If your lunch plans included throwing a Banquet meal in the microwave, you might want to make sure the chicken nugget tray doesn’t include a brownie, as the sweet treat may contain Salmonella bacteria. [More]
Food & Personal Care
Banquet Chicken Nugget Meals Recalled For Possible Salmonella-Tainted Dessert
By 4.21.17 — Updated: 5.9.17
Suave Pours Some Shampoo In A Different Bottle, Tries To Trick ‘Beauty Influencers’
By 4.20.17
Unilever has apparently noticed that some young women are more concerned about what ingredients aren’t in their beauty products and sneer at the items sold in drug stores and big-box stores. It has responded with a campaign where it tricks a diverse cast of online “beauty influencers” into trying a new product with sleek packaging for two weeks. That product? Rebottled Suave. [More]
Sam’s Club Launches Store-Brand Wines To Compete With Costco
By 4.20.17
With Costco’s Kirkland Signature brand of booze recently accounting for an uptick in sales at the warehouse club, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that the retailer’s rival Sam’s Club would look to get a piece of that pie by launching its own house brand wines. [More]
America Takes Out Its Frustrations On Starbucks’ Unicorn Frappuccino
By 4.20.17 — Updated: 5.9.17
When times are tough, it helps to have a punching bag on which you can safely take out your frustration. Whether it intended to or not, Starbucks has provided the world with a multicolored anger sponge: the Unicorn Frappuccino. [More]
More Than 160 Customers ‘Paid It Forward’ At One Starbucks Drive-Thru
By 4.19.17
Every once in a while generous consumers will “pay it forward” by buying their fellow customers coffee, diapers, lunch, or other items. These feel-good chains usually peter out after a few customers, but not for dozens of customers at one Pennsylvania Starbucks. [More]
Wikipedia Editors Condemn Burger King For Edits Related To Google Home Stunt
By 4.19.17
Not only did a recent Burger King ad try to hijack folks’ Google Home devices to shill for Whoppers, the fast food giant also apparently made marketing-friendly edits to the Whopper’s entry on Wikipedia. That’s a big no-no, and editors on the crowdsourced reference site are flame-broiling BK about it. [More]
Some Marijuana Dispensaries Pull Pot Possibly Contaminated With Pesticides
By 4.19.17
Following reports that a variety of products sold at California medical marijuana dispensaries may be contaminated with potentially dangerous pesticides, a number of pot shops in the state have begun to stop selling these items. [More]
McDonald’s Creates Clickbait TV Ad That Mentions Google, Coke, But Not McDonald’s
By 4.18.17
An actress in a yellow dress stands in front of a red curtain. She tells you about Coke and about Google, but it’s not a commercial for either of those things… and you’ll have to search a catch phrase to find out what it is for. It is, apparently, “unbranded marketing” for McDonald’s… but will it work? [More]
Anova Reverses Mandatory Accounts For Some Cooks Using The App
By 4.18.17 — Updated: 5.9.17
Anova, maker of a popular sous vide cooking device, recently irked many of its customers by requiring that they create accounts — and share personal information — with the company just to use the cooker’s companion app. Anova has apparently heard these complaints and decided to drop this requirement… soon. [More]
Beef Prices Are Dropping Just In Time For Grilling Season
By 4.17.17
It wasn’t that long ago that red-meat-loving Americans were paying more for beef because of shortages. Now the pendulum is swinging in the other direction, meaning there should be more — and more affordable — burgers and steaks at the supermarket this summer. [More]
Amazon Reportedly Exploring Purchase Of BJ’s Wholesale
By 4.17.17
After decades of being the face of online-only retail, Amazon is increasingly inching into the bricks-and-mortar world: pop-up stores; planned supermarkets without checkouts; a reported interest in buying Whole Foods — and now the possible acquisition of BJ’s Wholesale Club. [More]
Wendy’s Recipe For A Big Mac: “Dash Of Shame… 2 Spoonfuls Of Disappointment”
By 4.14.17 — Updated: 5.10.17
Whatever you feel about Wendy’s food, you have to respect any national brand that’s willing to let its Twitter account behave like that tipsy cousin at a wedding reception who doesn’t really care what you think about their outfit or dance moves. [More]
Report: Shoney’s Affected By Chain-Wide Payment Card Breach
By 4.14.17 — Updated: 4.17.17
If you’ve dined at Shoney’s anytime since Dec. 2016, you probably want to take a good hard look at your credit and debit card statements, as reports from financial institutions indicate that some cards used to pay for meals there have recently been used to make fraudulent purchases elsewhere. [More]
Senators Urge FDA To Ban Possible Carcinogen Found In Shampoo, Lotion
By 4.14.17 — Updated: 5.10.17
You might not be familiar with “1,4-Dioxane” but it’s a chemical component commonly used in everyday products, such as shampoos, lotions, and cosmetics. It may also cause cancer, which is why a pair of U.S. Senators are urging the Food & Drug Administration to begin the process of eliminating this chemical from consumer products. [More]
McDonald’s Manager Arrested For Refunding $3,800 Worth Of Big Macs … To Herself
By 4.14.17
Each day, fast food managers around the world refund money to unhappy customers, but one burger-brained McDonald’s manager realized she could issue a fake refund for a Big Mac and pocket the money… Then she did it nearly 1,100 times. [More]
If Feds Crack Down On Recreational Pot, State May Let Marijuana Stores Reclassify As Medical Dispensaries
By 4.12.17 — Updated: 5.10.17
With the shadow of a possible federal crackdown on retail marijuana looming, Colorado lawmakers are taking steps to try to protect the state’s pot businesses by letting them re-classify as medical weed purveyors if the need arises. [More]
Irish Burger Chain Goes After McDonald’s For Trademarking Every ‘Mc’ Or ‘Mac’ Name
By 4.12.17
Names beginning with “Mc” or “Mac” are incredibly common, but selling food using some variation on either of these could result in a cease-and-desist demand from McDonald’s. Now one Irish burger chain is challenging McDonald’s ability to claim a trademark on every Mc/Mac eatery everywhere. [More]
Amazon Was Thinking About Buying Whole Foods: No, Really.
By 4.12.17
What do you get when you combine a flailing health food chain and an e-commerce giant that’s desperate to get into the grocery business? We could have found out, since Amazon was reportedly thinking about buying Whole Foods. [More]
