The allure of far away grocery stores
What I talk about when I talk about wandering the supermarket aisles in China, some more headway for cultured meat startups and why I'm going to Atlanta in October.
Hello readers. Last week, I wrote about the FDA’s green light on cultivated salmon. In a poll, I asked what you were most excited to try. Lab-made salmon narrowly edged out alt butter. Few people eat butter alone, unless it’s really, really good butter, so I probably should have phrased it differently: Would you prefer a croissant with alt butter or faux salmon on an everything bagel? What’s the thing you wish you could eat if only it was “better for you”? (Leave a comment below.)
My trip to China — rather the food in China — is still swirling around in my head, and I wanted to cover that today. The aisles of the grocery store are endlessly illuminating. I visited 7-11, Watsons, Fresh Hippo, FamilyMart and Lawson. It was easy to find convenience stores—they were everywhere. Fresh Hippo was the closest to our big box stores in the US. Produce in plastic, bakery aisles, dairy case, snack aisles and bulk grains. I love a good store and the story it tells.
This year, at Expo West, word on the street was that protein was in everything. It was the same in China. Here’s their version. The packaging on protein bar bread stated its selling point was a “milk cloud-like texture.” The ingredient callout read: 22% pure milk. I missed getting a photo of the ingredients so we can only wonder what else was in it. Probably not too outlandish — wheat, sugar, but what gave it the cloud-like texture?
Another matching trend in China is for more simple, clean label or single-ingredient foods like these freeze-dried durian chips. The label reads that the durian has a “creative coating with a rich taste.” The quality of packaging in China is amazing. On my trip, I wanted to keep all of the trash I made to send back to Ridwell when I made it back home. Imagine flying back with a suitcase full of empty bags and wrappers? (Yes, dear reader, I was almost this crazy.)
On the train from Chengdu to Chongqing, I was given a handful of ultra-processed snacks. One of the crackers included lions mane mushrooms, which has a history of benefits in Asian culture, in the formulation. I ate it of course, and it was crunchy and tasty. If there were benefits I would never be able to spot them. (Here’s a study showing benefits on a very small sample of healthy adults.) I saw lions mane used again at Fresh Hippo. The box reads that the biscuits are “upgraded” and the hericium (lion’s mane) was increased by over 70%. One hopes it might help us run faster or work harder.
While afternoon snacking strategy sometimes focused on health-minded folks, dinner options were very different. Here’s a common example. A plastic bowl of spicy tender beef in a “self-cooked hot pot set.” The packaging reads: “The oily and spicy flavor makes the slices of beef delicious.” It self heats, you eat it, then throw the whole package away. Microplastics is not a concern in China yet, and while I ate an amazing breadth of delicious, fresh food, the markets were buried in ultra-processed foods. (Much like markets and convenience stores in the US.)
I used Google Translate everywhere I went in China, but there are so many ingredients in this hot pot product. One eye-catching number was the sodium: 1,680 mg or roughly 84% of your daily allowance. Now, it’s not too outlandish to think that going to a hot pot restaurant might also be high in sodium or that eating out at a chain restaurant in the US might be similar. We have a lot to do to make our food healthier, and yet still maintain that not everything we eat or produce will be good for us. We all need a few comfort foods that have nothing to do with our longevity.
I have more photos, thoughts and ideas about my experience in China. A future newsletter will cover an innovation talk I attended at FBIF in Shanghai with a brand manager at Lay’s. If you're one of those people that love to buy new flavors of Lay’s chips, you’ll want to read this one.
I’m just here for the tidbits:
Vow made more headway for cultured meat. The startups cultivated quail is now available to be sold in its hometown of Australia as well as New Zealand, which shares a regulatory agency. The products are already available in Singapore and I sampled the different creations after signing a legal document saying I wasn’t worried (LOL) at a dinner in San Francisco. Read more here.
Where you can find me:
Have you seen this years Reducetarian program? It looks fantastic and it’s in Atlanta in October. What a fantastic place to eat! I’ll be there moderating a panel on cultured meat with Eitan Fischer, CEO of Mission Barns—cultured fat; Yuki Hanyu, CEO of IntegriCulture—cell-based infrastructure; and Brittany Sambol, SVP of operations at WildType—cultured salmon.
I’m taking a field trip to Sacramento and Davis on July 11th. Anything I don’t want to miss?
Do you think the excessive salt and artificial preservatives are used to save money with food items with longer shelf life?
This is the case for India too! Rising wages mean a rise in processed
Foods. Then the people become rich enough to feel regret about the processed foods. It’s the tale of the 21st century! These regret stories are starting to play out in India and I’m sure in China too!