You might think you’re the master of your own home, controlling all the internet-connected devices within it and bending them to your will with the touch of a button or an uttered command. But Burger King is trying to sneak into your home through the TV with a new ad that tries to trigger the voice-activated Google Home. [More]
Food & Personal Care
McDonald’s Tries To Poach Sonic Fans With New Minute Maid ‘Slushies’
By 4.12.17
McDonald’s is coming for you Sonic, or at least that appears to be the case with the fast food giant’s latest menu addition: slushies. [More]
Robots Now Delivering Food For Yelp’s Eat24 Service In San Francisco
By 4.12.17
Yelp’s Eat24 food delivery service is making it easier for some users who want to avoid interacting with humans as much as possible, deploying robots in San Francisco to bring food to customers. [More]
Oregon Lawmakers Trying To Prevent Marijuana Shops From Selling Customer Info
By 4.11.17 — Updated: 4.12.17
If you live in a state with legalized recreational marijuana and take advantage of your right to shop at your local pot shop, that retailer might know things about you that you’d rather keep private. That’s why Oregon may soon make it against the law for marijuana retailers to collect or sell their customers’ information. [More]
Major Mountain Dew Syrup Spill Creates “Huge Foaming Event” At Pepsi Plant
By 4.11.17
Maybe you find it hilarious when your friend’s can of Mountain Dew erupts all over their shirt and face (unless you’re left cleaning up the mess on the floor, negating all the hilarity). But a large-scale spill of Mountain Dew syrup — resulting in a “huge foaming event” — was a genuine cause for concern at one Pepsi bottling facility. [More]
Why Doesn’t Taco Bell Do Its Own Delivery?
By 4.11.17
If you want Taco Bell but don’t want to go to Taco Bell, there are third-party delivery services that will take your order, but those can be costly and slow. Even Taco Bell says these options aren’t fast enough, so why isn’t the company doing its own delivery? CEO Brian Niccol says it might… eventually. [More]
Shoppers Say Their Bagged Spinach Came With A Free Live Scorpion
By 4.11.17
It’s a bad week for bagged salads, unless you are hoping to find animals mixed in with your greens. First, there was the dead bat salad, and now we have a customer claiming they found a live scorpion in their bag o’ spinach. [More]
Whole Foods Is Bleeding, Attracting Sharks
By 4.10.17
What is the point of Whole Foods when you can buy gluten-free pie crust, organic sweet corn, and quinoa in most regular grocery stores? Whole Foods doesn’t seem to know, and neither do the people who used to shop there, which is why a major shareholder of the supermarket chain wants Whole Foods to clean itself up and see whether anyone might be interested in a merger. [More]
Starbucks Testing Lunch In Chicago This Week
By 4.10.17
Starbucks may have missed out on gobbling up Panera, but that doesn’t mean the company is ditching lunch. Instead, the coffee chain will begin tests of a specific lunch menu in Chicago this week. [More]
To Compete With Your Living Room, AMC Will Offer Full Meals At 400 Theaters
By 4.10.17
Theaters know that you can stay home and watch movies on your huge 4K TV from the comfort of your couch while eating whatever you want. To entice moviegoers to pay top-dollar to get this same experience, just surrounded by a few hundred other people, AMC is revamping hundreds of theaters to serve full-fledged meals. [More]
McDonald’s Hopes Mobile App Can Super-Size Your Spending By Tracking What You Buy
By 4.10.17
McDonald’s is looking for ways to reverse its decline in customer traffic and appeal to younger consumers so it can stay relevant. While fresh beef and functioning ice cream machines are important parts of the fast food giant’s future plans, even more important will be a mobile ordering app that will let it collect data on customers and offer them carefully tailored deals and upsells. [More]
Fresh Express Recalling Salad Mix Sold At Walmart After 2 People Find Dead Bat In Their Food
By 4.10.17
If you were about to eat something, you may want to put it down for just a second. Now pick it up and take a closer look at it: Any dead animals that shouldn’t be there? No? You’re luckier than two people in Florida who found a dead bat in the packaged salad they were in the process of consuming. [More]
Unilever Looking To Shed Country Crock & I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter As Americans Say No To Margarine
By 4.7.17
Consumer products conglomerate Unilever wants to sell its butter substitutes, which include Country Crock and I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter in the United States, to another company. Why would it want to get rid of two such recognizable brands? Sales aren’t great, because Americans and consumers in other developed countries are losing their taste for buttery spreads. [More]
Our Online Shopping Is Hurting Mail Carriers As Dog Attacks Increase
By 4.7.17
Online shoppers might joke that their habit only hurts their wallets, but it turns out, it could actually be hurting someone else: The number of mail carriers attacked by dogs is the highest it’s been in three decades. [More]
KFC Pledges To Stop Serving Chicken Raised On Antibiotics That Are Medically Important To Humans
By 4.7.17 — Updated: 5.9.17
KFC is making a big change to its menu, one that investors, customers, and public health advocates have been calling for. This morning, the chicken chain announced it will soon stop serving chickens raised on antibiotics that are medically important to human beings. [More]
EPA Taken To Court For Ignoring Its Own Science In Deciding To Not Ban Pesticide
By 4.6.17 — Updated: 5.9.17
When Scott Pruitt recently took over as head of the Environmental Protection Agency, one of his first decisions was to deny a petition seeking a ban on a controversial pesticide — only months after scientists of the agency said it poses a significant health risk. Now the EPA is being taken to court for its decision to ignore its own recommendation. [More]
Food Industry Lobbyists Ask FDA To Delay Revised Nutrition Labels For Three Years
By 4.6.17 — Updated: 5.10.17
Three years after the federal government said it would overhaul Nutrition Facts labels for the first time in 20 years, a group of food industry executives and trade groups are asking the Food and Drug Administration to delay implementing those changes by three years. [More]
