Randomly Noted

If you’ve ever walked into one of the 100 Fresh Market supermarkets, you’ll easily understand why the company’s initial public stock offering was a huge success on Day One.

The produce is super fresh, the cut of meats are incredible and for the stores that are allowed to sell wine, the selections are very good – and very affordable. Around the holidays, they have a wonderful selection of candies and cookies. And a hallmark at many of the stores – right when you walk in the door you walk past an area where they sell attractive baskets and flowers. The senses are put to work the moment you arrive.

And they have a very smart business strategy. I’ve spoken with employees at stores in Virginia Beach, Va., and Greensboro, North Carolina, over the years and they’ve told me the company doesn’t just open stores anywhere. It does a lot of demographic research to make sure it is located very close to areas of wealth. Another way of saying this is a high-end store. The one in Virginia Beach is only a couple of miles away from a Kroger, Farm Fresh and Food Lion. And it is always packed.

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Meet Winfred.

The odds are you already have if you’ve recently shopped at the Farm Fresh supermarket on Great Neck Road in Virginia Beach.

I did. Several times, in fact, as Winfred was wheeling up and down the aisles, asking customers if they needed help finding anything, while restocking shelves with products discarded at the last minute at the cash registers.

He told me he has been with the company for about 10 years and likes working there. “They don’t discriminate,” he said, referring to his being tied to his wheelchair. And what makes that even perhaps even more impressive, he hinted, was that Farm Fresh is part of a big company called SuperValu. “They are publicly traded,” he said with pride. And they are.

The point here is a good one. You often don’t expect large companies to allow such smart and correct decisions to made at ground level. But clearly that’s the case here. Practically speaking, there is no reason why every supermarket or similar business doesn’t have a Winfred tooling around, asking customers if they need help. It is a job that a person bound to a wheelchair can do if he or she would like. It is super customer service. And if you get someone like Winfred, it puts a smile on many customers’ faces.

It’s been nearly a decade since Pepsico bought Quaker Oats. So, Dow Jones Newswires reporter Anjali Cordeiro decided to take a look back at how successful the acquisition has been. Her verdict – the oat cereal business for Pepsi has been soggy at best.

Part of what has hurt the business, she reports, is that during the recession, consumers went for lower costing brands. But also, the company has acknowledged that it has under-invested in the business.

I have a simple solution for Pepsi – buy the rights to the recipe for Post Fortified  Oak Flakes from Post Foods LLC, the company that is the latest iteration of original Postum Foods. Somewhere along the line, a decision was made to discontinue the Post Fortified Oat Flakes. In this bloggers view, that was a huge mistake. These oat flakes were the tastiest cereal ever made. And healthy at that. So, Pepsi, an easy way to get a hit back on your hands is to resurrect this wonderful, old cereal!

And apparently others feel the same way about Post Fortified Oat Flakes. It comes in number 9 in a survey of the top 100 all-time favorite cereals. Click here to see the other cereals on that list.

The BP oil spill has all but ruined the fishing industry in the Gulf of Mexico for now. But one group of fisherman that seem to be seeing an uptick in business from the spill are those in Canada – and in particular, those who harvest mussels in Prince Edward Island. An article in today’s Montreal Gazette talks about the new demand for mussels, in part because chefs across the land who built dishes around shrimp and oysters from the gulf are looking for alternative recipes, some of which are turning to mussels.

As Fresh Del Monte Produce knows all too well, there are many factors out of your control when in you are in an agriculture business. In reporting earnings today, the company broke out sales and profit numbers for specific parts of its business. Banana sales in the most recent quartrer represented 43% of its business. So, how bananas go is often how the company’s quarter goes. Top line looked good – banana sales up 11% to $402.7 million. But that’s where the good news stopped. Pricing dropped 4% worldwide at the same time unit costs went up 4%. It seems much less demand for bananas in Europe, Japan and Korea. And a supply issue in the Phillipines (drought has hurt production) hasn’t contributed to pricing power. Also, unfavorable exchange rates, higher costs associated with buying bananas for resale from other growers and much higher ocean freight costs really dug into gross profits – the gross profit this quarter was $18 million versus $44 million a year ago. And tough conditions may persist.

If you are looking for unusual economic indicators to give you a view of what’s happening in the ‘real’ U.S. economy, try this one: Starbucks Corp. just reported traffic growth in U.S. stores.

So what, you say? So it’s the first time that has happened in three-and-a-quarter years, The Wall Street Journal just reported.

The company has all sorts of internal reasons for this positive news, the Journal reported. Better customer service and a customer loyalty program and more.

But I think there’s maybe a bit of macroeconomy in there too. If people are feeling a tad more secure about their financial status and future (the stock market’s helped, too) they might be more willing to make the regular trip to Starbucks.

I know some coffee addicts might not consider Starbucks or no Stabucks an economic-dependent decision, but surely it is somewhat discretionary at least to much of the Starbucks faithful.

The Asian cuisine restaurant chain P.F. Chang’s China Bistro Inc. announced a clever promotion: one in which it likely will be joined by others.

Combining something Americans hate (paying taxes) and something Americans like (eating), P.F. Chang’s is offering on April 15 a 15% discount to diners. April 15 is, of course, tax day, when you’ve got to settle accounts with Uncle Sam for 2009. Or maybe you’ve already recieved by then a tax refund. Either way, eating out is cheaper for one day.

David Ansill's play on a "Sloppy Joe" sandwich. His is the "Sloppy Jose."

As many Randomly Noted readers know, this blogger looks for every opportunity he gets to write about the business of food – especially when the subject is good restaurants with inventive chefs.

Last year, two of my favorite restaurants went out of business – victims of the recession. They weren’t the most expensive places in the world but the food was high-end and on the upper end of what people might want to pay to go out and eat. The first to shutter was in Philadelphia and called “Ansill” after the chef by the same name – David Ansill. Prior to running this sizable restaurant with a bar and pretty decent sized staff, David ran a 32-seat BYOB with a handful of staff.

The other restaurant I loved that went under was called Pamplona and it was based in New York on 28th Street. Chef Alex Urena originally had a high-end Spanish restaurant but saw the economics of that would be tough even in good times. He went smaller scale with tapas at Pamplona. The small plates were pricy but very good. He closed last fall.

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It’s early, but here’s my nomination for quote of the day:

“People will be able to see that the order of chili cheese fries they are considering will be 3,000 calories.”

So said Margo Wootan, a nutrition advocate, as quoted in today’s Los Angeles Times.

The subject is a little-known provision (at least little known to this blogger) in the just-passed massive federal health care reform bill: a requirement throughout the U.S. for chain restaurants, vending machines and some other venues to post the amount of calories contained in every item they sell.

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I’m an unabashed Jamie Oliver fan. He has done so much good with his school-lunch crusade, not to mention his programs helping lost youths become successful chefs. His conventional cooking shows are also good fun. Here’s his emotional TED winner speech on the U.S.’s obesity problem. Look out for the scene in a West Virginia mother’s kitchen piled high with pizza, corn dogs and all manner of food stuffs that are filling and killing all too many Americans.