Written on 25 May 2024, updated on 23 May 2025.
I mentioned this some time ago.
Unfortunately, this was particularly true of the South.
These signs are being reinforced by the following factors:
- Discounts of up to 40 per cent in some southern regions(and the effects of discounting on food are certainly evident!)
- Fruit and vegetables that are increasingly less nutritious and lacking in flavour
- The ‘Wild West’ of fruit and vegetables
- A ‘monstrous’ recall (20 brands) for iceberg lettuce contaminated with listeria
- Chicken packed with fat
- Vets cannot deny that chickens bearing the Amadori, Fileni and Aia brands, as well as those sold under the Esselunga, Coop, Conad, Aldi, Lidl, Eurospin and Md brands, are diseased. These are animals which, according to official procedures, have passed all health and hygiene tests, meaning they are safe to eat, yet they remain diseased
- Turnover growth for budget-priced own-brand products exceeds 40.6 per cent
- Lidl’s budget range in France
- Rampant ‘shrinkflation’ (I have personally had to switch brands for some products that have become inedible).
- The discount sector, turning its back on its origins, has made a significant leap forward in the proportion of turnover driven by promotional pressure, exceeding 17 per cent.
- Prices are falling for thousands of items at Target and Walmart, as well as on Amazon , as the results from US retailers “point to fatigue amongst some consumers” After three years of high inflation, the latest available figures from Walmart seem, fortunately, to disprove this hypothesis, even though – quite rightly – one analyst points out that the rest of the US market is not faring so well (Macy’s, for example, has seen a fall in sales, and Target’s growth is lower than Walmart’s).
- Widespread promotions are never a good sign for the food market. And this probably applies in Italy too: Esselungais extending its 10 per cent discount on all groceries beyond July into August as well. The same applies, in my view, to Unicoop Firenze (note what is happening in France: consumer spending down 0.4 per cent in July 2024 confirms deflation).
- Theworst listeria outbreak since 2011 is currently underway in the United States, according to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. The outbreak has been traced to certaincured meats produced by Boar’s Head. So far, there have beennine deaths and 57 people hospitalisedacross 18 different states
- Swine fever and avian flu. These recurring animal diseases, whilst not dangerous to humans, can trigger inflationary spirals that hit the poorest sections of society hardest.
- The crisis in intensive salmon farming
- The disturbing signs emerging from the world of intensive meat farming (I only managed to watch part of this terrible documentary)and PFAS, found in water as well as in fruit and vegetables.
- Bottled water is heavily polluted with plastic nanoparticles
- Inflation forcing fast-food chains to change their menus (e.g. McDonald’s. Below are some insights from Inglobando)
- McDonald’s: one death and 49 cases of Escherichia coli in the US
- The use of ‘red pulp’ – mechanically separated meat – in sausages as well as in chicken
- Developments concerning the decline in olive oil quality.
- Reports of commercial fraud, counterfeiting, adulteration and food alerts are on the rise in the European Union
- EU, One Health Report 2023. Listeriosis, salmonellosis and other zoonoses on the rise
- Avian influenza in North America is causing concern amongst epidemiologists: three people have been infected with the H5N1 virus without a source of contamination having been identified
- The ocean conservation organisation Bloom has had nearly 150 tins of tuna analysed and is using these results to argue that the permitted levels of mercury in the flesh of this fish – the most widely consumed in Europe – have been lowered.
- The use of ‘dark kitchens’, run by major food delivery chains, is undermining the quality of food in the catering sector.
- The Nestlé water crisis in France. There are allegations of fraud spanning more than a decade, amounting to €3 billion (some springs are reportedly contaminated with pesticides or Escherichia coli bacteria, and the only way to use the water is to purify it). And a recent inspection at Perrier’s production site has highlighted a lack of “traceability” and a “critical point of compliance”, as revealed by *Le Monde* – on 16 October 2024 – and Franceinfo.
- Among the many measures taken by Nestlé to conceal the fraud was the removal from official documents of “the list of pesticides (herbicides, fungicides), some of which have been banned for twenty years, such as atrazine”. No further traces of PFAS, chlorates and other perchlorates. Above all, the table citing the detection rates of E. coli and intestinal enterococci for the period 2020–2023 has been omitted.”
Nestlé may try to develop “all sorts of healthier or anti-ageing foods it wants”, but perhaps, first, it needs to resolve the issue of the safety of its water, where it has had to settle for a compromise. Or the issue of the deaths of two children from contaminated pizza, again in France.
Below: *Le Monde* classifies Nestlé as a producer of junk food ( “malbouffe”).
| $5 MENU AT 맥도날드
Chris Kempczinski, the CEO of McDonald’s, recently spoke about how the company is seeing increasing difficulties amongst its customers due to their reduced spending power From 25 June and for around a month, McDonald’s will be offering a full menu for $5 across America
An organised group of franchisees has written a letter to the parent company. These are the key points:
Among those who have contributed is Coca-Cola, which has set aside part of its budget to support the initiative The Financial Times reports on the strategy of major producers of ultra-processed food, who, under the slogan ‘Deny, denounce and delay’, spend twice as much on lobbying in the US as the tobacco and alcohol industries combined. A blunder that, until now, had safeguarded their turnover, at the expense of their consumers’ health. Now, however, their turnover is ‘under threat’; read more on this: USA: McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, Nestlé, Pepsi and Starbucks are reporting falls in sales volumes due to inflation, and there is no light at the end of the tunnel. P.S.: McDonald’s $5 menu promotion isn’t working ( further confirmation can be found here: USA: Target: sales down, McDonald’s too. For the time being, Walmart is holding up) |
