Omnivore. Design researcher at IDEO. Former WSJ reporter, still ink-stained. All you need in life are olives, cheese, jamón. And hummus.
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Articles by Ilan Brat
McDonald's CEO Defends Kids' Marketing
McDonald's Corp. is standing by its clown. The 48-year-old, red-haired mascot has come under fire from health-care professionals and consumer groups who, in recent days, have asked the fast-food chain to retire Ronald McDonald. But McDonald's Chief Executive Officer Jim Skinner staunchly defended the clown at the company's annual meeting on Thursday, saying, "Ronald McDonald is going nowhere." Shareholders...
No Mercy: Nuns Feel Spanish Bank's Cutbacks
ALCALÁ DE HENARES, Spain—Spain's financial distress has trickled down to a secluded back office of one of its largest banks—the convent where Sister Mariuca Mesones sorts and labels the lender's outgoing mail. After Mass most mornings, she and 10 other cloistered members of the Order of St. Clare file into an L-shaped office of the Roman Catholic retreat and become bank employees.
Cedar Rapids Still Reeling From Last Year's Flood
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa -- Eight months after being hit by a flood expected to come along less than once every 500 years, this city of 120,000 is still struggling to get its head above water. About 10 square miles of flood-wrecked neighborhoods are largely abandoned, with thousands of boarded-up houses and businesses lining debris-dotted streets. A steam and electricity generating station that served some of the city's biggest employers is still inoperable.
Tale of the Tape: Retailers Take Receipts to Great Lengths
Debra Shigley recently went to a CVS pharmacy in Atlanta and paid $25.39 for two prescriptions, a beverage and a roll of toilet paper. The cashier then handed her a receipt that was almost two feet long. "As long as my arm," said Ms. Shigley, a 30-year-old author who consults with women on careers and fashion.
Mad Scramble: Fans Hope Easter Bunny Will One Day Bring a Special Egg
Among the many memories David McGuire has of Easter, few are more vivid than the feeling of disappointment after cracking into his Cadbury Easter egg as a young boy. Instead of the creamy filling found in smaller Cadbury Creme Eggs sold from countertops in England and around the world, the company's bigger Easter-sized eggs are hollow. "From the outside it looks the same," says Mr. McGuire, a 34-year-old creative director who lives in Redruth, in Cornwall, England.
Pumas and Ecos Keep Markets Humming
SEVILLA, Spain—On a recent Saturday, a downtown plaza was bustling with merchants selling ceramics, electronics and jewelry, while pop-infused flamenco music blared in the background. The only oddity was that shoppers weren't shelling out euros for the goods, but instead were using a recently launched local currency called the puma.
Europe's Recession Sparks Grass-Roots Political Push
The stay-at-home mom became a civic gadfly after local authorities refused to fix a broken sewer pipe, and one cause led to another: She formed a group to defend a forest against real-estate developers. After six years of fighting Town Hall, Ms. Biurrun was elected mayor.
Ebola Infection in Spain Might Be Human Error
MADRID—The Spanish nursing aide infected with Ebola believes she might have caught the virus by touching her face with a gloved hand after treating a missionary brought here from Sierra Leone, a doctor said Wednesday. “That’s what she recalls and what she has told me three times,” Germán Ramírez Olivencia said at a news conference, offering the first possible explanation of how Ebola spread for the first time beyond West Africa. “It...
Fate of Ebola-Stricken Medical Worker’s Dog Sparks Outcry in Spain
MADRID—Among the lives on the line in the spread of Ebola outside West Africa is that of Excalibur, a stricken Spanish medical worker’s 12-year-old dog. Madrid’s regional government on Tuesday said it would euthanize the light-brown rescue dog to avoid possible contagion. Javier Limón, husband of the infected nurse’s aide, couldn’t bear it. He issued a desperate public appeal to save the family pet. His...
Spanish Ebola Patient Remains in Critical Condition, Government Says
MADRID—The Spanish nursing aide who contracted Ebola remained in a critical but stable condition on Sunday and in a hopeful sign, her “viral load” had begun to decline, a Spanish government official said. Teresa Romero, a nurse’s aide who contracted Ebola from treating a Spanish missionary repatriated from Sierra Leone, was admitted to hospital last week, the first confirmed transmission of the Ebola virus outside West Africa.
Spain Jobless Rate Hits 26% Amid Austerity
MADRID—Spain's unemployment rate reached a record 26% in the fourth quarter, the latest sign of deepening recession even as growing investor appetite for the country's government bonds brings relief from the country's debt crisis. Data released Thursday by the National Statistics Institute showed the economy continued to shed public- and...
For Spain's Jobless, Time Equals Money
VALLADOLID, Spain—Even though she's one of millions of young, unemployed Spaniards, 22-year-old Silvia Martín takes comfort in knowing that her bank is still standing behind her. It's not a lending institution, but rather a time bank whose nearly 400 members barter their services by the hour. Ms. Martín, who doesn't own a car and can't afford taxis, has relied on other time-bank members to give her lifts around town for her odd jobs and errands, as well as to help with house repairs.
Haters Call Pumpkin-Spice Craze an ‘Epidemic’
It used to be easy for people like Kristen D’Amico, who can’t stand the taste of pumpkin pie. She merely had to say no to a slice of it on Thanksgiving Day. A rising tide of products flavored with pumpkin pie spice has flooded grocery store shelves and restaurant menus, and not just near her home in Deltona, Fla. Friends tease...
Companies Step Up Efforts to Reveal More Details on Food You Eat
Fish + People Inc. has been posting on its website the names and photos of the boat captains that caught fish for its new Fishpeople-brand packaged seafood meals and frozen filets over the past three years. Many shoppers are hooked. The company put special codes on its packages that, when typed into its website, provide information on how each ingredient is produced, and the people involved.
Whole Foods Works to Reduce Costs and Boost Clout With Suppliers
Whole Foods Market which has long given its local managers and regional bosses broad discretion over everything from buying cheese to store design, is whittling away at some of that autonomy in an effort to reduce costs and boost its clout with suppliers. As stiffer competition erodes its profit growth, the natural and organic foods retailer is tweaking its management style by centralizing and streamlining some functions.
Whole Foods Boss Calls Himself a ‘Pusher Leader’
AUSTIN, Texas—America’s changing eating habits are sending more shoppers to the produce aisle in search of fruits and vegetables, making conditions ripe for a grocer like Whole Foods Market Inc. Yet Walter Robb and John Mackey, the retailer’s co-chief executives, have spent much of the past year fighting slower growth and negative headlines, as the company’s stock tumbled 33%. Part of the reason: Kroger Co. and Costco Wholesale Corp.
Whole Foods Earnings: What to Watch
Whole Foods Market Inc. is scheduled to announce its fiscal first-quarter earnings after the market closes on Wednesday. Here’s what you need to know:
Kroger Plans to Upend How it Organizes Booze in Stores
Kroger Co. has started a booze-fueled brawl with the alcohol industry with a plan to change how the country’s largest supermarket chain organizes beer, wine, and liquor on its store shelves. The proposal would do away with a decades-old system in which the biggest alcohol producers such as Anheuser-Busch InBev NV and Diageo PLC were tapped by Kroger and other grocers to be “category captains,” dispensing advice and influence about...
Listeria Outbreak Linked to Dole Salads From Ohio Facility
Dole Food Co. has suspended production at an Ohio plant and is withdrawing packaged salads produced there after a multistate listeria outbreak has over the last six months resulted in the hospitalization of 12 people, including one who died. Dole’s fresh-vegetables unit on Friday said it is voluntarily removing products sold in 23 U.S. states and three Canadian provinces. The company on Thursday told the Centers for Disease Control...
Canning Pumpkins, Sweet Potatoes Grow Scarcer This Season
Drenching rains have curbed the U.S. harvests of canning pumpkins and sweet potatoes, dealing farmers a blow and leading to tighter supplies—and potentially higher prices—for the holiday-feast staples. The crop woes follow a record bird-flu outbreak this spring that reduced the nation’s turkey production, though discounting by retailers and competition from chicken and ham have held down frozen-turkey prices as Thanksgiving...
Albertsons Delayed IPO Marks Setback for Kroger Rival
Albertsons Cos.’ postponed initial public stock offering marks a setback for the beefed-up rival to supermarket leader Kroger Co. as it seeks to pare debt and invest in store upgrades to woo fickle U.S. shoppers. Albertsons, which has about 2,200 stores, compared with Kroger’s roughly 2,600, delayed its plan to sell stock late Wednesday as shares of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and other retailers tumbled following Wal-Mart’s dour profit...
Conditions Sour for California’s Dairy Farmers
California dairy farmers are retrenching amid falling prices and drought in the largest milk-producing state, a shift that could further reshape the U.S. industry by enabling farmers in other states to expand. California producers, who pump about a fifth of the nation’s milk supply, say they’re struggling to maintain output as they weather a precipitous slump in the global dairy market and grapple with rising feed costs stemming from yearslong drought.
Mosaic agrees to $800 million settlement over fertilizer waste
Fertilizer maker Mosaic Co. said Thursday it has reached an agreement worth more than $800 million with federal and state environmental regulators to clean up manufacturing operations in Louisiana and Florida. Under the agreement, Mosaic MOS, -0.35% will pay a $8 million fine and spend about $170 million on new on-site waste management and recovery processes at facilities in the states.
Mosaic Agrees to $800 Million Settlement Over Fertilizer Waste
Fertilizer maker Mosaic Co. said Thursday it has reached an agreement worth more than $800 million with federal and state environmental regulators to clean up manufacturing operations in Louisiana and Florida. The settlement, which requires court approval, would resolve government complaints that it mismanaged waste from its fertilizer...
Repsol Explored Sale of Gas Natural Stake
MADRID—Repsol SA has quietly approached some of Europe's largest power companies to gauge their interest in buying some or all of its 30% stake in Spanish natural-gas and electricity company Gas Natural SDG SA, people with knowledge of the talks said on Thursday. But the Spanish oil major found no takers, and a potential sale has been put on hold for the near term, these people said, a sign of the European gas market's difficulties....
Food Goes ‘GMO Free’ With Same Ingredients
Last year, Evolution Salt Co. proudly put a label on its packages of Himalayan salt proclaiming they contained no genetically modified organisms. It shouldn’t have been a surprise, because salt has no genes. But Hayden Nasir, chief executive of the Austin, Texas-based company, said advertising the absence of GMOs was good business.
On U.S. Farms, Fewer Hands for the Harvest
@drdairy50 would highly appreciate your RT. You can retweet right here by simply clicking on the button below Retweet You can't retweet your own tweet Maybe some other time
On U.S. Farms, Fewer Hands for the Harvest
Last year, about a quarter of Biringer Farm’s strawberries and raspberries rotted in the field because it couldn’t find enough workers. Samantha Bond was determined not to let that happen again. Early this year, Ms. Bond, human resources manager for the 35-acre farm in Arlington, Wash., offered 20% raises to the most productive workers from the last harvest. She posted help-wanted ads on Craigslist, beside highways and on the bathroom-stall door at a church.
Dean Foods’ Sales Drop as Investors Wonder About a Resignation
Dean Foods Co. reported a steep decline in second-quarter sales and provided no explanation for the sudden departure of its chairman, pushing its shares down sharply Monday. The Dallas company, the largest U.S. milk processor by sales, swung to a profit in the quarter ended June 30 and beat analysts’ earnings expectations. But its revenue decreased more than expected as Americans continued to curtail milk consumption. Despite...
FDA Proposes Listing Added Sugar on Food Labels
The Food and Drug Administration on Friday formally proposed requiring nutrition labels to list amounts of added sugar and recommended consumption levels, a move long promoted by health advocates but opposed by many food and beverage companies. The proposed rule would set the recommended intake of added sugar for packaged food and beverages at no more than about 200 calories a day, or 10% of the 2,000-calorie diet generally used for...
California Drought Spurs Technology on the Farm
It has been two decades since Willie Hartman started making farm equipment that helps growers conserve water, but sales didn’t take off until the past four years. Credit goes, in part, to California’s worst drought in at least half a century. Farmers in the Golden State’s $45 billion agricultural economy are increasingly thirsty for ways to save water, prompting a burst in demand for tools and processes like Mr. Hartman’s On Target Sprayer.
Do ‘Food Deserts’ Cause Unhealthy Eating?
Diet-related health problems have been worsening in the U.S., and obesity rates have skyrocketed in recent decades. The search for an explanation in recent years has often zeroed in on “food deserts,” generally defined as places where many residents don’t have access to a full-service grocery store within a mile of home in urban areas or 10 miles in rural ones.
California Drought Leaves Few Farmers Unscathed
BYRON, Calif.—As holders of some of the oldest water rights in California, many farmers and ranchers here in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta have never had their spigots turned off, a fate many of their counterparts in the parched state have endured. But under an order from the State Water Resources Control Board, the local Byron Bethany Irrigation District last month shut down irrigation to more than 160 farmers and ranchers in its...
Hormel Expects Bird-Flu Outbreak to Hurt Second-Half Turkey Sales
Hormel Foods Corp. expects the avian influenza outbreak will crimp turkey sales in its fiscal second half and could have wider ramifications for the turkey industry, the company’s top executive said Wednesday. Hormel, one of the biggest U.S. meat processors, reported better-than-expected profit in its fiscal second quarter ended April 26. At the same time, the company warned it expects full-year earnings to come in at the low end of...
Farmland Prices Flat Year Over Year in Parts of Midwest
Farmland prices were flat to lower in much of the central U.S. in the first quarter, further evidence that a three-year slump in grain prices is crimping farm incomes and denting the agricultural economy, according to Federal Reserve reports Thursday. The value of irrigated farmland in the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City district, which includes Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado and other big farm states, decreased 2.1%, the first year-over-year decline in a quarter in more than five years.
Panera to Drop at Least 150 Artificial Ingredients From Menu
Panera Bread Co. committed itself to removing at least 150 artificial sweeteners, colors, flavors and preservatives from its menu by the end of next year, the latest move by a major food company to respond to a consumer shift toward foods seen as simpler and more healthful.
Dean Foods Bets on One National Milk Brand
Dean Foods Co., the largest U.S. milk processor by sales, has 31 brands of white milk around the country. Starting this month, it will sell just one. The company is combining its hodgepodge of regional milk operations under a national banner, DairyPure, in an effort to invigorate its struggling business and bolster its 36% share of a shrinking U.S. milk market. The expected launch of the new brand on Monday, along with a...
Starbucks Revenue Rises as Traffic Grows
Starbucks Corp. reported stronger sales and sharply higher profit in its latest quarter, an early indication that its financial results may emerge unscathed from the social-media-fueled backlash to its efforts to spur conversations on race relations. Chief Financial Officer Scott Maw pinpointed several factors that drove the company’s performance in the period, including 3% growth in traffic world-wide, continued expansion in China and a 4% increase in the overall size of customer purchases.
Robots Step Into New Planting, Harvesting Roles
OXNARD, Calif.—A 14-arm, automated harvester recently wheeled through rows of strawberry plants here, illustrating an emerging solution to one of the produce industry’s most pressing problems: a shortfall of farmhands. Harnessing high-powered computing, color sensors and small metal baskets attached to the robotic arms, the machine gently plucked ripe strawberries from below deep-green leaves, while mostly ignoring unripe fruit...
Yum Struggles in China as Its Novelty Fades
Yum Brands Inc., YUM 0.63% which gets around half its revenue from China, is facing a new reality: Chinese consumers who once found its KFC and Pizza Hut chains fresh and different now see them as neither. On Tuesday, Yum posted profit and revenue declines in the fiscal first quarter of 2015 as it struggles to overcome setbacks in China. Yum’s China sales in the quarter were down 9% from a year earlier, to $1.26 billion, following declines in the third and fourth quarters of last fiscal year.
Panera Shares Hit 52-Week High After Buyback, Outlet Sale Plans
Shares of Panera Bread Co. soared to a new 52-week high on Thursday after the sandwich-and-salad chain said it would boost a stock-buyback plan and sell some company-owned outlets with the backing of an activist investor.
Monsanto, Bayer Join Venture-Capital Push
Agribusiness giants are sowing their own venture-capital seeds. Biotech seed producers Monsanto Co. and Bayer AG are among the companies that recently established or expanded investment units to fund new agricultural ventures. As a wave of entrepreneurial vigor sweeps the Farm Belt, the companies want to ensure they don’t miss out on cutting-edge tools for food formulation and pest prevention, the companies say. Geoff Kneen,...
Starbucks to Pay Full Cost of Online Degree for Employees
Starbucks Corp. plans to cover the full cost of an online degree for U.S. employees who work at least 20 hours a week, broadening its efforts to attract and retain employees amid a tightening labor market. The program expands the coffee giant’s partnership with Arizona State University, begun last year, that enables workers to earn full tuition reimbursement for the last two years of an ASU online bachelor’s degree. Now Starbucks...
Silicon Valley Firms Plant Roots in Farm Belt
Big agribusinesses have launched their own VC initiatives, and investment managers have raised funds dedicated to food and agriculture technology. New York-based private-equity firm Paine & Partners, for instance, raised $893 million in January for investments in boosting productivity in areas like protein production and food safety, according to its president, Kevin Schwartz.
Organic-Food Firms Tackle Supply Constraints
Last year, organic cereal maker Nature's Path Foods Inc. grew so frustrated with organic-grain shortfalls that it decided to get aggressive about its supply chain. It bought a farm. The three-decade-old Canadian company plunked down more than $2 million for 2,800 acres of Montana cropland, part of an effort to seize greater control of its...
Jamba to Sell 100 Stores for $36 Million
Jamba Juice owner Jamba Inc. plans to sell about 40% of its company-owned stores to a franchisee group, the latest move by a restaurant chain to shed the costs and complications of running restaurants in pursuit of higher profit margins.
McDonald’s to Test Expanded Breakfast Hours
McDonald’s Corp. soon will begin testing sales of McMuffins, Hash Browns and Hotcakes throughout the day, a sign of new Chief Executive Steve Easterbrook’s willingness to experiment with a range of measures to reinvigorate flagging sales. The tests, which start in April at some McDonald’s outlets in the San Diego area, will push sales of certain breakfast items past the start of lunch service, which is generally around 11 a.m. The...
Why Starbucks Takes On Social Issues
Howard Schultz, one of the most successful entrepreneurs of his time, has become one of its most prominent social activists, too. As the events of the past week have shown, the two roles don’t always mix comfortably. A social media-fueled backlash against the Starbucks Corp. chief executive’s campaign to foster conversations about race relations in America is sparking questions about the wisdom of his initiatives and a broader...
Starbucks Ends Key Phase in ‘Race Together’ Campaign
Mr. Schultz, in a letter to employees, said that as of Sunday they would no longer be asked to write “Race Together,” or place similar stickers, on cups given to customers. He said that discontinuing that element of the Race Together initiative was part of Starbucks’s plan from the beginning. That timing wasn’t mentioned in materials Starbucks put out publicly in the past week to trumpet the campaign.
Starbucks Sheds Light on Delivery-Service Plans
Starbucks Corp. shed light on its plans to deliver hot coffee to its customers, saying it will start testing two new delivery services in the second half of this year in an effort to make its stores in dense cities work more like highly productive outlets with drive-through windows. One delivery option, to be tested first in the coffee chain’s home city of Seattle, will involve linking Starbucks with San Francisco-based delivery...
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