Retail pharmacies really, really want customers to get their flu shots there this year. How badly? They’re offering giant coupons to customers who get their shots there, ranging from 10% at grocer Safeway to 20% at pharmacy chain CVS. [More]
Food & Personal Care
Health Officials Ask Stores To Yank Fat-Burning Supplement Linked To Liver Failure
By 10.9.13
Hawaii health officials are asking stores to stop selling the fat-burning supplment OxyElite Pro after an investigation linked it to cases of liver failure and acute hepatitis in 29 people. Two of those people had to undergo liver transplants and one has died, says the Hawaii State Department of Health. [More]
Starbucks: Connect With Free Coffee While We Wait For Elected Officials To Get It Together
By 10.9.13
While the government is busy not talking to each other to figure out issues like the U.S. federal government shutdown and the looming debt ceiling problem, Starbucks is offering what it calls a chance for customers and the company to come together with free coffee. At least until Friday. [More]
Couple Is Surprisingly Unhappy That Chipotle Is Moving In Next Door
By 10.9.13
For many people, having a Chipotle restaurant move in next door would mean infinite joy and probably infinite weight gain. One couple in Hershey, Pennsylvania is very unhappy that the fast-casual eatery has a restaurant under construction next door to their home. [More]
Starbucks U.K. Launches “The Duffin” In Latest Overly-Hyped Hybrid Pastry Fad
By 10.9.13
Please, can we stop it with the Franken-pastries already? Just because you can splice two different baked goods and slap a cute name on it doesn’t mean any of us want to deal with yet another round of hybrid pastry mania. As if the mania over the cronut and its bajillions of spinoff pastries wasn’t enough, Starbucks has launched The Duffin in the UK, a muffin, donut hybrid and sigh, make it stop. [More]
CDC Calls Back Some Furloughed Staff To Tackle Multi-State Salmonella Outbreak
By 10.9.13
On the heels of a multi-state outbreak of salmonella that has sickened hundreds, some were wondering what would happen with most of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s food-borne illness staff on furlough during the government shutdown. The CDC is now reassuring the public that it has called back many of its workers to handle the outbreak. [More]
Would Your Boss Kick You Out, Send You To Starbucks?
By 10.8.13 — Updated: 4.17.14
Office space is expensive. Why pay to keep all of your employees in the building when there are perfectly good areas right nearby with plenty of desks (well, tables), plentiful wireless Internet, and someone always puts on a new pot of coffee? What we’re saying is that some businesses are kicking employees out and sending them to Starbucks. [More]
Lunch Envy: McDonald’s France Offers Goat Cheese McWrap
By 10.8.13 — Updated: 9.8.16
Other countries continue to get all of the best fast-food products from American brands. Want more evidence? Check out the new goat cheese McWrap available from McDonald’s, only in France and for a limited time. A previous version that the chain tried had breaded and fried goat cheese. Both versions replace the more typical chicken in the wrap with cheese. [More]
Are CDC’s Detectives At Work During Shutdown While Salmonella Outbreak Sickens Hundreds?
By 10.8.13 — Updated: 10.9.13
Often when we hear news of a food-borne disease, the worst has passed and the government works to educate consumers on which products have been recalled. However with 278 people in 18 states sickened by a salmonella outbreak linked to raw chicken products from California, no recall has been announced and the United States Department of Agriculture says “the outbreak is continuing.” But are any of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s elite food detectives at work during the government shutdown to trace track down the source of the contamination? [More]
Drunk Driver Must Really Hate Taco Bell, Rams Truck Into Building 3 Times
By 10.8.13
An intoxicated 19-year-old in Georgia didn’t learn his lesson when his pickup truck collided with the side of a Taco Bell restaurant. No, it took two additional bumps against the building (and a police officer with a drawn weapon) to get him to stop acting like a drunk buffoon. [More]
Pizza Hut Believes It’s “Re-Inventing The Stuffed Crust Experience” By Using 3 Kinds Of Cheese
By 10.4.13
There’s only so much you can do with a pizza before it becomes something that doesn’t even resemble a pizza — there’s a fine line between novelty food and monstrosities like the cheeseburger crust creation. But things like sauce, crust and cheese are pretty safe bets, so far as widespread appeal goes, which is perhaps why Pizza Hut is tripling down on the dairy and introducing a 3-Cheese Stuffed Crust Pizza. [More]
This Exists: Taco Bell Brand Make Your Own Choco Taco Kit
By 10.4.13
Have you always secretly dreamed of making your own dessert tacos at home? …No, neither had we, until Taco Bell turned it into an option available to every consumer, right on our grocery store shelves. Since today isn’t just Friday but also National Taco Day, you can celebrate by picking up this kit. But do you want to? [More]
Why Is The USDA Hiding Its Safety & Recall Information?
By 10.4.13
Here’s the thing: We know why the United States Department of Agriculture took its site down — like many other agencies during the government shutdown, it’s closed for business. But while other agencies have opted to simply stop updating their sites and keep information available, the USDA is making it awfully hard to find any of its information on safety and recalls. [More]
Is Anything Being Done To Prevent Exploding E-Cigarettes?
By 10.3.13
While concerns about health effects and youth-targeted marketing have the attorneys general of 37 states asking the FDA to regulate e-cigarettes much like the agency regulates the sale of tobacco, there are numerous reports of the devices “exploding” or catching fire, which can be significantly more dangerous than simply inhaling nicotine. [More]
Starbucks Will Now Offer Braille Gift Cards Year-Round
By 10.3.13
Starbucks has offered Braille gift cards during the month of October since Fall 2011, a limited run of the cards for the month designated as disability employment awareness month. Two years after that product launched the coffee giant says the Braille cards will become a regularly offered item. [More]
Some People Actually Believe Burger King Changed Its Name And Are Really Angry About It
By 10.3.13
We’re constantly being told that we are a jaded and cynical people who are unwilling to believe anything at face value and read signs of predatory marketing attempts in even the most innocent of gestures. But leave it to social media and one of the world’s largest fast food chains to show that some folks will be taken in by even the most blatant marketing gimmick. [More]
Walgreens Wants To Discover Your “Secret Sauce,” Use It To Inspire Brand Loyalty
By 10.1.13
To Walgreens, every customer is like a unique snowflake. Except that instead of a snowflake, we’re all filled with different kinds of special sauce, and the company is working hard to find out what yours is. It’s managed to boost its profits by rewarding customers to stay healthy, somewhat of a contradiction for a drug store that sells items to the exact opposite kind of shopper. [More]
USDA Investigating Food Giant Sysco After Report Claimed It Kept Meat, Dairy In Dirty Sheds
By 10.1.13 — Updated: 10.31.13
Where do you keep your raw meats, dairy and produce at home? In an old, dirty, rusted and unrefrigerated container? No, you put them in a properly cooled refrigerator, which is more than what food giant Sysco was doing, claimed a San Francisco news station’s investigation back in July. Now the United States Department of Agriculture is looking into Sysco after it received a complaint from a local meat trade association. [More]
