Canada-based McCain Foods has decided it’s time for a change — at least in frozen potatoes, reports AdAge.com.

McCain will spend its annual online budget between now and early November to capitalize on name recognition with the John McCain, the Republican candidate for president.

Working with Chicago-based agency Schafer Condon Carter, the McCain campaign, “Why McCain should be in the White House,” touts the company’s namesake frozen french fries, sweet-potato fries and kid-friendly “smiles.” Since McCain doesn’t use oils with trans-fats, one slogan is “McCain goes to war over oil.” Another one: “McCain brings ’smiles’ to millions,” referencing the company’s disc-shaped potato product with smiley faces cut out.

First in print, then online with politically-themed website, the campaign will showcase a gruff, mumbling “spokespotato” in a suit and horn-rimmed glasses. A variety of sections on-line include “Ask the Candidate,” “Recipes for Change” and the ever-important polls (baked or fried?).

“We were looking at how to make our ad dollars work harder for us with breakthrough advertising in an Olympic and [election] year,” Frank Finn, senior VP-commercial operations for McCain Foods USA, said of his company’s search for “disruptive” advertising.

Although the summer Olympic games in Beijing have come to a close, another game’s afoot at Coca-Cola’s lab there.

Atlanta-based Coca-Cola Co., first famous for mixing South American coca leaves with African kola nuts, is trying to repeat history, reports Statesman.com.

Although shrouded in secrecy for months, the company has been trying to perfect prototype beverages using Chinese herbal cures, an initiative which might be just as important to Coca-Cola’s future as its original formula.

The collaboration between Coke and the China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences is being conducted in Beijing at the Coca-Cola Research Center for Chinese Medicine, a laboratory opened last October. At an opening ceremony, Rhona Applebaum, a Coke vice president and the company’s chief scientific and regulatory officer, said the laboratory “will ultimately help us bring the insights and benefits of Traditional Chinese Medicine to consumers all over the world,” according to a company press release.

With consumers increasingly concerned about their health and wary of sugar-laden beverages, Coke is “looking for exotic herbal ingredients to make a completely new drink and sort of revolutionize the whole soft-drink industry,” said Matthew Crabbe, director of Access Asia.

Ingredients Coke includes in its new drinks will undergo extensive tests to ensure they are safe for long-term consumption, and although hush-hush about specifics about the types of herbal drinks, work is being done on cell cultures to test cures thought to slow aging. It’s notable that some 40 people work in the lab partly financed by Coke.

The Statesman

You make an expensive airline reservation, get to the airport early and wait … and wait … because your flight is late. An hour later, you still aren’t told why the plane hasn’t arrived, so you cross your fingers hoping the flight isn’t cancelled.

Finally, you board, tripping over everyone’s suitcases, bags, golf clubs, and computers, only to find your overhead spot is taken. Then you are told you can’t take off until someone moves their baby stroller from the aisle.

Okay, you’re exhausted, irritated, hungry, thirsty and probably late for your connection. The person in front of you decides to move their seat into your lap so you can’t work, while the toddler behind you kicks your seat every five minutes or so. And just as you are ready to hit turbulence, you are served a cup of coffee. 

So goes the wonderful world of airline travel.

Well, it’s going to get worse. Beginning Sept. 2, United Airlines will no longer hand out complimentary pretzels and cookies to economy class fliers across North America, according to a United Airlines memo obtained by the San Francisco Chronicle. Effective Oct. 1, there will be no complimentary meals in domestic business class, except for premium transcontinental flights from San Francisco and Los Angeles to New York. And it’s expanding the BOB, or buy-on-board, food offerings.  And if you want to get a box of mediocre food, the price is going up.

“In the wake of high fuel prices and a challenging economic environment, we must continue to examine every aspect of our business and find new ways to improve our day-to-day operations through efficiencies that still meet our customers’ expectations,” reads the memo, titled “Catering Changes Provide Value and Options.”

“These moves are flat-out stupid,” said Henry Harteveldt, an airline industry analyst at Forrester Research in San Francisco. “The savings they will get doing away with lunch in business class - they will lose more than that when corporations yank business. The challenging thing about business is that whether things are good or bad, you have to invest in your product for the sake of keeping customers and to make it harder for competitors to catch up with you. This does nothing to encourage people to pay more because you give more. They really make me question whether the inmates have taken control of the asylum.”

In order to satisfy a diverse and demanding set of palates for the 28,000 athletes, coaches and staff at the Olympic Village in Beijing, chefs at Philadelphia-based Aramark designed a menu featuring 800 recipes from all around the world that accommodate all sorts of dietary needs – vegetarian, Halal, kosher – reports The New York Times. 

The size of three football fields, the dining hall can seat some 6,000 people at the same time and is open 24 hours a day. Although the focus on the eight-day menu rotation is on Asian (especially Chinese) specialties, there are also offerings from Italy, Greece, North Africa, Southern Spain and Latin America. In fact, chefs will work with more than 35,000 pounds of duck, 14,000 pounds of tofu, 150,000 pounds of beef, 1 million apples, 20.1 million servings of rice, 743,000 potatoes – not to mention the cheese, lettuce, onions, chickens, and oranges.

Next month Nestle will be going upscale with the launch of Glowelle, a new skingestible that will be sold at high-end department stores Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman, according to New York City-based The Intelligence Group. Glowelle, which will be available in both liquid and powder form, is billed as a dietary supplement packed with antioxidants, vitamins and fruit extracts, and is said to hydrate skin and slow down the aging process. Starting in September, well-heeled shoppers will be able to pick up a $7 bottle of this beauty juice, or splurge for a seven- or 30-day supply of powder packets for $40 and $112 respectively.

Before she turned to the kitchen, Julia Child whipped up a little intrigue as a spy for the U.S. during World War II. Hired in the summer of 1942 for clerical work at the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), a World War II-era spy agency, created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, she later worked directly for Director William Donovan.
 
According to previously top-secret records released by the National Archives on Thursday, Child was not yet married, and applied for the job at OSS under her maiden name, McWilliams, after she was rejected by the military as being too tall at 6 foot 2. It was there she met her soul mate and husband, Paul, who encouraged her to take up cooking after the war.

Cloak and dagger details about her background and nearly 24,000 other OSS employees are revealed in the newly released 750,000 documents, withheld from public view as classified records for decades by the CIA.

The 750,000 documents identify the vast spy network managed by the OSS, which later became the CIA, reports Associated Press. The OSS files offer details about other agents, including Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg, major league catcher Moe Berg, historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., film actor Sterling Hayden, John Hemingway, son of author Ernest Hemingway; Kermit Roosevelt, son of President Theodore Roosevelt; and Miles Copeland, father of Stewart Copeland, drummer for the band The Police.

Some of those on the list including Julia have been identified previously as having worked for the OSS, but their personnel records were not available before. Those records show why they were hired, jobs they were assigned and even missions they pursued while working for the agency. Most thought Julia’s job was low-level clerical, but when she worked directly with Director Donovan, some of the most secret documents passed through her hands.

I guess that secret life of intrigue is what accounted for the perpetual twinkle in Julia’s eye.

CIA OSS page:

Index to National Archives OSS personnel files:

Retail sales within the U.S. consumer packaged goods health and wellness industry reached $102.75 billion in 2007, representing growth of 15 percent over 2006, according to Harleysville, Pa.-based Natural Marketing Institute (NMI). NMI predicts that double-digit growth of the health and wellness marketplace will continue with projected sales of $170 billion by 2012.
 
According to NMI President Maryellen Molyneaux, functional and fortified foods/beverage continue to comprise the largest segment within the health and wellness category, representing more than one-third of all industry sales; up 12 percent versus 2006. NMI predicts this category will continue to grow, driven by consumers’ desire for increased management of their health and more health options, and the high number of new product introductions available that answer those needs.
 
The natural/organic personal care category showed the largest growth over 2006, at 29 percent. Based on recent in-depth research, NMI predicts this category will show staying power as evidenced by 842 new product introductions in 2007. Organic food/beverages also show impressive growth of 25 percent over 2006 and 2,107 new production introductions last year.
 
Based on consumer spending by product segment, consumer penetration/usage trends, and projected data, industry retail dollars in billions for 2007 (and growth versus 2006) are as follows: Functional/Fortified Foods & Beverages: $38.6 (12 percent); Vitamins, Minerals, Herbal & Dietary Supplements: $21.7 (7 percent); Organic Foods/Beverages: $19.0 (25 percent); Natural Foods/Beverages: $14.1 (4 percent); Natural/Organic Personal Care: $7.8 (29 percent); Natural/Organic General Merchandise: $1.5 (21 percent).

NMI’s Health & Wellness Trends Report
  
 

Even in tough economic times, coffee aficionados will go that extra mile to get their caffeine high. Sol River Coffee House & Lounge, Orlando, Fla., offers customers the rare opportunity to experience Kopi Luwak, the most expensive coffee beans in the world.

Kopi Luwak coffee beans get their distinctive flavor through a very unusual process. They pass through the digestive system of a small mammal called the Asian Palm Civet, which is found on the Indonesian islands of Sumatra, Java and Sulawesi. The civet eats red coffee cherries as part of its normal diet, and the enzymes in its stomach add to the coffee’s flavor through fermentation. The animal digests the outer skin of the coffee cherries, while the undigested coffee beans are collected by natives and sold to dealers.

The decision to stock Kopi Luwak beans — despite the slowdown of the U.S. economy — represents a natural extension of Sol River’s collection of top specialty and gourmet coffee featured in its Indie Coffee Studio. Kopi Luwak will be available to customers of Sol River by the pound for $180 or by the 8-oz. cup for $30.

“Everyone thinks I’m crazy, but this is one of the richest and most flavorful coffees in the world,” said Adam Dudley, owner of Sol River. “Stocking Kopi Luwak in the Coffee Studio creates buzz. Many of our customers are coffee aficionados and experience seekers who are eager and willing to part with for a cup of something unique that only a select few have tasted.”

So hurry on down!

The USDA projects that the new country-of-origin food label rules, which go into effect on September 30, will cost U.S. companies $2.5 billion next year to comply. And more than 1.2 million U.S. business “establishments” will be “either directly or indirectly affected” by the new labeling requirements, the department estimates.

Originally mandated in the 2002 farm bill, COOL rules stalled under industry pressure, but were revived in the 2008 farm bill, which was enacted over President Bush’s veto.

Pressure from consumers to know the origin of their food – including beef, chicken, fresh produce, and frozen fruits and vegetables – will give them the information they want, but ultimately the additional costs to food companies and retailers will be passed on. The department’s assessment offers some hints of how much more consumers might pay. Retailers’ implementation costs are pegged at 7 cents a pound for beef and 4 cents a pound for pork.

COOL rules

Restaurants love to give us unexpected flavor combinations to create sensory appeal, and some of the most unique flavors are being combined in ice cream offerings, reports Collen Kane, asylum.com. (Thanks to CultureWaves for turning us on to this story.)

New York City based Restaurant Rosa Mexicano, the 2008 James Beard award winner, offers Rosa Mexicano’s Vampiro ice cream (A piquant and refreshing sorbet made from fresh beets; Rosa Mexicano’s Chia Con Limon (lemon sorbet with Chia seeds); Rosa Mexicano’s Avocado; Rosa Mexicano’s Tomato-Habanero.

Ice cream offerings from other vendors include: Salad (complete with chunks of vegetables); Bacon and Egg; Mustard; Pickle; Foie gras; Asparagus and Parmesan; Prune and Armagnac; Raw Horseflesh (yuk!); Smurf (Puffo); Chilton Cheese; Tequila; Tongue (from Japan); and Smoked Trout and Tuna and Cheeseburger (both from Venezuela).

Well, I haven’t had a chance to try any of them, but certainly am willing (anything for Food Processing), but until then, just hand over my Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia.

Bon Appétit!

Asylum

Culture Waves