Each day at 5 p.m. we collect the five top food and supplement headlines of the day, making it easy for you to catch up on today's most important natural products industry news.

September 16, 2020

2 Min Read
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Study: 29M American adults don’t have enough to eat—nearly a threefold increase from two years ago

America's ongoing hunger crisis has reached the middle class. Eight percent of adults earning between $50,000 and $75,000 a year reported that they did not have enough to eat, up from 5% two years ago. An estimated 54 million Americans are expected to be food insecure by the end of 2020, which experts attribute to the compounding factors of record unemployment rates and closures of facilities that typically provide food to children, such as schools and daycares. Read more at The Counter

 

Whole Foods CEO John Mackey says many people are done with grocery stores

John Mackey, a well-known figure in the natural products world, believes that many consumers won't want to go back to in-person shopping after the pandemic is over. Amazon's online grocery sales, which includes Whole Foods' business, tripled year-over-year in the second quarter. Read more at The Wall Street Journal

 

More groceries, less gas: The pandemic is shaking up the cost of living

Economic analysts say that official inflation measures are understating the toll that price hikes in grocery stores are having on shoppers, because consumers are eating at home far more than they normally do. The pandemic has also lessened the appeal of bargain-hunting; shoppers are focusing in on certain one-stop-shop stores and limiting the time they spend in these brick-and-mortar establishments. Read more at NPR

 

New report details hundreds of examples of unhealthy commodity industries leveraging the COVID-19 pandemic

Unhealthy commodity industries (think alcohol and ultra-processed food) are finding ways to leverage the COVID-19 pandemic for their commercial gain through marketing efforts like mass donations of sugary sodas and targeted "freebies" for consumers in lockdown from fast-food restaurants. A new report authored by the NCD Alliance points out that any increase in purchases of unhealthy commodities as a result of these efforts will directly increase the amount of consumers that will suffer worse health outcomes from COVID-19. Read more at NCD Alliance

 

How we got conned into drinking bottled water—and how we can stop

Bottled water is big business—and because it's typically housed in plastic, it's also environmentally devastating. The category overtook soda as the largest beverage category in the U.S. four years ago, and global sales are predicted to reach $307.6 billion by 2025. Luckily, companies are innovating and developing ingenious alternatives to fossil fuel-based plastic packaging including biodegradable and plant-based options or reusable bottles. Read more at The Huffington Post

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