Current Events in February 2019

The 44th annual Winter Fancy Food Show, held in San Francisco last month, has identified key food trends for 2019. According to expert panels at the show, food is now less about taste and more about where it came from and how it was produced.

"Sustainability and social good, through upcycling, ethical sourcing, diverse crops, and cause-related products, are growing ever more in popularity,” said Denise Purcell, head of content for the Specialty Food Association, the show’s sponsor. “We saw this emerging at the Summer Fancy Food Show this past June, and it's really come to life here at the Winter Fancy Food Show."

Other trends that emerged at the winter show are single serve foods that can be consumed on the go and specialty jerky.

“We're seeing a whole new way of eating and snacking,” Purcell said. “Innovation is happening very quickly within the industry and it's exciting to see how these trends will evolve over the next few months."

Many vendors used the winter show to introduce products reflecting biodiversity. They included products utilizing Bambara, promoted as a "complete food." Bambara seeds are ground up and used in various foods for their high protein content.

Other trendy ingredients include Pongamia -- a tree that produces seeds similar to soybeans -- and fonio, a gluten-free “ancient African supergrain.”

Barnacle Foods was on hand to provide samples of its kelp salsa and kelp pickles; Blue Evolution promoted its kelp-based pasta and salad; and New Frontier Foods offered Ocean’s Halo, a kelp-based “superfoods” drink.

New food from old food

Upcycling -- producing foods from discarded food ingredients -- is also in vogue. Render Foods promoted a vegetable drink made from leftover pickle juice, and Renewal Mill is producing chocolate chip cookies made with okara, a “superfood” harvested from the pulp of organic soybeans that is created during soymilk production.

Food producers are also focusing on products that support a protein-rich diet and introduced a number of jerky products. They include Maruden Company’s cod and salmon jerky, Shima’s jerky chips, True Jerky’s jerky trail mix, and Bovino’s crispy beef jerky.

Other food innovations include fruit- and vegetable-based flour and nuts and oats as plant-based dairy alternatives.

The consumer appears to be doing well if earnings from online retailer Amazon are any indication. The company reported fourth quarter earnings of $3 billion, or $6.04 a share, on revenue of $72.4 billion.

That’s up from a profit of $3.75 a share on sales of $60.5 billion in the holiday shopping season of 2017, and better than analysts expected.

An Amazon earnings beat suggests consumers remained confident throughout the fourth quarter of 2018, spending heavily during the holiday season. Since Amazon is one of the nation’s major retailers its strong sales suggest consumers were spending freely during the last three months of the year.

Amazon said its net sales increased 20 percent to $72.4 billion in the fourth quarter, compared with $60.5 billion in fourth quarter 2017. Excluding the $801 million unfavorable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates throughout the quarter, net sales increased 21 percent compared with fourth quarter 2017.

The company reported an increase in operating income of $3.8 billion in the fourth quarter, compared with operating income of $2.1 billion in fourth quarter 2017.

Favorable economic position

While that’s pretty good news for Amazon shareholders, it is also another indicator that consumers remain in a pretty favorable economic position, even as corporations temper their outlook for 2019. Consumers are still spending and they’re spending a sizable portion of their disposable income with Amazon.

“Alexa was very busy during her holiday season,” said Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. “Echo Dot was the best-selling item across all products on Amazon globally, and customers purchased millions more devices from the Echo family compared to last year.”

Amazon points out its profits rose despite the fact that it implemented an across-the-board minimum wage of $15 an hour during the quarter. The company says the new Amazon minimum wage benefited more than 250,000 employees in the U.S. and 17,000 employees in the U.K., as well as over 200,000 seasonal employees who were hired during the holiday period.

Using Amazon as a consumer barometer, the first half of 2019 might not live up to the last quarter of 2018. In a conference call following its earnings release, Amazon executives lowered their sales expectations for the current quarter.

For many parents, getting children to fall asleep can be a difficult task -- especially on school nights.

For parents of bad sleepers, a new study suggests that exposure to screens in a dark room -- whether a phone, computer, tablet, or TV -- can disrupt children’s sleep throughout the night.

“While previous research has shown a link between screen use and the quality and length of young people’s sleep, ours is the first study to show how room lighting can further influence this,” said lead researcher Dr. Michael Mireku.

Turning out the lights

The researchers had over 6,600 children between the ages of 11 and 12 participate in the study. All of the participants were asked to answer questions on their sleeping habits, including how difficult they find it to fall asleep and wake up and how their bedtime routines differ between weekdays and weekends. The children were also asked about how their screen time habits play into their bedtime routines.

Over 70 percent of the participants reported being in front of at least one screen within an hour of falling asleep.

The researchers found that those who were on their phones or watching TV in the dark at least one hour before bedtime were 147 percent more likely to get less sleep than those who didn’t use a screen. When the children used screens in a lit room before going to sleep, they were 31 percent more likely to get less sleep.

“Our findings are significant not only for parents but for teachers, health professionals, and adolescents themselves,” said Dr. Mireku. “We would recommend that these groups are made aware of the potential issues surrounding screen time use during bedtime including insufficient sleep and poor sleep quality.”

Getting enough sleep

While this study focused on how screen time in dark rooms disrupts sleep, another recent study found that screen time before bed comes with a slew of other side effects -- with poor sleep chief among them.

Screen time before bed was linked to fatigue in the morning, poorer sleep quality, less sleep overall, and a higher risk of obesity.

“We saw technology before bed being associated with less sleep and higher BMIs,” researcher Caitlyn Fuller said. “We also saw this technology use being associated with more fatigue in the morning, which circling back, is another risk factor for higher BMIs.”

Not getting enough sleep comes with several risk factors, big and small, and researchers have found that sleep is especially important for teens.

Researchers found that high school students who are getting less than six hours of sleep per night are more likely to engage in risky behaviors, including drinking and driving or substance abuse.

“Insufficient sleep in youth raises several public health concerns, including mental health, substance abuse, and motor vehicle crashes,” said researcher Elizabeth Klerman PhD. “We should support efforts to promote healthy sleep habits and decrease barriers to sufficient sleep in this vulnerable population.”

January was another good month if you were looking for a job, as employers increased their payrolls by 304,000 positions, according to the monthly report from the Labor Department.

At the same time, the government revised December’s very strong hiring report sharply downward, from 312,000 jobs to 222,000. The unemployment rate edged up to 4 percent, mainly for technical reasons.

Unemployed people who reported they were temporarily laid off rose by 175,000, largely due to furloughed federal workers who were idled by the government shutdown for most of January.

“Our evaluation of the establishment survey data indicates that there were no discernible impacts of the partial federal government shutdown on the January estimates of employment, hours, or earnings,” said William Wiatrowski, acting commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.”

Wiatrowski said the economy has produced an average of 240,000 new jobs over the last three months, even with December’s downward revision in new jobs.

Big increase in part-time workers

While the numbers suggest a still-strong job market, there was one troublesome statistic. There was a significant increase -- 500,000 -- in the number of people who are working part-time but are seeking full-time employment.

The leisure and hospitality industry did the most hiring in January, increasing the number of jobs by 74,000. Most of the hiring came at restaurants and bars. The health care industry added 42,000 jobs during the month. The biggest job gains occurred in ambulatory health services and hospitals.

The construction industry also ramped up to start the new year, adding 52,000 jobs. Specialty trade contractors were especially busy during the month, hiring for both commercial and residential projects.

Wages continued to slowly grow last month. Average hourly earnings for all non-farm employees rose three cents to $27.56 after rising 10 cents in December. Over the last 12 months, the Labor Department says workers have seen their pay rise an average of 85 cents an hour, a rate of 3.2 percent.

Maybe it’s all those motorists in the Midwest and Northeast driving south to escape the polar vortex, but something has caused a huge spike in gasoline demand.

The increase in demand to summer levels will likely lead to higher gas prices by next week, but this week prices have actually fallen. The AAA Fuel Gauge Survey shows the national average price of regular gasoline is $2.26 a gallon, down one cent from last Friday.

The average price of premium is $2.84 a gallon, a penny less than last week. The average price of diesel fuel is $2.92 a gallon, the same as the last two Fridays. But the price stability might not last.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reports consumers increased their demand for gasoline last week to 9.6 barrels a day. Consumers are using 700,000 barrels a day more than the previous week, putting demand at what AAA calls normal for an average week at the height of summer.

“One reason for the jump could be the weather caused motorists to fill-up and stock-pile ahead of the storms,” AAA said in its latest market update. “Despite the increase in demand, high levels of gasoline stocks may keep average pump prices in check.”

Gasoline prices normally rise in late winter as refineries curtail operations for annual maintenance and begin the switch-over to summer grade fuel. Patrick DeHaan, GasBuddy’s head of petroleum analysis, reports on Twitter that several refineries slowed operations this week because of extreme cold.

The states with the most expensive regular gas

These states currently have the highest prices for regular gas, according to the AAA Fuel Gauge Survey:

• Hawaii ($3.26)

• California ($3.22)

• Washington ($2.90)

• Alaska ($2.88)

• Nevada ($2.86)

• Oregon ($2.78)

• Arizona ($2.49)

• Connecticut ($2.49)

• New York ($2.49)

• Pennsylvania ($2.47)

The states with the cheapest regular gas

The survey found these states currently have the lowest prices for regular gas:

• Missouri ($1.90)

• Oklahoma ($1.93)

• Mississippi ($1.96)

• Kansas ($1.96)

• Texas ($1.97)

• Alabama ($1.98)

• South Carolina ($1.99)

• Louisiana ($2.01)

• Tennessee ($2.04)

• Virginia ($2.06)