From robot restaurants to automobile vending machines: The e-commerce revolution in China

Almost everything is done digitally or by robots in Alibaba-owned Chinese grocery store Hema. The Hema app allows brick-and-mortar retail to fully merge with e-commerce; for example, customers are able to discover recipes for and trace the origin of every product on the shelves. Shaun Rein of China Market Research Group in Shanghai posits that U.S. retailers are less successful at online-to-offline retail sales because they are trying to “force an e-commerce experience onto brick-and-mortar” rather than “starting with the mobile phone at the center of the experience." Read more at CBS News …

Low carb? Low fat? What the latest dieting studies tell us

There were three major studies that came out in 2018 surrounding the effects of low-carb and low-fat diets; one year-long study found that the two were equally effective in terms of weight loss, which is notable because it suggests there may be some flexibility in terms of how people can best go about losing weight. This finding also shines a light on the benefits of ditching processed foods and limited sugar and refined flour, as all of these studies encouraged participants to do. Read more at AP News …

The Bronx city park is making public land forage-friendly

Since 2017, the Bronx River Foodway has run a publicly available forage garden on a small waterfront plot along the Bronx River. The Foodway aims to feed the community, encourage park use, promote food education and create a cleaner environment for the surrounding neighborhood through this project, as well as challenge how public park spaces are designed and used countrywide. Foraging is typically illegal in New York City parks because of liability and over-harvesting concerns, but early anti-foraging laws were allegedly based on “‘racism, classism colonialism, [and] imperialism,’ targeting Native Americans, African Americans, and those living in the country." Read more at Civil Eats …

Food waste chief to target ‘scandal’ of 250M binned UK meals

Philanthropist Ben Elliot has been appointed to work with businesses and stakeholders across retail to eliminate the UK’s massive food waste problem. The first project he will oversee, the Food Waste Fund, is a £15 million pilot scheme that aims to redistribute surplus food to help families in need.  Read more at The Guardian  ...

How a Memphis food hall is transforming refugee lives and the community

Memphis’ Global Café offers “authentic, affordable dishes prepared by refugee food entrepreneurs from three different countries.” The food hall is the brainchild of refugees Indra Sunuwar and Ibti Salih from Nepal and Sudan, respectively. It draws on the talents of local refugee immigrants to produce fresh, healthy fare and support a community that has a notoriously difficult time assimilating. Read more at NPR  …