Recession News & Thanksgiving Dinner

Recession News & Thanksgiving Dinner

Recession News & Thanksgiving Dinner plus Food Forethought. I'm Greg Martin with today's Northwest Report. It's official. The cost of this year's Thanksgiving dinner has gone up. American Farm Bureau Federation's informal Thanksgiving Dinner Survey showed a modest increase of 1.3-percent from last year. But according to economist John Anderson, the Thanksgiving meal is a good bargain on a per-person basis. ANDERSON: It's really good to look at this on a per person basis and if you look at the $43.47 for a 10-person meal, that's $4.35 per person basically. That's less than the price of a Happy Meal for a nice wholesome home cooked meal with family and that is a real bargain for consumers. It might be a good indicator that we are seeing some economic recovery as Nordstrom is reporting a 43 percent increase in third-quarter net income as the upscale retailer benefits from its customers going back to spending. The company also is boosting its earnings outlook. The company said Monday that it earned $119 million, or 53 cents per share, for the period that ended Oct. 30. That compares with $83 million, or 38 cents per share, a year earlier. Now with today's Food Forethought, here's Lacy Gray. It doesn't take commando style lunch box raids or government overseeing to get kids to eat healthier; it just takes a little creative marketing. Basically, veggie producers decided if you can't beat 'em, join 'em; at least as far as attention getting, extreme product campaigns. Think carrots are boring, think again. Farmers have gone high tech and "hip" when it comes to marketing such produce as baby carrots and other salad fare. Just how do you go about turning baby carrots into a "gotta have it" snack food? Simple, you don't try to prove how healthy they are, you show how cool they are. Carrots, cool? Sure, with just a little, okay, maybe a lot of consumer savvy marketing, vegetables have suddenly become the new "junk food"; while quite distinctly not in the nutritional factor, which is good, but in the "sick" way, which is teen talk for delicious. As most parents know, the harder you push the harder your kids push back, creating a standoff. When push comes to shove though the carrot producers' campaign to pitch veggies as cool seems to have just the right amount of edgy attitude and excitement needed to push veggies from the plain old vegetable category to the fun and daring snack food category. Thanks Lacy. That's today's Northwest Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.
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