Comments on: In defense of “food snobbery”

By: TheShot

TheShot — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 16:11:26 +0000

You have to wonder if the chewing gum industry is facing projections of declining youth customers — the way that coffee faced back in the 80’s and 90’s. So their answer is a “New Coke”-like reformulation campaign. (”Hey kids! Tastes like a vanilla soy latte!”)

As for the Cubs, my long-suffering Cubs fan father had better see a Cub World Series before he passes away. And you can’t deny that the Wrigley family’s legacy has been a tradition of complacency. (And of many fans who tolerate a culture of losing.)

The last time I was at Comiskey, it was across the street and still decked out with Bill Veeck scoreboard fireworks. As far as I’m concerned, if there isn’t a center field divot left by exploded disco records, it ain’t Comiskey.

But progress isn’t all bad. Chicago has a lot to be thankful for in Intelligentsia over the local A&P in a can.

By: Matth

Matth — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 02:36:06 +0000

It’s a small world. I don’t actually live in Chicago right now, but I study at a school close enough to make an occasional trip for a quick shot of home. I keep meeting people wherever I go who are from Chicago. When I lived in England, I ran into some people wearing UIUC sweatshirts on the street one day. And there’s a guy in some of my classes from Hinsdale.

Speaking of Chicago and product changes, have you noticed Wrigley’s gum recent change? Maybe it’s just a Chicago campaign, but Doublemint, Juicy Fruit, and Spearmint are being marketed with “Improved Flavor” and in a new pack. But they’re not even close to the same gum, in texture or in flavor. Sad day. Before we know it, the Cubs are going to be owned by someone completely unrelated to the Wrigley family and Comiskey’s going to be torn down and replaced with a corporate-sponsored place. Ar least the mayor’s a Daley.

By: TheShot

TheShot — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 03:36:36 +0000

You’re making me miss Chicago. In fact, the Slow Food Coffee Presidia tasting last week was a sort of Chicago connection social. I met a Blue Bottle barista and a coffee photographer with roots in the Chicago area. And I even learned that Andrew Barnett, of Ecco Caffè fame, is fellow South Sider from from South Shore.

By: Matth

Matth — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 22:34:08 +0000

I figured it was something like that. Clever trick. My dad used to tell me about how a chocolate company (which will remain unnamed) used to produce a really good bar of chocolate. Then, one year, they came out with another (much inferior) bar, which had a slightly different name, but almost identical packaging, which was sold next to the original bar. After a few months, though, they stopped making the original completely and sold only the less-stellar variety, at the same price.

Lucky for me, I get my coffee from Chicago’s best. no inferior ground beans in those packages of sweet roasted freshness.

By: TheShot

TheShot — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 18:25:03 +0000

There were a lot of complaints on The Consumerist that the WTAE-TV Web site plays their leader advertising video just fine, but it requires a plug-in to play the main video content.

Essentially, it’s a rather dry video of an elderly consumer watch dog telling us about product “downsizing”. In the case of Maxwell House, the net weight of the coffee in their coffee cans decreased over the years — and yet the coffee can remained the same size to help deceive consumers into thinking they were getting the same amount. (In the photo capture, each stacked can is the same size, but the amount of coffee goes from 16oz to 11oz.)

Recently there’s been talk (on sites like The Consumerist) about how these tactics sometimes come with instructions that you can now “make more with less!”, as if their ground sawdust coffee was some kind of concentrate (at least in Folgers’ recent example). However, the preparation instructions do not change.

Just more evidence that a society where consumers do not discriminate one coffee from another is subject to every imaginable corporate scam tactic to cut corners — since the profits are in lowering costs rather than in making a better, differentiated product.

By: Matth

Matth — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 13:04:58 +0000

That video from Pittsburgh won’t load on my computer. What’s it about?