Tough times call for familiar favorites on the dinner table. Despite the shrinking amount of product packaged in the same size box due to high production costs, Family staples such as Kraft Products and General Mills all posted profit increases last quarter. Forbes has more:
Kraft - which also sells the equally palliative Jell-O - posted a 7% increase in revenues last quarter and upped its yearlong sales guidance; Cheerios-maker General Mills boosted its net sales by 14%.Loser: Organic Foods
While many grocery stores just got done redesigning their departments to highlight organic products, inflation really hit the organic industry toward the end of the year. Boston.com has more:
Market research firm NPD Group said the number of people who reported buying organic products fell 4 percent in August, compared with a year earlier. While more than one in five surveyed in the latest figures available from NPD purchased organic products, the August data represented the first customer losses for the sector since February 2006 -- a decline that is expected to accelerate in the months ahead.Winner: Liquor
Despite a rough end of the year for wineries, the economy is not dampening liquor sales. Premium brands are still hot sellers, and the legalization of Absinthe into the US has helped launch some newer distilleries, such as Portland's Integrity Spirits- one of the only domestic producers of Absinthe, into the national limelight. A quick trip over to NotCot's Liqurious can prove to anyone that a good drink is still in fashion.
Loser: Soda
2008 saw the failure of diet soda to make a profit in schools, and the New York Health Chief appearing on Youtube to try and get people on board with a "soda tax" isn't exactly making any new friends. The TimesUnion.com states:
No matter how justifiable Dr. Daines' argument might be on the merits, or demerits, of soft drinks contributing to childhood obesity, the minute he began to lecture ever so gently on why this 18 percent tax would be good for us, he lost the argument.And to add salt to the wound, MSNBC and Prevention Magazine listed diet soda in their 8 foods to avoid list:
In a 2008 study, researchers linked drinking just one diet soda a day with metabolic syndrome — the collection of symptoms including belly fat that puts you at high risk of heart disease. Researchers aren't sure if it's an ingredient in diet soda or the drinkers' eating habits that caused the association.Most talked about food of the year: Corn
Corn was cast as the hero and the villain as we spent the first half of the year debating food vs fuel. Corn was blamed for any changes in prices or shortages, while simultaneously heralded for high profit margins. When the midwest flooded in June, everyone waited with baited breath to see how it would effect the crop, and it looks like we are not out of the woods yet.
When prices dipped in the remaining months, ending -12.37%, farmers were hurt by shrinking profits, and the fact that it took more than $2.00 to raise a bushel of corn that might sell for less than that. The Cattle Network has more:
But until there is a concrete turnaround, Hurt says demand for US corn continues to depreciate, such as the 300 million bushel downward adjustment in USDA’s estimate for corn used by ethanol refineries and a 100 million bushel drop in the estimate for exported corn.It looks like corn will continue to be a big story into 2009.
What were your winners and losers for 2008? What are you looking forward to in 2009? Let us know in the comment section below, and have a Happy New Year!
