductions of old stuff that was successful,” says Michael Moss, author of Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us, which explores the ways that big food companies have engineered snack foods to be addictive.
But, like Bill and Ted thrust into another era, many totally, righteously ’90s snacks are an odd fit for a consumer base that increasingly demands more healthful and wholesome foods. Moss describes a divergence in thinking among the biggest food companies that took place around 2017. Confronted with declining sales, as more people became concerned with what they were eating, some packaged food companies resolved to sell more good-for-you products, or at least the illusion of that.
“But then you saw another part of the industry that was like, screw that, there’s always going to be a few million people who are just in it for the craving and the fix,” says Moss. These companies chose to double down on junk food. “That’s why you’re seeing products that pretend to be healthy and others that have no pretense at all — it’s just pure junk food.”
Today, though, these cheap-calorie snacks sit beside plenty of alternatives that tout their healthful virtues. Could nostalgia give them an edge? Troubled since almost the day the two food giants merged in 2015, Kraft Heinz appears to be gambling on that approach with its Cheez Balls comeback campaign. And General Mills, a conglomerate whose biggest business, breakfast cereals, is in the midst of a long and well-publicized sales decline, might be testing a parachute with its Dunkaroos revival. Forget the healthful hyperbole. Forget the barnyard imagery and “Harvest Cheddar” flavor names, even. This time, going back in time to a simpler place means forgetting everything you ever learned about high-fructose corn syrup.
“One of the addictive properties of a cheese puff is when you put it in your mouth and press your tongue onto the roof of your mouth, the puff dissolves because it gets half of its calories from fat,” says Moss.
In food manufacturing, this phenomenon is called “vanishing caloric density”: the notion that when a food is so light that it requires little chewing, the brain doesn’t signal that you are overeating.
Then there’s “dynamic contrast” — essentially, exciting variations in textures and colors, as with Oreo cookies or Dunkaroos. This, says Moss, is just how humans are wired: “The brain loves information for information’s sake, so the more ways you can excite the brain, the better.” According to some studies, Moss says, people — like animals — are attracted to bright colors when shopping for food; this is something that the food industry discovered way back in the 1950s and ’60s. “Which is why the grocery store, when you walk in, you’re just faced with neon colors,” he says.
“If you look at the space these products take up in a supermarket, it’s evident they’ve got a hold on our brains,” says Mark Schatzker, author of The Dorito Effect.
Much of the appeal of junk food items comes from the natural and artificial flavorings added to them. In the flavor labs Schatzker has visited, scientists work to reproduce the chemical compounds in certain real foods to add to food products. The problem with engineering brilliant flavors, he says, is creating an addictive snack out of a morsel that you wouldn’t otherwise want or need to eat much of. Like extruded cornmeal.
“They all kind of run on the same formula, which is a processed carb with flavor powder on it,” says Schatzker of cheese-coated corn-based snacks. “It’s hard to stop eating them because they’re engineered to be continued to be eaten.”
Despite the scientific precision of the nutritional information printed on food packaging, it can be almost impossible to understand what, exactly, many food products are. Or to visualize how they’re made. And few foods are less transparent than Cheez Balls and Dunkaroos; unlike potato chips, a cheese ball represents nothing organic, and with their uniform, molded shapes and plentiful packaging, Dunkaroos are emphatically not just-like-homemade. They’re a throwback to a time before artisanal, small-batch, and all-natural messaging would dominate labels, and meet-the-maker videos flourished.
Kraft Heinz declined to describe how Cheez Balls are made, and few people seem to wonder about their production. But it turns out that cheese curls, puffs, balls, and doodles were invented around 1939 by an animal feed manufacturer in Wisconsin, as Ernie Smith explored for Atlas Obscura. When a grinder jammed, an employee ran some wet corn through the machinery and discovered that it puffed up while exiting the grinder. He seasoned the corn, and the resulting snack was eventually called Korn Kurls. According to the University of Wisconsin, employees of the animal feed company continued to experiment with frying techniques and flavorings, like cheese powder.
Extruded cornmeal-based snacks are everywhere now. And they’re not just snacks; biodegradable packing peanuts, made from cornstarch or other edible, food-based starches, are created using the same kind of process with high-heat extruders. A representative for Puffy Stuff, a biodegradable packing peanut company, told me on the phone that they’re entirely edible. “We joke around and we eat them,” she said. I’ll admit to letting one or two of these things dissolve in my mouth, too. And if you break apart a cornstarch-based packing peanut and smell the inside, it will remind you of a cheese curl.
“In the ’80s and ’90s there was an explosion of processed food,” says Kristin Lawless, a nutritionist and author of Formerly Known as Food: How the Industrial Food System Is Changing Our Minds, Bodies, and Culture. Behind the shift in supermarket shelves was a significant change in industrial farming. Around this time, Monsanto, founded as a chemical company, began stepping up its efforts in biotechnology, producing corn and soy along with pesticides to control them. Corn and soy, Lawless explains, “are the backbone ingredients of all processed foods.”
Just as this year’s relaunch of Planters Cheez Balls required elaborate marketing efforts, these products were heavily advertised to their target audience. As processed corn- and soy-based products proliferated in the ’90s, Saturday morning cartoons were bookended by commercials for a wacky range of foods marketed to children — like bouncing cartoon kangaroo-shaped cookies. And the boom in processed food followed an increase in advertising focused on African-American consumers during the ’70s.
“With the rise of more ethnic market research firms and advertising agencies, the big companies, like Quaker Oats and General Mills, really concentrated on promoting the use of convenience foods for traditional, black cuisine and encouraging the consumption of packaged foods,” says Marcia Chatelain, author of Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America. Because African Americans tend to have less access to health care and fewer choices in the marketplace for quality groceries, on top of the stresses caused by racism, says Chatelain, they’ve been particularly impacted by this kind of eating.
Before the 2000s, most people had never heard of GMOs. Americans had no way of knowing whether they were eating trans fats, let alone that they were bad for you and would eventually be banned. Eric Schlosser hadn’t written Fast Food Nation and Michael Pollan hadn’t imbued omnivores with a best-selling dilemma. Millennials are definitely not the first generation with highly processed comfort foods — boomers have that unique honor. But during the ’90s, the processed food industry was on a serious modified food starch high.
She sees the reboots of Dunkaroos and Cheez Balls as a way of tapping into a shared memory or identity, and finding community around that. Given the performative aspect of tweeting about Dunkaroos or “liking” a Facebook group calling for the return of a discontinued snack, a nostalgic food can take on an almost meme-like quality. It’s less about making informed food choices than indulging in an escapist pleasure. “You are essentially excusing yourself from your general adult worries in life,” she says. But memes aren’t necessarily appetizing.
“To be honest, if I saw those in a store, I would probably point them out to my husband and be like, ‘Oh my god, remember Dunkaroos?’” Turow Paul says. “But I probably wouldn’t buy them.”
Nostalgia is a formidable, and some might say toxic, force that defines a large chunk of the U.S. restaurant industry, so it’s no surprise that packaged goods manufacturers are using this theme to sell their products, too. Perhaps the most famous food associated with nostalgia is the madeleine recalled in Marcel Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past. This singular, shell-shaped tea biscuit spurs a flurry of memories for the narrator. If, as the novel implies, everyone has their own madeleine memories — locked deep in the subconscious and accessible only with a certain key — perhaps we all have one food that succeeds above all others in triggering our memories. And maybe we should indulge in it from time to time, Red 40 and all.
Lindsay DiMarcello, who started the Cheez Balls petition, still loves dipping them in chocolate milkshakes, a habit she picked up as a kid. A dynamic contrast if there ever was, she says, the salty cheddar dust paired with sweet, cold chocolate ice cream is deliciously balanced.
But, she adds, “This also works great with Herr’s Cheese Curls.”
Cathy Erway is the author of The Food of Taiwan: Recipes From the Beautiful Island and The Art of Eating In: How I Learned to Stop Spending and Love the Stove.
After being laid off from his job at the Apparatus Room in downtown Detroit, Christopher Dybash found work at one of the few places hiring: the grocery store
Grocery delivery apps like Instacart are on a hiring spree amid booming demand. | Photo: Tada Images/Shutterstock
Plus, the comeback of community cookbooks, and other news to start the day
Grocery delivery apps like Instacart are reportedly turning a profit thanks to stay-at-home practices
As millions of people shelter at home during the coronavirus pandemic, demand for grocery delivery has exploded, with an estimated one-third of shoppers buying groceries online, according to a survey. Given this surge in demand, it should not be a surprise to learn that grocery delivery apps are benefiting. Instacart, which recently hired 300,000 additional workers and seeks to hire another 250,000 over the next two months, has reportedly seen its first profit this past month, as reported by the Information.
Per the Information, Instacart sold $700 million worth of groceries per week in the first two weeks of April, an increase of 450 percent from December. The company expects to make a net profit of $10 million in April, according to the report.
Instacart declined to comment on the reported numbers, telling Eater that the company “is squarely focused on safely serving its shoppers and customers in the wake of COVID-19.”
There’s no telling how long this kind of momentum will last, but even if demand naturally winds down, some customers will likely adopt the convenience of grocery deliveries permanently, Kris Holt points out in Forbes. That may be enough to make delivery apps like Instacart and Postmates thrive during this pandemic, even as independent restaurants and other parts of the economy are financially devastated, and as delivery workers face increased risk on the job. This period marks the start of “a new evolutionary stage of retail,” Derek Thompson writes for the Atlantic. Expect a great flattening: big companies and chains will survive, while the smaller businesses that define our neighborhoods face an uncertain future.
And in other news…
The growers, pickers, and packers who make up a major part of the food supply chain are essential workers — migrant farmworkers will still see their applications to work in the U.S. fast-tracked, despite President Trump’s temporary immigration suspension — but are receiving inadequate protection from the coronavirus. [The Atlantic]
Less than one-third of the world can feed itself from food grown within a 62-mile radius (a.k.a. grown locally), according to a new study. This means that disruptions in global trade could make it harder to feed populations that can’t rely on local crops. [Modern Farmer]
Penguin Random House is publishing a digital cookbook with recipes from some of the biggest names in cooking and food, from Samin Nosrat to Alison Roman to Christina Tosi. Proceeds from book sales will go to the Restaurant Workers’ COVID-19 Emergency Relief Fund. [The Takeout]
The return of community cookbooks, collections of home recipes from regular people. [NYT]
Simmons shares some of the cabinet and refrigerator items she loves to have around
Top Chef star Gail Simmons typically spends a lot of time eating other people’s food — at restaurants, at food festivals, and on TV under the camera lights while in judging mode.
Now, sheltering at home like so many other folks, she says she’s making more use of her Brooklyn kitchen than ever before, and going through groceries and pantry items at a quicker clip, too. But with some clever storage hacks (storing spices in reusable glass jars of all the same sizes, empty dry goods out into narrow plastic containers), she still manages to cram a lot in just a few cupboards and her fridge.
Simmons opened up her pantry on Instagram Live as part of the Eater @ Home virtual event series and shared just a few of her favorite cabinet and refrigerator staples:
Worthy Picks Produce Shopper vegetable bags (“We’re trying hard to eliminate the plastic... These are amazing bags. They’re more breathable than plastic, which is good for some things and not for others, but they seem to preserve things really well.”)
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Also, this slicing technique will change your life
This post originally appeared in theApril 27, 2020 editionof The Move, a place for Eater’s editors to reveal their recommendations and pro dining tips — sometimes thoughtful, sometimes weird, but always someone’s go-to move.Subscribe now.
Just after traffic but before the Kardashians, bagels are among the very worst things about Los Angeles. For the better part of my 20 years spent in this city, I’ve been forced to endure the thick, puffy, round, breadish items that pass themselves off as actual bagels.
Thankfully this has begun to change — over the last few years, some smart LAbakers have started putting out actually pretty good bagels around town. But for a long time, the best way to sate my bagel cravings was to drive two hours east to Palm Springs, where a tiny bagel shop was performing miracles in the desert each morning. Why Palm Springs for bagels? Maybe it’s the high percentage of Jewish retirees, or something about the water (or lack thereof). All I knew was that this tiny off-strip bakery (the name rhymes with “brownie,” but please don’t ruin it, internet family) was putting out possibly the best bagels on the West Coast. So whenever I found myself in the area I bought them — in bulk. Two dozen at least. Then I would drive them home and immediately get to work safeguarding their magnificence.
We all know the key to preserving bagels — and most anything — is freezing. But if you put them in the freezer whole, you have to wait for them to defrost or, worse yet, microwave the bagels before they’re ready to slice and toast. The solution seems simple: slice them before freezing.
But why would you simply slice them when you could... Magic Slice them?? Possibly the greatest food hack ever invented comes courtesy of my mother, who blows the lid off the entire bagel-halving industry with one magical slicing trick that you should immediately employ.
The problem with halving a bagel, especially ones with toppings, is that the top half gets all the love, while the bare bottom half has none of it. This is an inherent structural flaw, especially if you just want to eat half a bagel or share one with a friend, or are just generally noncommittal. Well, here you have the solution:
Step 1. First, you place the bagel face-up on the cutting board and cut it in half crosswise, into two half-moons. As in, across the circle, not lengthwise along the skinny side like you’d normally do.
Step 2. Next, place the flat, just-cut side of each half down the board and carefully slice ALMOST all the way through it, lengthwise. It’s very important to make sure you leave about a half-to-quarter inch or so uncut.
Step 3. Then, put on the theme to Chariots of Fire, and carefully unfold the butterflied bagel and behold its majesty. Here, you have a round bagel, the base of which now features parts of both the former top and bottom.
Step 4. Repeat the process for the other half, take pictures, share immediately across all social channels, feel at one with the universe, and top as desired.
...Or, as is the case when I’m buying in bulk and freezing, it’s time to start wrapping.
If you just put the two cut halves together, throw them in a bag, and freeze, you’ll have to pry them apart for toasting, and you’re leaving much of the cut surface area exposed, putting it at risk of the oxidation/dehydration double whammy known as freezer burn.
So do this instead: Start by tearing off a large sheet of plastic wrap about two feet long. (Yes, plastic is bad. Plastic wrap is really bad. If you’re freezing one or two bagels, feel free to use some beeswax paper or other eco-friendly material. If you’re wrapping a dozen-plus bagels, though, plastic wrap is, unfortunately, the move.) Lay one half of your Magically Wrapped™ bagels face-down on one side of the plastic, then flip over the bagel and wrap together so that now the wrapped, sliced surface is face up. Then place the other half of the same bagel face-down over the already-wrapped half in a glorious reunion, and continue to wrap the whole thing up in the remainder of the plastic. Repeat for as many bagels as you have and freeze for up to two months.
Now, when it comes time to eat them, you can easily unwrap the two bagel halves and put them directly in the toaster, still frozen. The result will be as good as if they were freshly baked, and — thanks to my mom and her Magic Slice — maybe even better.
Republican Governor Brian Kemp | Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images
Correspondents in Hong Kong and Atlanta visit Eater’s Digest to talk respective reopening plans
In Hong Kong, where the restaurant scene is revving up after a period of dormancy, diners must pass temperature checks, provide contact info, and sit no more than four to a table. In Georgia, Waffle House locations have closed off booths and will move their lines outside. In Dallas, diners are packing outdoor patios.
As communities around the world eye or even ease into a reopening, how are restaurants and diners responding? This week on Eater’s Digest, Andrew Genung in Hong Kong and Beth McKibben in Atlanta weigh in. Then Daniel and I discuss the biggest news of the week.
In late April, the Foundation rescheduled the finalist announcement for May 4, the initial date for the James Beard restaurant and chef awards ceremony. The Foundation also announced that it would release plans for the James Beard Awards, including the date and format, as soon as possible.
Disclosure: Some Vox Media staff members are part of the voting body for the James Beard Foundation Awards.
A James Beard Awards medal | James Beard Foundation
The Foundation will announce the 2020 nominees during a livestream, weeks after postponing the original event due to COVID-19
The restaurant industry hasn’t begun to recover from the coronavirus pandemic, but the James Beard Foundation is moving ahead with its annual awards: On May 4 (the original date for the annual James Beard Awards ceremony in Chicago) the Foundation will announce the 2020 James Beard Awards finalists during a live-streamed, virtual event.
In mid-March, as the coronavirus shutdown began, the Foundation postponed the announcement originally scheduled for March 25 to focus on “[using] our voice and platform as a resource for our community to face the current challenges that exist as a result of this crisis.” Those efforts included launching a survey to track the effects of COVID-19 on the restaurant industry and establishing a relief fund for business owners. However, soon after the fund opened, the Foundation suspended applications due to overwhelming demand.
James Beard Foundation CEO Clare Reichenbach will cohost the new virtual nominee announcement with Visit Philadelphia president and CEO Jeff Guaracino (the announcement was originally planned for an event in Philadelphia). The livestream will also feature guests and presenters from the city, including Mayor Jim Kenney and Kalaya Thai Kitchen chef Chutatip Suntaranon, presumably all appearing from separate locations.
The announcement will cover nominees from all of the usual restaurant and chef categories, as well as nominees for the book and media awards. And plans for some kind of awards ceremony are also moving ahead. A spokesperson for the awards told Eater that “details regarding the date, format and location of the awards will be shared as soon as possible.” Whether or not the public will be able to see the restaurant design that wins this year or dine at the restaurants of 2020’s best regional chefs when that time comes is an open question.
The first round of Paycheck Protection Program funding was roundly criticized as chains like Ruth’s Chris Steak House, Sweetgreen, and Shake Shack received millions while many small independent businesses got nothing
A $310 billion refill of the Paycheck Protection Program signed into law on Friday and taking effect today could help more small businesses including restaurants and bars. The influx of funds comes after an initial $350 billion was depleted in under two weeks. But can new rules keep large, publicly-traded companies from tapping into this second round of PPP funds, as they did last time?
The paycheck protection program, which is administered by private banks and lenders, has been heavily criticized as chains secured tens of millions in PPP funds, while many mom-and-pop businesses received nothing. By now, most of those chains have returned their loans under public and political pressure: First, Shake Shack retuned its $10 million loan, blaming the government for underfunding the program, then others followed suit. Publicly-traded sushi chain Kura gave back its $6 million loan, salad giant Sweetgreen returned $10 million, Ruth’s Chis returned $20 million, Potbelly rescinded $10 million, and the restaurant chain J. Alexander’s gave back $15.1 million. Other large restaurant chains like Eataly, Fogo de Chao, and Fiesta Restaurant Group, which operates Taco Cabana and Pollo Tropical, received loans they haven’t yet returned.
It was a rule in the PPP bill that counted a restaurant’s size based on its number of employees “per physical location,” rather than in total, that opened the doors for major food and hotel chains to participate and cause problems. Many of them were first in line due to their existing relationships with major banks like J.P. Morgan Chase. Class action lawsuits like one in California allege that banks such as Chase favored larger loan applicants in order to secure bigger fees for themselves.
The “per physical location” loophole hasn’t been explicitly closed for the new round of PPP funding, but some other changes could help the replenished loans reach small businesses. $30 billion is explicitly reserved for community-based lenders, while another $30 billion is earmarked for mid-sized banks and credit unions. And newly issued guidance from the Small Business Association says borrowers must certify “in good faith” that they need the loans and can’t get funding from other sources, something most publicly traded companies would be able to do.
But other problems with PPP loans for restaurants remain. To receive full loan forgiveness, a business must rehire employees by the end of June. Depending on when different states’ shelter-in-place orders are lifted, that could be an unrealistic deadline for many restaurants. And, per PPP rules, restaurants can only use 25 percent of the forgivable portion of the loan for non-payroll expenses like rent and utilities. Of the first round of PPP loans, less than 9 percent went to food and hotel businesses, despite the outsize impact the COVID-19 crisis has had on the hospitality industry. Can this next round of funds do better?
As the co-founder of one of the country’s largest independent food companies, I’ve spent the past 38 years trying to plan for the future. Now, I’m taking my cues from history
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Over the 38 years we’ve been in business I’ve worried about, talked through, and planned for hundreds of strange scenarios. I’m a planner, and here at Zingerman’s we’ve been forecasting and budgeting and organizing for so many years I can barely remember when we began doing it. But, as Mike Tyson once famously said, “Everyone has a plan till they get punched in the mouth.”
I don’t think anyone I know in the food world has ever thought about preparing for a pandemic. Having talked to dozens of colleagues around the country, we all seem to be pretty much in the same boat, struggling to answer the same questions. How do we deal with unexpectedly having to lay off dozens/hundreds/thousands of people that we’ve worked with for years? Are we providing better community service by staying open, or by closing? Can we figure out what the 900 pages of the CARES Act really mean? How does unemployment really work? What’s the difference between a furlough and a layoff? Can we survive for six months on limited menus for delivery and pickup? How long will this go on? Will it ever end? If it doesn’t end for a year, how do we handle that? If it does end, what will happen next? Just writing these questions, I can see why I — and probably most of us — have felt overwhelmed, pretty much daily, for the last few weeks.
On the evening of Tuesday, March 11, we had a sold-out fundraising dinner at Zingerman’s Roadhouse for SafeHouse Center, the place in town that provides shelter for victims of domestic abuse. It was a great event. The next morning, Wednesday, March 12, was a day that will probably live in infamy in the food world for at least a few decades. It’s the day that almost every restaurant in the country felt a shock that I can only equate to what it must have felt like when the stock market crashed on October 29, 1929.
It’s only been six weeks, but it seems like six years. We furloughed nearly 300 of the 700 staff members in our company, which comprises a community of 13 different food businesses. Normally at this time, we’d be ramping up for our busiest weekend of the year: the University of Michigan commencement, which was scheduled for the first weekend of May. Instead, our total organizational sales numbers are now running about 40 percent of plan. Who would imagine that we’d already have adjusted our expectations down so much, so quickly, that we’re celebrating as a “good day’s business” what a month ago we would have thought of as an unremarkable Monday lunch in the slow season of the year? It’s hard to remember the last time I was happy to see a $7,500 day at Zingerman’s Roadhouse, which has 150 seats — but now it seems like a decent weekday’s sales!
The effects of the pandemic are felt differently across the company. Our events space, training business, and food tours have seen their sales drop nearly to zero. At our three restaurants (where we continue to do takeout and delivery), bakehouse, creamery, coffee, and candy businesses, sales are somewhere between 30 and 60 percent of what they would normally be this time of year, though wholesale sales to supermarkets and our mail-order business are helping keep us afloat. The bright note for us is that mail order is very busy — about twice what sales would typically be this time of year. And also that we’re still being kind and collaborative and cooking and serving (I mean delivering) good food. We’re following the CDC and local health department guidelines — constant handwashing, keeping plenty of distance between staff and guests (who are in very limited numbers inside our bakeshop, our creamery, and our coffee company), checking staff temperatures before they begin work — and, in the last week or so, wearing masks. For now, at least for us and for so many others, that’s our new normal.
As an erstwhile history major, two thoughts play around in my head. One is that it’s generally said that no war with a foreign power has ever been fought on American soil. I haven’t lived through one so I’m not sure the analogy is accurate, but this does sort of feel like what I imagine that living through a war would be. Life as we knew it has been drastically altered, perhaps for years. Within a few days of the “invasion,” everything was turned, seemingly, upside down. The craziness of the restaurant world that we all love and have learned to live with and actually kind of enjoy now seems stable and calm compared to this world where the coronavirus is calling the shots and we hope and pray that we, our colleagues, and our businesses can survive.
The other piece of history in my mind is that, while none of us have been through this before, humanity has, many times. Annalee Newitz recently wrote a great piece in the New York Times about the 1666 bubonic plague in London. Over the course of the year, the city lost over 15 percent of its population; across England, 750,000 people died. Newitz’s article reminded me of what I already knew: history always repeats. The good, long-term learning from Newitz’s article is that, as we know, the world did keep going when the plague receded. While it was a horrible year, and things didn’t just return quickly to normal, England did recover. The plague did go away. And there were restaurants still operating at the end of it. (On a lighter note, Newitz shared that Samuel Pepys buried a wheel of “Parmazan” cheese in his backyard when the city was evacuated.)
In our 38 years at Zingerman’s, we have worked through massive inflation, the tragic upheaval of 9/11, and the instability of the recession of 2008. Looking back, I can see that we survived the fear and uncertainty by staying true to our values, taking good care of our customers, communicating caringly with our crew, staying in touch with vendors, and maintaining quality. We continued to talk things through collaboratively, to work cooperatively, to stay as grounded and centered as we could under the circumstances. And this time around, we’re doing the same.
If I’d gone to med school like my grandmother wanted me to, I might be trying to save lives in a hospital or doing research in a lab to find a vaccine or a cure to end this crisis. Unfortunately, I have nothing to contribute on either count. So all I can do is work to keep our community and our organization as healthy as possible. Try to figure out creative and caring ways through the darkness. Try to listen and be empathic and share struggles as best I can. To keep calling colleagues all over the country, hoping that someone smarter has come up with some great solutions. To stay in touch, and keep energy focused on safety and sanitation — and, at the same time, what we have left of service, sales, and staff. And then keep my fingers crossed, think positive thoughts, rub my rabbit’s feet, and, as with all long walks through darkness, hope like hell we can get through to the other side together.
Eventually, like World War II and the plague of 1666, this will start to end. Every day I wait to hear good news, and at some point there will be some. When it does come, we can say something along the lines of what Winston Churchill said as the British turned the tide of a very long war by defeating the Germans in Egypt in 1942. “This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end,” he said. “But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”
Whatever happens, I feel incredibly fortunate to have worked with so many great people both here in our own organization and in the food community across the country and around the world. To have bought, sold, served, and eaten so much good food, to have had a positive impact on so many people’s lives. I’m not ready to give up yet. And I’m reminded of something one of our line cooks shared with me from her previous job: As they used to say during really rough shifts, “See you on the other side!”
The brands beloved by the restaurant industry are pivoting to a more urgent need
The seamstresses at Tilit were already working from home when Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York put out a call on Twitter.
“On March 20, Cuomo had this call to action, saying that NYC was running out of PPE [personal protective equipment]. ‘Small businesses, small companies, get creative,’ was essentially what his Twitter message said, ‘and start helping out,’” says Jenny Goodman, chief operating officer of Tilit, which makes chef coats, aprons, and other “workwear” items for hospitality workers.
Within hours, the team settled on a no-brainer solution. As Goodman explains it, Alex McCrery, Tilit’s founder, happened to be in the office at that moment. “He cut a mask pattern and sewed a sample, and we were like, ‘Okay, let’s make masks.’”
Tilit is just one of many companies pivoting to masks, as it were. Dozens of apparel companies, big and small, are stepping up to use their facilities or distributors to produce face masks, though the scale and actual products vary. Some companies, like Nike, Eddie Bauer, Ralph Lauren, and Gap, are working to produce clinical-grade equipment that can be used in hospitals and are distributing directly to health care facilities.
“With the CDC guidelines in place recommending cloth masks for everyone, and many grocery stores now requiring cloth masks to be worn by customers before entering, it’s safe to say people want to both protect themselves and donate to frontline health care workers at the same time,” says Food52 buyer Aja Aktay, who spearheaded the initiative with Steele Canvas.
Food52 clearly notes online that the masks “are not a substitute for N95 or surgical-grade masks and they are not FDA approved,” a disclaimer echoed on nearly all of the product pages for these masks. Rather, they’re intended for regular folks trying to minimize the risk they pose to others. As Vox.com explained, “Masks can help stop the spread of coronavirus not just by protecting the wearer, but by preventing the wearer — who could be an asymptomatic spreader — from breathing and spitting their germs everywhere.”
Between consumers’ growing awareness of the importance of face coverings and the changed CDC guidance, orders are coming in fast: Food52 sold through its first batch of masks within three days and is working to fulfill the current waitlist of orders by the end of April. At Tilit, Goodman says “the demand is crazy, so we’re literally sewing as fast as we possibly can.”
But there are plenty of challenges for companies pivoting to a product they’re not accustomed to making, especially in a time of logistical limitations. “We went from ideation to releasing a mask in 72 hours,” says Chris Hughes of Artifact, a small workwear company based in Omaha. “The toughest constraints have been sourcing materials and specialized equipment. Many of our suppliers have been shut down due to the pandemic... a lot of MacGyver solutions had to be made in our studio.”
Goodman said Tilit was able to rely largely on fabrics they had on hand, though the elastic straps “were a little bit of a struggle” to source. Shipping is also a real challenge, both for receiving supplies and sending out to customers. “We’ve had to hedge our bets and order something from two to three different suppliers then cross fingers one can deliver to us,” Hughes says.
“UPS is a shitshow,” Goodman says frankly. “The demand for everything is so high right now, for things to be delivered, so getting them out as fast as we can is definitely a challenge.”
The on-the-fly pivots from aprons or shirts to masks has also inevitably resulted in snags when it comes to sizing and fit. “Fit and comfort is something we strive for with every design we create,” Tilit’s McCrery says. “Traditionally we design and test our garments over months or even years, as was the case with our raved-about jumpsuits. However, in this unprecedented era, speed and safety were of the utmost importance in designing our masks.”
The masks tend to be one-size-fits-all, to reach a wider customer base and streamline production, but that means nailing a perfect fit is extra tough. Frequent customer complaints are that the more structured masks — which are sewn and cut to hold a shape that’s molded to the wearer’s face — are often too big (which causes slippage) or small (which causes a gap), depending on the wearer. Masks that are made with a pleated design, rather than a molded structure, can require more material but are more flexible size-wise. “Our pleat design and moldable metal nosepiece form to the face better than any of the more structured prototypes we designed,” says Hughes of Artifact.
McCrery says the vast majority of Tilit’s customers are proudly sharing their masks on social media, but says the brand is “rapidly working to develop an improved design” to address some fit concerns. Ellen Bennett, founder of Hedley & Bennett, has been actively replying to concerned customers through Instagram.
Some may view such business pivots cynically, as a bid for do-gooder PR hits or government contracts, or as a sly way to ensure their workers are deemed “essential” (though Goodman says the various producers Tilit works with were already considered essential workers). But those benefits aside, many company owners say they’re doing it because mask-making efforts help keep staffers employed.
“I am surprised we were able to get to full production considering all the constraints, but the alternative was laying off staff, so we were extremely motivated to work through the obstacles,” says Hughes; ultimately, Artifact was able to hire four additional staffers to support the effort. Aktay at Food52 says the initiative has helped Steele Canvas retain over 50 jobs, and Goodman says the masks have helped Tilit “keep a few more people on our team employed.”
For some brands, it’s also been a way to give back — a particularly powerful proposition for companies that consider themselves part of the restaurant industry. Tilit’s and Hedley & Bennett’s masks are both sold as part of a “Buy 1, Give 1” deal, with each mask purchase funding a second to be donated to frontline workers in need. Food52 is selling Steele Canvas masks as a “Buy 1, Give 1” deal, or allowing customers to choose “Give 2” — essentially just making a donation. CamCam is prompting shoppers to add a $5 donation to their mask purchase, “help[ing] us to continue producing free masks for medical workers, caregivers, and at-risk communities.”
In terms of donations, Food52’s masks are going to a variety of hospitals (as a supplement to, not a replacement for, medical-grade masks), while Tilit is distributing theirs to a mix of medical facilities and food pantries. Hedley & Bennett is also distributing to a mix of frontline workers, as well as soliciting requests for donations through its website.
“Being able to do something in a time like this has been really nice — otherwise it’s just so hard to sit and wait and see while your whole industry is in crisis,” Goodman says. And while Tilit plans on making masks for as long as there’s a demand, Goodman hopes that eventually restaurants can return to their original needs.
“For the long run, our core business is to focus on helping support the restaurant industry with awesome workwear, once they’re back up and running.”
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Courtesy of Planters
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Republican Governor Brian Kemp | Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images
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A James Beard Awards medal | James Beard Foundation
Photo by JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP via Getty Images
Zingerman’s Delicatessen | Zingerman’s
Face masks by Artifact
