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"Goodbye Fresh"

Joshua Powell

Last night, I was lamenting over text messages about how expensive the food is here in Wellington, Florida. The same brands of foods here are much costlier than they are in Albany, New York. Don't even get me started on the delta between Portugal and the USA.


The "Hello Fresh" Club.

Most days, I ride my bike to the store and find something fresh, whole, and not overbearingly toxic. I am not, at least by a rough comparison metric, the typical shopper-eater. While I have (rightly) complained about some of the bad Floridian behaviors I've encountered, I do feel bad for people who live here and pay these soaring food prices. But I feel even worse about the scams they and so many others endure regarding food.


While standing in line at Publix the other day I looked into a woman's cart while I was waiting to check out. Her chubby kids hung off the sides of the cart the way baby possums haphazardly cling to their moms. The food was horrible; there were boxes of chow, which were called "Devour."


The Home Heart Attack Kit

When I got home and looked this brand up online, it was co-marketed with the Discovery Channel's Shark Week. Seems wholesome, right? Cool, let's Discover more. Like how one serving has the following percentages of the daily recommended ingredients. 50% of sodium, 23% of saturated fat, and 59% of the daily recommended amount of sugar. No wonder Johnny is a fat kid. Before I move on, let us look at the Discovery Channel, its remarkable market share, and its shifting brand.



Eat Like An Animal. My Dog Use To Eat Other Dog's Shit. Just sayin'.

Initially, the Discovery Channel provided documentary programming focused primarily on popular science, technology, and history, but by the 2010s, it had expanded into reality television and pseudo-scientific entertainment. It's no more about scientific discovery than MTV.


When it comes to eating, people in the USA are schooled to be stupid about food. What is worse, they keep falling for the same wrong information. Much like Charlie Brown running at the ball that Lucy will snatch at the last minute, people in the USA continue to chow down on " good " food for them until it is not.


It is not new, but it is getting worse. It started in the 1950s when companies began the prepared food craze. Think of Swanson's TV dinners.


The Tucker Meal - Keeping White Boys Safe & Rich.

Crap food filled with salt and preservatives wrapped up in tin trays and served to kids by the likes of babysitters and single dads. Food science was in its infancy and premature in the best of light. More truthfully, big businesses were peddling lousy food preserved with harmful additives and eliciting the government's support. The image on the box says it all. I meatish patty, a slathering of mashed --reconstituted potatoes, corn cooked in butter, and a brownie. It was sugar and salt. Still is.


But the tents keep rolling into town—one snake oil salesperson after the other. The Swanson food family (Tucker Carlson's stepmother) was there with the foil-entombed Salisbury steak, but Swanson was grift 101 compared to the newcomers. Know that I've been suckered. I am talking from experience. Back in the mid-90s, I was going through a tough time professionally. I was making more money than ever but was embroiled in a non-compete legal matter. I found my "peace" in food. Lots of food. And when the chimichangas, Quarter Pounders, and Ben and Jerry's Rachel's Brownie ice cream could not quell the anxiety, I bellied up to the bar and drank cocktails made with healthy things like "Cranberry Juice Cocktail." A non-fruit fruit beverage. I blew up like the Hindenburg. My solution was found on the upper dial of cable TV late at night. Nutrisystems. Yup, I did it. I called the number and ordered my first box. It was "prepper" food before "prepper" was a thing. The food was dried and could stay "fresh" for years. The portions would leave a person with anorexia wanting more, and the amount of salt, sugar, and chemicals were off the charts. I stuck to the diet and, sure enough, lost weight. It was my first and only visit to the food world by mail.


Now, I have always loved cooking. I love the smell of food. I love the feel. I love looking for food in markets. I love the chemistry of cooking. It checks a lot of boxes for me. But there are times when I stumble. Covid was one of these times. I found myself working a lot and doing so from home. Getting to the store was a challenge, and where I lived, there were not things like Instacart services. By virtue of schedule and convenience, I over ate, exercised too little, and packed on weight for the second time in my life.


I knew what I had to do to get off the extra "Josh." I needed to eat good, whole foods that I enjoyed, and I needed to move. There is no trickery here. Living in Europe made it more accessible. The EU policies around GMOs, factory farms, responsible farming, and transparent labeling made it easy to eat "right." The affordable prices made it even easier.

It was clear how much better the food was while I lived on the sea coast. The breads were baked fresh in front of you. The veggies were seasonal and wildly fresh. The fish was caught in the sea, not farmed in nets, and fed cornmeal. The chickens looked like chickens, not some fantastical May West, avian boob-enhanced foul fowl.


It was easy to keep up the exercise routine. I stopped driving often and rode my bike to the store most days. When it was nice, I'd use the bike path to ride out and see my horse.


The New Religion

Sure, it's not Tucker's step-mommy, Jenny Craig, or Nutrisystems, but it is just as misleading as a Friday night preacher setting up a tent in a farmer's field. The evangelical foodie service is coming to town.


Actual listing on Factor Meals. How about what is actually in the meal?

Welcome to the new rodeo. The healthy meal in a box is coming your way. Say Hello Fresh.

What a crock these people are selling, and how many people jump on the wagon. First, let's all get down to the term "fresh." It is meaningless and not a legal term. Any time you are buying food that can be shipped from California to New York wrapped in plastic, it could be fresh. But is it?


It is hard to know what it is. They don't list ingredients. They list their metrics compared to the daily allowances the government puts out, but in most cases, the devil is in the details. For example, they use "sustainable farmed fish." Translation, they feed their fish corn and other foods that are not good for the fish or people.


Knowing I have this "beef" with this new food procurement, a friend sent me a link to experience a better alternative food delivery company: "Factor."


At least "Hello Fresh" made some branding sense. But Factor? What does that mean? I guess it means that this food will become an integral part of your being a better eater—a healthier you. Factor must be better than fresh—it's more basic, more intrinsic. Or is it just another scam?


Well, here is the thing about "Factor" compared to "Hello Fresh" – it is the same damn thing. That's right, Factor is owned by Hello Fresh: same shit, different label.


Just one more food chain looking to shove its snout into the collective guilt of people who eat shit and feel bad about it and are desperate to make meaningful change – but don't.


What is even more challenging is looking at the management team on their website. There are two CEOs, and both wear hoodies. The corporate uniform of the slick, trying not to be slimy. Every leadership position posted shares not the expertise of food sourcing, nutrition, or health, but rather, they all attended schools for economics. They were investment bankers. You know, the kind of guys that made the financial world tumble downhill a few times over the past 30 years. Yeah, these are the stewards of our latest eating paradigm.


And then there is their Supervisory board. Since there are no hyperlinks to their bios, I did a Google search.


  • John Rittenhouse is a branding guy without healthcare, science, or nutrition training.

  • Ursula Radeke-Pietsch—She has no training in healthcare, science, or nutrition. However, she likes to ski and travel, and she is a corporate finance professional.

  • Derek Zissman was born in Birmingham, England, in 1944 and is a British citizen. He is a chartered accountant with over 45 years of experience in the capital markets in the United Kingdom. He has no training in food science, healthcare, or nutrition.

  • Coming up from the rear is Susanne Schröter-Crossan; she has expertise in capital markets, corporate finance, IPOs, and investment banking.


What a scam. We need more Home Ec classes. We need to worry less about books being read by men in women's clothes and focus on getting bankers who wear hoodies out of the kitchen.


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