No Toy for You

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors is considering a proposal to ban restaurants from giving away a toy with a meal than contains too much fat, sugar or salt. Supervisor Eric Mar, chief sponsor of the proposal, explains his goal:

“Our legislation will encourage restaurants that offer unhealthy meals marketed toward children and youth to offer healthier food options with incentive items and toys.”

Restaurants would not be such an economic force if they continually failed their customers.

A few years ago, restaurants started being accused of misleading their customers into making bad food choices and fueling the increase in obesity rates.   So lawmakers forced restaurants to disclose nutritional information and lawsuits forced restaurants to add healthier items to their menus.   However, customer buying habits remained the same and healthier new menu items have generally flopped.

Researchers from NYU and Yale found the New York City its 2008 menu disclosure law is having the opposite effect:

“While many people claimed to be paying attention to the new information in New York, the researchers found there was no change in the amount of calories consumed.  In fact, there was a slight gain.

Convinced parents are still being duped at the menu, elitist lawmakers are now targeting toy giveaways.   The underlying theory is that children are mesmerized by the offer of free toys and parents are either powerless to fight off their demands or unaware of the nutritional dangers.    Without the undue influence of free Spiderman figurines, children will now crave carrot sticks and apple slices.

Although public health concerns are often cited as the primary reason for these laws targeting restaurants, fast food restaurants are often blamed for contributing to global warming since most of their food is transported from outside local markets.  

 As I have written before, storing and cooking food consumes significantly more energy than transportation.   Restaurant kitchens use heat much more efficiently and waste less food in preparing meals than home kitchens.

Much like the fasting and food consumption rules imposed by religions, lawmakers are seeking new rules that impose secular values on society.  Menu labeling laws are included in the new healthcare reform.

Robert Paarlberg writes about the motivation of these new food rules in his book Food Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know:

The goal is to find and express through the diets we adopt a solidarity with others who share our identity, our values, or our particular life circumstances.   The scientific foundation for these modern food values may be weak, but the social value can nonetheless be strong.   

So restaurant operators in San Francisco will have the unenviable task of denying toys to children so that “proper” social values can be imposed on their customers.   Chalk it up to the cost of doing business in California.

Hot Ideas come from Cool Places

Which is the better business plan  for a coffeehouse: old school hangout or incubator for technology start-ups?

According to a recent LA Times article, there is an emerging trend among independent coffeehouses to eliminate wifi internet access to patrons.   These coffeehouses, like restaurants, want to turn seats over quicker during their busy dayparts.  Internet users tend to stay longer and thus displace other customers.   

Like most things coffee, the trend began in Seattle.  However, Victrola Coffee & Art took out their wifi as a means to restore a gathering place culture:

“the owners noticed that friends were no longer talking and strangers were no longer meeting.”  

Some coffeehouses believe reading anything digital ruins the community meeting place vibe.  So iPads and Kindles are banned while dead tree reading material is allowed.  

Other stores have embraced the emerging demand for places for business people to meet, surf the internet and yes, network.   Seattle Coffee Works takes a wider view of their customer interaction:

Co-owner Sebastian Simsch said the Internet is far from a buzz kill. It’s a business opportunity. Wi-Fi in coffeehouses helps people make connections in the broader world. They may not make friends with someone at the next table, but they check in with friends all over through e-mail or on popular Internet sites such as Facebook.

As the Times article notes, while insurer Lloyd’s of London was once housed in a coffeehouse so were beatniks Jack Kerouac and Lawrence Ferlinghetti.   So why do coffeehouses attract both commerce and art?  They are cool places.

The title for this post came from a presentation by Doug Henton, CEO of Collaborative Economics, to the Ventura Economic Summit in June.    His theory is that cities who foster lively and vibrant urban environments produce innovative and creative businesses.    

One of the exciting ideas that came out the creative economy breakout session was the development of a 24-hour “hive” space in downtown Ventura.    This public/private partnership would be a combination of coffeehouse, business center, and start-up incubator space.    This is smart economic development and I hope the concept is further developed.

The restaurant business is all about developing niches.  Coffeehouses could be a analog haven away from a world where everyone from McDonald’s to Sam’s Club is offering free wifi.   However I doubt many cities other than Seattle or San Francisco have enough latte drinkers that want to read poetry from a paper book and meet new people in a coffeehouse.  

Unfortunately the downfall to most these businesses is that demand for 5 buck coffees is based on disposable income which is in short supply these days.   The demand for cool places to meet, collaborate and hangout is recession proof.

Farmers Market Whistlestop Tour

Farmers markets have become community gathering places and thus a natural stop for political campaigns. Camarillo Trolley offered me the opportunity to design a tour that combines a city tour, farmers markets, a chef challenge, fine dining, wine tasting and campaigning. The Farmers Market Whistlestop Tour was born shortly thereafter.

Our trolley tour of Saturday farmers markets in Ventura County showcases the great geographic diversity our county. From the ocean to the coastal plain to the inland valleys, our trolley full of friends will travel mostly downtown streets and country byways.

I enjoy cooking shows where chefs are surprised with ingredients and must prepare a meal with them. We will take full advantage of the Farmers and Fishermans Market visits, selecting one ingredient for a two course meal prepared by renowned Chef Gael Lecolley, co-owner of Bella Victorian Tasting Room and Bistro in Camarillo Old Town. Chef Gael requests that the ingredients be all natural and grown, caught or produced in Ventura County. On our visit to the Ventura Fishermans Market we will select a protein for the entree. We plan to challenge Chef with interesting ingredients from the four farmers markets we will visit.

We will reveal the ingredients to Chef Gael at the end of the tour. He will have one hour to prepare the meal. We will enjoy the meal at the Bistro. Bella Victorian Vineyard is a small family owned Artisan Winery & Vineyard located in Camarillo, Ca. Beginning from the private vineyards, wines are carefully handcrafted, from the vine all the way to the bottle. They specialize in small releases of estate wines and luxury wines that are elegant, well balanced and cuisine compatible. Chef Gael will make pairing recommendations for those interested in trying some of these fine wines.

We will document the selection and reveal of the ingredients and the preparation of the meal on various social media outlets.

Ventura County Farmers Market Tour
Starts at Camarillo Farmers Market
2220 E. Ventura Blvd.
Leaves 9:00am
Returns 2:15pm
Chef Challenge
Bella Victorian Tasting Room and Bistro
2135 E. Ventura Blvd. Camarillo Old Town
Ingredients revealed 2:30pm
First course served 3:30pm
Our Route

View Larger Map

Arrival Times
Ventura Farmers Market 9:45am
Ventura Fishermans Market 10:30am
Camarillo Farmers Market 11:30am
Oak Park Farmers Market 12:30pm
Newbury Park Farmers Market 1:30pm
Bella Victorian Tasting Room and Bistro 2:30pm

More Tangerines Per Gallon

When considering the environmental impact of our food choices, the distance the meal traveled to the plate is not the best metric.  A “life cycle” analysis of the food process is far more relevant.

At a 2007 press conference for John Edwards campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, his wife Elizabeth Edwards declared, “I live in North Carolina. I’ll probably never eat a tangerine again.”  While locavores were thrilled with this comment, economists were quick to point out tangerines the farmer trucked from 60 miles away consumed more energy than those sent by rail from California.   The issue is not the distance but how many tangerines traveled that distance.

I had a “tangerine” moment at the restaurant when a guest declared she wouldn’t eat our Kobe burger because it  had traveled more than 1,500 miles.   We use local suppliers and much of our food, especially our produce, is sourced locally.   However several of our menu items travel great distances to the plate and I personally drive to local breweries to pickup beer for the restaurant. 

The book Just Food by James McWilliams presents an economist’s view of the locavore movement and ways to eat responsibly.   His approach considers the entire life cycle of the food from harvesting to production to consumption.   The quick conclusion is that transportation has the smallest impact on the carbon footprint. 

In the case of our Kobe Burger, baking the bun and storing the meat consume far more energy than getting them here.   Since restaurants use energy more efficiently and waste less food than home kitchens, eating a Kobe Burger at JJ Brewsky’s could reduce that reluctant guest’s carbon footprint.

Life cycle analyses have revealed energy inefficiencies in the food production process.  A study on the Danish flatfish industry revealed that switching from trawls dragged along the ocean floor to seine nets would dramatically reduce energy consumption.   New energy-efficient cultivation methods and production techniques have a far greater impact on the overall carbon footprint of our food than how far it was shipped.

Using this approach, McWilliams posits that we should be more concerned with our food after we buy it.  Wasting less food, using energy-efficient kitchen appliances, composting all organic matter not eaten, eating less in general and developing menus that do not require extensive applications of heat are better tactics to lower one’s carbon footprint than insisting on locally sourced food.  He also realizes the problems with this approach:

But of course it’s hard to turn a variety of small, energy-saving domestic tactics into a token symbol of an eco-correct food philosophy. “Cook efficiently” just doesn’t have the same rousing ring as “eat local.”

As with Edwards press conference, the rousing ring is often followed with rants against globalism and capitalism.   This book makes a strong case that globalism and capitalism are reducing more fossil fuel usage in the food chain than locavores.