Category: Thought For Food
Posts Archive

Is Automation the Answer?
“This has to be a render,” wrote Jesus Diaz, author and contributor at Co.Design, in his November 2017 article on grocery e-commerce. But what looks like a 3D depiction is actually 100% real robots zooming across a highly sophisticated product grid filling online grocery orders for real customers. The British-based company, Ocado, is the world’s […]

Waste Not, Want Not
Though food waste has been a hot topic across the industry over the last several months, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a more passionate group on the issue than this year’s Esca Bona 2017 attendees. This past October, JT Mega joined nearly 200 food entrepreneurs, agriculturists, venture capitalists and local farmers in Austin, TX to […]

Marketing to the 2026 Consumer
If you want a glimpse of the 2026 consumer, look up Amanda Steele. She’s a typical California high-school senior; a self-professed coffee lover who listens to Drake and says economics is her favorite class. But in 2010, Steele began posting makeup and beauty tutorials on YouTube from her bedroom as a way to connect with […]

Don’t Just Cook. Cook Different.
In his September 2017 Harvard Business Review article, author Eddie Yoon grabbed the food industry’s attention with the headline “The Grocery Industry Confronts a New Problem: Only 10% of Americans Love Cooking.” In the opening paragraph, he asserts: “Although many people don’t realize it yet, grocery shopping and cooking are in a long-term decline. They […]

Indigenous Cuisine: As Local As It Gets
This past month, I made my way to Southeast Minneapolis for a cookbook launch party featuring a type of cuisine few of us in the food industry have heard of: indigenous. Using ingredients that are strictly native to the United States–particularly the Midwest–guests feasted on fare featured in Chef Sean Sherman’s new cookbook, The Sioux […]

Private Label is in the Public Eye
Calling itself the “Procter & Gamble for Millennials,” San Francisco e-commerce company Brandless™ made its U.S. debut this past July eager to disrupt the CPG industry. The startup, which has secured over $50 million in funding, sells a variety of organic food and home goods all for an everyday low price of $3. Brandless™ says […]