In my fiancée’s mind there is no better dessert than fresh berries and whipped cream. I’d probably add a piece of chocolate cake to that, but the biggest variable in the equation is almost always the berries. Good berries, whether they’re strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, or snozberries, taste better than candy, while bad berries often taste like dirt. Since I share Jerry Seinfeld’s feeling that fruit is a gamble, I’m not particularly brand conscious, but checking my refrigerator tells me that my most recently purchased strawberries are from Driscoll’s. They’re a Watsonville, CA based berry purveyor that has been family owned and operated for more than 100 years.
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I’ve never been great about eating breakfast, but when I do eat breakfast, I try to get as much protein into the meal as I can. My problem is that I find eggs completely unpalatable. One can only eat so much sausage and bacon, so I’ve had to find some other protein sources. Sometimes it’s a glass of milk and a scoop of peanut butter, and other times it’a bowl of yogurt. Yogurt’s certainly nothing new (it’s essentially been around since bacteria and milk mixed, but humans have been producing it for millennia), but it’s experienced quite a spike in popularity lately. Probiotics and Greek yogurt are probably the two biggest trends in the industry right now, and they’re part of the reason that Dannon is “one of the fastest growing consumer products companies in the U.S.” While based in White Plains, NY, Dannon is a subsidiary of a multi-billion dollar French company called Groupe Danone). That shouldn’t matter all that much to you, though, as Dannon seems to operate mostly independently.
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Apparently IHOP has declared it National Pancake Day. (Shouldn’t the company formerly known as The International House of Pancakes call it International Pancake Day?) I tried checking out their website to look for interesting opportunities, but it’s getting slammed from all of the holiday related traffic and the site is inaccessible. I’m not kidding. Free pancakes do that to people. Since I’m a fan of making my own pancakes, I decided to celebrate a corporation’s self-created, self-serving holiday by spotlighting one of their competitors. Since I’ve already featured King Arthur Flour, my favorite source of raw materials for pancakes, I thought it would be fun to take a look at Austin, TX based Batter Blaster in celebration of such an important holiday. In case you’re the type who hasn’t been exposed to the finer things in life, Batter Blaster is essentially a whipped cream can that releases pancake or waffle batter. It sounds completely ridiculous, and then you try it. It’s so easy and mess-free, but what’s in it. Then you look at the label and the ingredients are organic. Genius.
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Memorial Day is one of my favorite holidays. Some think that it’s unfortunate that the day has taken on a dual meaning, but I really enjoy both parts of the holiday. That’s why we took a look at Hope for the Warriors and their potential job opportunities yesterday, and today we’re going to look at the lighter side of Memorial Day. In past years we’ve featured jobs at Weber-Stephen, The National Park Service, and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway because all three have solid connections to the holiday. Today it’s all about Johnsonville Sausage, which is based in Sheboygan Falls, WI. I’m back to talking about grilling because it’s the first Memorial Day in three years that I’ll actually have a grill at my disposable. I’ll admit that Johnsonville products aren’t my first choice for grilling (I like steaks), but I do love brats.
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Happy Cinco de Mayo! I haven’t done a celebratory post for today’s holiday since I featured Party City in 2008, so I think it’s about time. In the United States, Cinco de Mayo is mostly a general celebration of Mexican culture (much like St. Patrick’s Day celebrates Irish culture). In my opinion there’s no better way to observe this kind of holiday than by enjoying the culture’s food (some may prefer imbibing the culture’s alcoholic beverage of choice). When I think of Mexican food, Secaucus, NJ based Goya Foods is one of the brands that comes to mind. They are the “the largest, Hispanic-owned food company in the United States,” and they consider themselves “the premier source for authentic Latino cuisine” (that also includes Spanish, Puerto Rican, Caribbean, and Central & South American foods). The company offers more than 1,500 products, and many of them are ingredients for home cooking, which is exactly what holidays like Cinco de Mayo should really be about.
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I always like to tie in holidays to the companies that I feature, so when Easter comes around I usually go looking for candy companies. Last year I actually found a candy related non-profit in PMCA, but in previous years I’ve featured Jelly Belly and Just Born Quality Confections (Peeps!) on Good Friday. I’ve also used other holidays like Halloween and Valentine’s Day to look at even more candy companies including Mars, The Hershey Company, NECCO, Charles Chocolates, and Vosges. I guess you can tell that I have a sweet tooth. This year we’re going to take a look at Russell Stover, a Kansas City, MO based confectioner that also owns Whitman’s and Pangburn’s. They’re the nation’s third largest chocolate manufacturer behind Hershey’s and Mars, and they’re the leader when it comes to boxed chocolates.
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A few days ago I started reading The 4-Hour Body
by Tim Ferriss on my Kindle. I enjoyed his first book, The 4-Hour Workweek
, and I like Tim’s blog, so I figured it was worth a read. It’s a little out there, but I find that there’s always something that I can learn from Tim whether it’s what he’s actually teaching or how he’s teaching it. Anyway, The 4-Hour Body focuses on hacking your body to improve performance, so most of the focus is on diet, exercise, and supplementation. I’m somewhat familiar with diet and exercise, but I’ve never used supplements beyond a few scoops of whey protein. I do know that supplements are big business, and one of the big players in the industry is CytoSport, which is based in Benicia, CA. They aim to provide the highest quality nutritional products to professional and amateur athletes striving to reach their potential,” and they do that one of the biggest brands in the space, Muscle Milk.
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Today we’re going to talk about Cheetos. They are the epitome of snack food—you can’t stop eating them. Do you know why? Because they taste awful. It makes sense if you think about it. The only way to get the awful taste out of your mouth from the previous Cheeto is to eat another one. Then you eat the whole bag. You trick yourself into thinking they taste good. I can take something that tastes bad if it’s healthy, but that’s something that Cheetos definitely aren’t. Food Should Taste Good. That’s not just a statement, but it’s the name of today’s company. They’re a Needham, MA based company that is “dedicated to making wholesome, healthy snacks.” They think that real ingredients are the key to great tasting food, and I think they’re right. Their name may seem kind of obvious, but judging by some of the stuff that I see on store shelves, maybe it’s not.
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I don’t know if you’ve heard of açaí, but apparently it’s all the rage these days. In fact the buzz has gotten so big that the newest Internet scam is to push açaí as celebrity-endorsed weight loss products. This is giving açaí, a berry that has “30x the antioxidants of red wine, and an essential fatty acid profile similar to olive oil,” a terrible reputation. I think that we all know that this berry isn’t going to solve all of your problems, but that doesn’t mean that you should miss out on “getting with the purple berry.” Sambazon is a company that does açaí right. They “promote sustainable management of the Brazilian Amazon by providing the highest quality whole food, organic, fair trade Açaí products to consumers.” In other words they make products like juices, smoothies, energy drinks, sorbets, and supplements (with no false promises of instant weight loss like the scammer/spammers). I think that I first heard about Sambazon over a year ago from the Inc 5000, but I’ve been waiting for them to post some jobs that I can feature here.
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For a long time fruit juices other than orange juice (and prune juice) were largely the domain of young children. I’m not sure why this was, but I still to this day feel like a kid when I drink juice. Over the past few years we’ve seen juice gain in popularity – not grape or apple juice, but more exotic juices like pomegranate, cherry, and acai. POM Wonderful has been one of the companies that profited the most from the upswing in adult juice consumption. Maybe it’s all of the health benefits of the pomegranate that is convincing adults to hit the juice. It’s hard to not like something that improves cardiovascular and prostate health while also improving erectile function. Not to mention that pomegranates are loaded with antioxidants. With those health benefits and great marketing, POM Wonderful is primed for continued success – they’re the largest producer of pomegranates in the United States.
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If you’ve never spent time in upstate New York or the mid-Atlantic, you probably don’t even know what Wegmans is. The One Day, One Job team is made up of Cornell kids, so we developed quite the obsession with the supermarket chain during what we call our “time on the hill.” For those of you who aren’t blessed with a Wegmans in your college town, we’ll fill you in. Wegmans is the best supermarket in the world. Wegmans is an acceptable place to take a date for dinner. Wegmans is the place to go when you decide to bake cookies at 3:00 A.M. Wegmans is the thing you miss most about college after you graduate. And in case you didn’t know, Wegmans is also one of the best places to work in America – Fortune Magazine has had them on their list of the 100 Best Places to Work for 11 straight years (#3 this year, top 10 the past 6 years).
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