Fresh Take: Food Businesses Feel The Pressure

I’m feeling the transition to fall and, dare I say it, the start of the end-of-the-year rush. How about you? I almost can’t believe the crunch is already hitting me, but it is and there’s a lot to discuss. A couple of headlines that grabbed my attention this week: General Mills is ditching its yogurt business, and the dairy giant Lactalis (discussed in my Sargento feature last week) is more than happy to pick it up for $2.1 billion. Then, BurgerFi became the latest restaurant chain to go bankrupt.

Many food businesses are struggling right now, and after a first half of the year which one investor described to me as “a vulture’s market,” the survivors are about to be put to the test. Again. I’ll be here tracking the deals and trends to watch. Stay tuned!

— Chloe Sorvino, Staff Writer

Order my book, Raw Deal: Hidden Corruption, Corporate Greed and the Fight for the Future of Meat, out now from Simon & Schuster’s Atria Books.

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Field Notes

My new favorite place that’s walkable from my apartment: Carnitas Ramirez. I’ve long been a fan of the group’s first CDMX-style taqueria—al pastor specialist Taqueria Ramirez in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. So I’m thrilled that the new spot highlights all the different parts of a hog and celebrates them in the best way. Pictured here is pork shank, cheek, butt and surtida, which is a mix of everything on offer.

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Chloe Sorvino leads coverage of food and agriculture as a staff writer on the enterprise team at Forbes. Her book, Raw Deal: Hidden Corruption, Corporate Greed and the Fight for the Future of Meat, published on December 6, 2022, with Simon & Schuster’s Atria Books. Her nearly nine years of reporting at Forbes has brought her to In-N-Out Burger’s secret test kitchen, drought-ridden farms in California’s Central Valley, burnt-out national forests logged by a timber billionaire, a century-old slaughterhouse in Omaha and even a chocolate croissant factory designed like a medieval castle in northern France.