Grocery News

Just when we thought the good people at Nabisco had reached the limits of innovation with Swedish Fish-flavored Oreos, they’ve surprised us once again. Oreo has teamed up with German chocolate brand Milka to concoct ingenious Oreo-filled milk chocolate bars. The crossover candy bars debuted in Europe last year in two varieties: “Milka Oreo Big Crunch Candy Bar” and “Milka Oreo Chocolate Candy Bar.

What’s your strategy for choosing the shortest line at the grocery store? Do you just go for length of the line? Do you try to decipher if anyone standing in line is actually together? Do you look to see how many baskets versus carts are in line? A new study by Christopher Mele for The New York Times suggests a new way to get through the line faster, and it’s not what you think. According to Mele, you should choose the shortest line where shoppers have the fullest carts.

For the last seven years, Trader Joe’s has asked customers to vote on their favorite products. From baked goods to beverages to produce, these are the things customers loved to buy from Trader Joe’s in 2015. Did your favorite product make the list? According to loyal customers of Trader Joe’s, the cookie butter is the overall fan favorite. It was also the number-one pick last year, so it’s interesting to see that this trend is still holding strong. Have you tried it yet?

I grew up in a world where putting powdered butter-like flavoring over broccoli was common, and eating curdled dairy by the spoonful was completely fine — but raw fish and cucumbers wrapped in rice was absolutely terrifying. Sushi has come a long way. While I can count on one hand the number of family members who’d eat even a simple California roll, I’m happy to say it’s become a norm in the grocery store.

New book Ingredients takes popular processed foods and photographs their individual chemical components. So what does it take to make Cool Ranch Doritos? The 34 ingredients you see pictured. Turns out even the cheese in Cool Ranch Doritos is composed of 10 flavors and chemicals. This book delves into other popular foods, like Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup and Quaker Instant Oatmeal, and visually explores just how processed modern food production has become.

There are many theories, myths, and misconceptions about how and why grocers operate.

Even though consumers are still clamoring for locally produced food, NPR has declared that we’ve hit the peak of farmers markets. Why? Turns out there are better ways for farmers to get their food to your tables. Quartz looked at two of the more popular ways for farmers to connect with consumers: farm-to-school programs and digital marketplaces like Farmigo.

For the sixth year in a row, Trader Joe’s has released its Customer Choice Awards. From the best slice of bread, to customer’s favorite cheese, all these products are true stars at the grocery store. Can you guess which product received favorite overall for 2014? The winner for the favorite product overall at Trader Joe’s last year was cookie butter! Are you surprised? No? Neither was I.

As you eat your way through your Halloween candy stash, you might stumble onto a few Dum Dums, those ubiquitous little lollipops that have been around since 1924. And maybe you’ll even have a Mystery Flavor pop, its wrapper covered in question marks — is it pineapple-banana? Cherry cola? What is Mystery Flavor? We finally have an answer. According to Mental Floss, Mystery Flavor is created when the same candy equipment is used to make two different flavors.

Every year I look forward to the start of my CSA. For the last few years I was part of a CSA in Brooklyn, but after a recent move to Boston I’ve had to start fresh with a whole new farm. So, in the spirit of change and the summer season, I’m going to be sharing my CSA box with you every week — what fruits and vegetables I receive, as well as how I plan to eat my way through it.

We all know it to be true: sriracha is amazing, and everyone should have a bottle in their fridge. But as with most cool kids on the block, there comes a time when young upstarts show up and vie for people’s attention. So what’s the next ‘it’ condiment?

Eating more fruits and vegetables is good for our health, right? We’ve all heard that for years, and it is true. But according to Jo Robinson, author of the forthcoming book Eating on the Wild Side: The Missing Link to Optimum Health, what really matters is choosing the right varieties of those fruits and vegetables.

It may come as a surprise to some, but buying foods labeled cage-free or grass-fed does not necessarily mean that those items are what they say they are, or what we assume they mean.  This can be really frustrating if you are trying to do your best to purchase humane and sustainable food, not to mention that foods labeled with these claims are often more expensive.  Do you pay extra for organic, or non-GMO, or hormone-free foods?  Do you know which labels are reliable?

We’ve all seen those small “Sell by” dates printed on food products. With the holidays over, and the fridge clearing begun, you may find yourself with a few items supposedly past their prime. But how seriously should you take those expiration dates?According to The Salt, “sell by” dates are more about protecting the reputation of the food, and less about food safety.

Rotisserie chickens—skewered birds roasted in rotating rows and sold everywhere from grocery stores to member-only club stores—are immensely popular, if you didn’t already know. In 2010 six hundred million rotisserie chickens were sold in the U.S. What is the secret to this bird?A recent article in The Washington Post shared a few interesting tidbits into how the rotisserie chicken is made:1.

Many people, myself included, will tell you that buying bagged, pre-washed lettuce mixes makes it easier to eat more salad. More organized folks will point out that washing and drying your own lettuce isn’t that difficult and that bagged lettuce isn’t always that safe. What’s the best way to go? Well, the answer is complicated.I picked up the bag of lettuce pictured above at Happy Boy Farms, one of my favorite stalls at my local farmers’ market.

America’s oldest beer maker, D.G. Yuengling & Son Inc., announced plans to expand this week. Are you familiar with this sought-after beer? Remember the first beer you learned to order in a bar? You know, your go-to choice when you were too young to know much about beer except that you were happy to get it? Yuengling (pronounced ying-ling) was mine. It sounded a lot cooler than Bud or Miller and tasted better, too.

We do quite a bit of our shopping at Trader Joe’s. It’s nearby, relatively inexpensive, and well-stocked with many of the fun foods we enjoy (hello prosciutto!). We buy most of our grains and produce items at a local co-op or the farmers market, and a lot of our other food comes from TJ’s. We’ve always been annoyed, though, at the baking section.Trader Joe’s, at least in our part of the world, has never carried “proper” sugar, or sugar you can bake with.

May the cheapest pasta win! That’s what happened, anyway, when New York convened a panel to sample different store-bought, dried pasta. At 99 cents a pound, TJ’s was the least expensive pasta of the bunch, and it beat out some very fancy brands. Which grocery store staple came in last?

We hope you’ll forgive us for writing about kumquats again, but these ones are different! We just can’t contain our excitement over finding these two unusual kumquat varieties at the Hollywood farmers’ market this weekend. They exemplify one of our favorite things about farmers’ market shopping – the unexpected discovery of new colors, textures, forms, and flavors.

Here’s a small, colorful note from my time in France last week. At the market some of the pears had dabs of something bright and scarlet on top. What was it?It turns out that all of the stems were dipped in wax to seal them. My market tour guide, Rosa Jackson, told me later in the week that this was done to keep the pears from ripening too quickly.I’ve never seen this done in the States – have you? Does anyone know why keeping the stem sealed prevents ripening?

Last weekend, we found branches full of fresh Barhi dates at the farmers’ market. While we were sampling the crunchy young fruits, the man who grew them urged us to peek around the corner…Along the sidewalk, just behind the Dates by Davall stand at the Hollywood Farmers’ Market, are several date palm trees, laden with green fruits. Although we’d seen such trees around town before, we admittedly had no idea they were the same as the dates we snack on.