Happy New Year and Welcome to the first edition of the 2023 Lempert Report LIVE.
Happy New Year and Welcome to the first edition of the 2023 Lempert Report LIVE.
Happy New Year and Welcome to the first edition of the 2023 Lempert Report Live. Today we look at Dry January which according to Fast Company has fueled the growth of non alcoholic beer and wine every January– but does it actually improve our health? US News& World report names the best diet for 2023, Climate labels really do work, Giant Food gets serious about local and a new Chicago pop up looks really smart. Be sure to check out Food News Today on SupermarketGuru.com for the most up to the minute newsfeed courtesy of our partnership with Cision. Let’s get started. So, Sally, when I think about Dry January, and we've got a lot of stuff here to talk about, the first thing is, I mentioned Fast Company. So in 2019 what happened is Beer Insider sales were 14.5 million non-alcoholic, sorry, non-alcoholic beer insider sales. Now in 2023, they are above about 43 million and anticipated that in 2025, it'll be just under 70 million. So clearly, what's happening with Dry January is people are switching, and the question that I've got is whether or not people are really switching and staying with it. What we know from a factual standpoint, is giving up alcohol for the month according to the Alcohol Research and Health Group can lead to improved sleep, increased energy, better hydration, less anxiety, less depression. There is also a study for more than 800 people who took part in Dry January back in 2018. And again, pre pandemic, the average amount of drinks that participant, including those who tried and failed the challenge, was 3.3 drinks per week as compared to 4.3 drinks per week before Dry January. What do you think? Should we make it like dry 12 months a year?
Sally:Well, I think that those are really positive results and you know, this, this Dry January campaign started in the UK in 2012, and it has really gained a lot of momentum globally. You see it on social media, and we also know that our Gen Z population, you know, we've read study after study showing that they drink less alcohol than older generations. Mocktails are on our trends lists, and we're seeing them more and more in restaurants. So the results are really positive. But the other flip side of it too is that some people think that highly restricted diets, you know, or completely restricting yourself from alcohol maybe doesn't give us the result that we want, rather than learning how to manage our intake of things that we should only have in moderation.
Phil:So a couple points. Number one, right before we went live, I noticed on my Alexa that now there's some skills on Alexa to help you with Dry January. So if you're interested, check those out. And also there's a dietitian by the name of Lauren Maner. And what she wants to do is change it instead of Dry January to Damp January, just to your point that it's not about total abstinence, but if you can just moderate it, it can help you with all those health benefits and you're probably gonna stick to it.
Sally:Agreed. And we see this with diets, you know, all the time in studies that highly restricted diets are very hard for people to continue to follow. They're not sustainable for a majority of people. So, you know, maybe this is a new way to explore Dry January, you know, just encouraging people to pay attention to how many drinks they have and to moderate that.
Phil:Absolutely. And talking about diets, US News and World Report just came out with their 2023 ratings on Tuesday. And the number one diet is the Mediterranean diet, yet again, and what this study showed, and they've got, you know, over 30 experts who really look at these diets in depth to see which ones are the best. What I didn't ever think about is what they said this year is bone and joint health is an area where there's a fair amount of scientific literature, and we recognize our population is aging. So focusing on diets that can increase the quality of life among older individuals is an important element. That's one of the reasons that they're pushing, or that they named the Mediterranean Diet. It can reduce the risk for diabetes, high cholesterol, dementia, memory loss, depression, and breast cancer. And it has been linked to stronger bones, a healthier heart, and longer life. So, you know, we've known for a while that the Mediterranean diet is a great diet, but we haven't been able to get the same kind of attention as Keto does, as Weight Watchers does and a lot of these other ones. So how do we do that?
Sally:That's a really good question. And you know, this being the sixth year in a row that Mediterranean diet has been named to the best overall diet. You know, what's interesting to me, Phil, is that some of these other really popular diets, really have some of the same principles as the Mediterranean diet. You know, eating whole foods, eating fresh foods and vegetables, eating nuts and seeds and fish, and limiting your sugar and processed food intake. Those are all really important elements of some of these other popular diets like the Dash Diet, which also involves limiting your salt intake, like the Flexitarian diet. But what I really love most about this Mediterranean diet, and you know, what it incorporates, and you kind of touched on it there, is that it touches on how your lifestyle is like, you know, are you, when you're eating, are you sitting down and socializing with friends? Are you using mindfulness when you are eating food? Are you exercising? And we cannot forget about those very, very important parts of diet. In fact, it makes me think of the Blue Zones Diet, which I know we've talked about before, Phil, about Dan Butner and his whole philosophy. You know, he researched all these countries where people live to be over a hundred years old, and there were five spots in the world. And he talks about this a lot, about how people's lifestyles having meaning and purpose and mindfulness and friends that that will really help you succeed in eating healthier.
Phil:Yeah, we really have to think, you know, in terms of a holistic life. Part of that is diet. And I think that all these diets really get confusing to people. They don't know what to do. They read that Keto is hot today, Atkins is hot, Ornish is hot and so on. And again, to your point, and to Buckner's point with, with Blue Zones, if we could just pull back and really think about our entire lifestyle and that food is part of that lifestyle, I think we could actually make a change. Because here's the reality, America is still getting fatter even with all this information, all the labels, all the diets, all the new plant-based foods, we're still getting fatter and we're still having increased amount of heart disease and cancers. So obviously the way we're doing it doesn't work. And I also believe that, you know, with the government now looking to regulate the word healthy and put healthy and a symbol on products, it's gonna get even more confusing than it is now.
Sally:Yes. And you know, you mentioned these commercial diets that are really popular, those can be extremely expensive and out of reach for some people. And so, you know, having those dietitians in place in stores to help people who are not able to buy into these commercial diets, you know, they can find the exact same diet and follow it on a budget right there, with the help of their dietitian in their supermarket.
Phil:Yeah, great point. Great point. Talking about labeling, there's a new report that came out of John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where they, they studied 5,000 participants who were shown a sample menu, a fast food menu to ask to choose and select a single item for dinner. And what they did is they had one group of people getting a menu, with a non red meat item, such as chicken labeled'low Climate impact'. Another group received the menu with red meat items, burgers labeled high climate impact, and a third control group received menus with QR codes on all the items with no climate labels. And guess what, you know, menus with a high climate impact label on the burgers increased non beef choices by 23%. So what we know is if we can label things simply, and if we can label things clearly, we can affect change in the way people eat, and certainly for the climate as well.
Sally:Yes. And this is a very interesting study. You know, we've looked at labeling studies before. We've looked at the impact of requiring calories on menus at restaurants, which I believe has been since 2018 in the United States. We've looked at those results, we've looked at traffic labeling, we've looked at labeling in other countries where they've printed how much exercise you need to burn off the calories from that food you're eating. And what I find most interesting about this labeling is how it affects the people that are making the products. You know? So while we may not make the best choice on our own, when we're buying things, we can hope that companies are creating food products for us, and especially in the big food world that they are looking at their products and how they affect our climate, and trying to reformulate in a way that we can feel better about buying those products.
Phil:I just had this discussion last week where there's a major retailer here in the US who has now put'good for you' labels on products. Schnooks in the St. Louis area. And what they're finding is companies are reformulating their products so that they can get the'good for you' label. So to your point exactly, I mean, we can affect change. Let's not overthink it. Let's just make it simple for people to understand. And I think that people can come around. Giant food in Washington DC, one of my favorite chains, has a new brand campaign called Find Your Local. And what they're doing is they're going out and finding over a thousand different items from more than a hundred local vendors to be able to put in their 165 supermarkets to really promote local. And what we know, especially as we're going through all these weather situations throughout the US over the past few weeks, the more local that we can purchase, the easier the supply chain is, the more product we can get on the shelves. And especially when it comes to, you know, produce items, it has more nutrients, more flavor, and it's less expensive.
Sally:Yes. And I, I love that Giant Food has created this campaign and that they've got a thousand items for more than a hundred local vendors. What I also love about it is in order to create their commercials, they used local people to produce and create their commercials. So, you know, when we look at the food products at Giant, working with local people to create their ads, what they're doing is they're supporting their community. And we know that we have so many new food entrepreneurs out there, it's very, very competitive and difficult to get on those supermarket shelves. But if you've got somebody like Giant Food helping you get your products in the store, then we're really helping those communities and we're really helping those new food business owners.
Phil:And also it's a great model for other retailers to follow. I mean, I know Hy-Vee has a local event where people can go and pitch there and other retailers are doing it as well. But, we really need to have a much more concerted effort. And one of those that I'm very excited about is a Chicago popup. It's called the Chicago Food Stop Popup. It's at 875 North Michigan Avenue. The, that's the old, not Transamerica building, but, oh I forgot what it is. Okay. But it's that old big black building that was there. And John Hancock building. And what they've done is they've created this pop-up store in the space of a Best Buy. So Best Buy's are big stores. So they've got a bunch of these companies that are out there. A lot of chefs are putting their product in there, and they're also telling the stories about all these products. And to be honest with you, I think that this is great. One of the vendors called Here, Here Market. It's an online food boutique started 16 months ago. What they have is they have over 40 products in there, and it's from well-known chefs from Mott S treet, Monteverde, Kims S ki, Bang bang Pie a nd Biscuit. It has 160 different creators of foods. And you know, when I look a t this pop-up, typically when we've seen pop-ups, it's been for a brand, if you would, or a couple brands, but they're really pushing Chicago and I just love this idea. And the other thing that they're doing that I think is significant, the staffing is using six kids who are 18 to 25 through a paid partnership with the Youth J ob Center. So, you know, they're really not only helping the companies, helping the kids, b ut also giving some really unique foods to the people who live in Chicago.
Sally:Absolutely. And you know, one thing we have been learning is that consumers want to hear the brand story. They want to know where it comes from. We've been hearing that for a few years now, that's been building. So giving, giving these entrepreneurs an opportunity to tell their stories. And it also sort of enhances the culture of Chicago food. And I would love to see this happen in all cities.
Phil:Yeah, it would be great. And just the excitement, the enthusiasm in the food communities when they do this, is unparalleled. It's great. So moving forward, I wanna show you an excerpt from the Category Management Association and sema, where they had a discussion around the current state of online grocery. Here in the US they looked at the total spend, the trip frequency, the average order size, the percentage of Amazon Prime members who are buying groceries. And all these trends speak to a pullback from its peak during the pandemic. Members of the CMA can access the full replay of the webinar in the resource library, non-members can visit catman.global to contact the association about membership. Let's take a look,
CMA:Partly as a result of this experience online grocery shopping, which took off in the pandemic, we all know that it's evolving to a new steady state. We've, you've seen a lot of headlines about that, I suspect in the last couple months. Uh, and so I'm gonna sort of recap some of what you may have have read spending for Groceries online peaked in March of 21, for obvious reasons. Um, uh, but it has been in a state of decline ever since some months a little bit up, but in the main it has been going down, that rate of decline has been moderating. But interestingly, the, the number of people who are actually buying groceries online is also in decline. Uh, the data here doesn't capture 22 yet, but, um, uh, you can see that, uh, after the year in which Covid peaked at 59%, the trend has been to fall back off down to 54% last year. And current estimates are that this will fall, fall below 50%, uh, by, uh, year end, Um, the frequency with which people are shopping for online groceries as well as their average order size. And this is from Mercatus, the very latest brick meets clicks report, uh, is also trending down. Now the chart shows this year over year, these are latest figures. The declines are not jaw dropping by any stretch. But again, the, the trend here, uh, seems to be speaking to a larger, um, um, happening, which is that people are beginning to back away from the, the huge uptick that had happened during, uh, during covid. Now this chart shows the average number of monthly shopping trips, uh, that were done in 2020 versus 2021. Again, this trend is downward. It'll be updated for 2022 in the coming month. And here again, the expectations are that the numbers will be still lower. Now we're seeing this play out at Amazon as well, where as you look at the percent of the prime members who are buying groceries has declined by a fairly large number in the past few years, down 14%. And these are their very most valuable cus customers. Um, and, you know, having expanded so greatly, uh, during the times of, of Covid, Amazon's own projected sales have fallen short of expectations, uh, and have left them with huge fixed costs that are dragging them down in terms of warehouse based logistics, infrastructure, people, et cetera.
Phil:On today’s Bullseye– It’s more about Dry January. Martha Stewart has joined forces with Tito’s Vodka on a new 60 second TV spot and campaign focused on how to put the vodka that you are not drinking in January to good use. They call it“DIY January” and are encouraging consumers to us use Tito’s for alternative activities, such as adding a spritz to boots to keep them from smelling or adding to pasta sauce– and Martha adds a lot of vodka to her sauce recipe and(I think that’s already called Vodka pasta sauce?). Martha is using the vodka to clean a bowl, sprays some in her mouth and even smashes a bottle on a piece of meat to tenderize it(please don’t try that at home– you could wind up smashing the bottle! And adding vodka to flowers to keep them fresh. A quick look on line and on Amazon reports that a 750 ml bottle of Tito’s costs about$20. Kind of expensive to use Tito’s for these Martha hints ya think? They also came up with a kit– already sold out of course– that she demonstrates to add to the top of the bottle-- there is the deodorizer, the flavorizer and the cleanerizer. And of course the spot ends with her getting ready to drink a Martini as‘she needs a drink”. Yes its sort of funny. Yes its probably the brands inside joke. And according to the brand there are more DIY ideas on the way– including a window de-icer(I’m glad I live in California!). But dry January as we discussed before is serious. In Australia 51% of those who participated in Dry January drink less frequently 4 months after participation. Other studies across the countries who participate and promote Dry January also show reduced consumption. Don’t get me wrong, I am not a teetotaller– but according to Alcohol Research& Health alcohol can have negative effects– increased cardiovascular disease, stroke, liver disease and high blood pressure. Dry January is not going to cure those with alcohol addiction– it’s a tiny step to help. But this time, Martha and Tito’s I just think you’ve gone too far. So, Sally, any comments on today's program?
Sally:Yes, we, it's really nice to be back and to hear from John Pandol, our top commenter on our show, we're gonna have to get John on the show, I think. Yes, absolutely. John's got a few comments here. He says, did not the heart h elp labeling on menus r educe the purchase of those h ealthy items?
Phil:So, you know, the problem with heart health and with that symbol and it's more of a political issue in order to have that symbol, yes, you had to meet certain criteria, but it also cost a hundred grand to be able to use that symbol. And it was a hundred thousand dollars per year. So as a result of that, in my opinion, it wasn't fair, because there was a lot of heart healthy products who couldn't afford a hundred thousand dollars to use that label. So yes, the label did work, but it was limited.
Sally:Well, John also has, I'm gonna combine these comments because they kind of go together, but, he says, if you grew up in a house where wine and olive oil came in gallons, you did the Mediterranean diet. And then he also says, I don't drink anymore, but I don't drink any less either.
Phil:Love it. And, and you know, you're right. And the key to the Mediterranean diet, in addition to everything that we said John, um, is exactly what you said. It's all about the olive oil. And study after study has shown that if we consume olive oil, um, it is much more beneficial than a lot of the other oils. Certainly the palm oils have been shown for years, to be a little less healthy. I'm being kind if you would, than olive oil. And also now with the war in Ukraine, um, you know, they, they were the major exporter of sunflower oil and you can't find sunflower oil anywhere now. So you have a lot of salad dressings, a lot of people who used ingredients, now switching to either a palm oil or a soybean oil, unfortunately they're not switching to olive oil. I wish they would, because it has a better flavor and a better health profile. But it's also more expensive.
Sally:Yes. And I think we have one more comment here. I'm trying to grab this one here. Let's see. Joy Foster, why are eggs so high?
Phil:So Joy, it's a great question. The average dozen of eggs right now is about$3.42,$3 and 42 cents for a dozen across the nation. In some markets, like here in California, they're over$4. If you go for a free range, they're over$7. The reason is really simple. Bird flu. Bird flu had to cull about 57 million chickens. Cull meaning destroy them. And also bird flu is really, really contagious. So if you wind up with one chicken, one laying hen in a flock, they've gotta destroy the entire flock. So that's why the prices are going up. And frankly, they're gonna continue to go up. And you know, what we hear from USGA consistently is until we can get climate change really controlled, we're gonna have more diseases like bird flu happening. And just as a point of reference, to make you really feel bad in 1990, a a dozen eggs only cost a dollar 1 cent. It's only$ 1.01 In 1990. And now, you know, we're over three times. And what has me really concerned is the amount of Americans who are on food stamps and on SNAP programs that use eggs as their primary source of protein, they can't afford the meat or the chicken or the fish, and what happens to these people when we keep on driving up the price of eggs. So, unfortunately I think we're gonna continue to see eggs going up. And, you know, there was even, we talked about this, I think we talked about this a few weeks ago before Christmas. That Hellmann's, mayonnaise, Hellmann's and Best if you're on the East Coast, it's hellmann's mayonnaise. If you're on the West coast, it's best mayonnaise, both owned by Unilever, put out a recipe for eggnog using mayonnaise instead of eggs. So you know, the number two and the number three ingredient in mayonnaise are eggs. But you know, if you wanna save a little money, you could use mayonnaise, where you might be using eggs instead. And with that, I wanna thank everybody for joining us. Cheers to a happy, healthy, wonderful, cheaper 2023. And don't forget to check us out on SupermarketGuru.com and we'll be back here next week. Same time, same place with more of the Lempert Report LIVE.