Tuna Mayo & Tesco Gin 🍸
This Week in Review ☕️ : Allergy Season Ahead | Starbucks and Sainsburys | Winner keeps Mars | Paris to ban Cars | Fish pricier than Gold | Adapt or Die | Hump Day Caffeine and Croissant Fix |
Quick Bites:
Food & Beverage 🥪 : What do you do if your customers vanish? You adapt or die.
The UK's favorite coffee and sandwich chain- Pret a Manger will trial bringing its takeaway snacks to Tesco supermarkets, BBC reports.
Pret has been hit hard by remote work; the shift to WFH vs grabbing a mid-morning/lunch/hump-day caffeine & cookie fix has led profits to plummet.
If Starbucks inside Sainsburys is anything to go by, gosh they must be desperate.
With most of its locations in city centres that rely on white-collar office workers, the business has struggled to survive during the pandemic.
The chain has had to find new sources of revenue, including launching its 1st grocery category earlier this year and offering coffee subscriptions to customers, according to BBC.
The announcement of a Pret a Manger coming to a Tesco near you is the company's attempt to expand its reach beyond the high street, with the first store opening in London's Kensington superstore.
"We're transforming our business model to adjust to a new way of living and working."
-Pret
Our Thoughts💡: They're charging £3.50 for Pret-branded croissants compared to Tesco's 95p for six. Yep, this ain't gonna work for the Brits 🇬🇧
On that note, we're already looking forward to grab Pret's finest Line-caught Tuna Mayo & Cucumber sandwich while we stock up on Tesco Wine & Cheese 🧀
Environment 🚘 : Imagine experiencing the City of Light, of art and fashion, without cars? Paris to ban traffic by 2022 by restricting non-residents from driving across the city centre, BBC reports.
Meanwhile, Pret continues to lament the lack of commuters heading into Piccadilly lmao
The French Capital is about to become the World's 1st low-traffic zone megacity in an attempt to become "less polluted, greener, more peaceful and safer."
Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo's latest effort to restrict car use and fight pollutionwould ban through traffic in 4 central districts, giving priority to cyclists, pedestrians and public transport.
This would reduce total traffic by 55%- more than 100,000 cars, on average per day.
Any other mayors willing to take up the challenge?
NYC/NJ: This congestion pricing stuff is tricky
Paris: Hold my baguette 🥖
More European cities are on a mission to limit car usage. According to Bloomberg:
💡Oslo is going to phase out vehicles running on fossil fuels in 2022
💡Milan has implemented congestion charges for vehicles entering their city centres
💡London has also implemented congestion charges
💡Madrid is trying to meet national requirements for emissions reduction, but may still retain some traffic in its city center due to a legal setback
💡Lille and Nantes in France already have a low-speed limit and pedestrian-priority zones
Health 🤒 : Unusually bad allergies this year? Blame the Climate Crisis.
Looks like Covid-19 isn't the only virus you have to combat going forward. Rising temperatures mean that your usual cold & cough are sticking around longer.
Hmm.. we've def noticed our Hayfever is particularly worse this year, to the point that we haven't felt this knocked out in over a decade
*snorts Benadryl*
Scientists say Climate Change could be causing allergy season to start earlier and longer. According to the World Economic Forum:
💡In the US alone, more than 50 million people have an allergy
💡Climate Change is increasing the duration of natural pollen season
💡In the US, pollen seasons are starting 20 days sooner than they did in the 1990s
💡“Airborne pollen has major respiratory health impacts"
💡“Allergies and asthma are responsible for substantial [..] medical costs”
Our Thoughts💡: Not had inflammation and itchy eyes for a very long time..
It's definitely Global Warming right?.. Probs has nothing to do with the fact that we've been drinking Canola Oil like water ?!
Luxury 🐠 : At $35,000 per kg, Japanese eel is the most expensive fish in Japan.
Even pricier than Bluefin Tuna which has previously been sold for three quarters of a million dollars in Tokyo alone!
The ray-finned fish or 'Unagi', looks like a baby snake andis hardly the most attractive seafood. But where it lacks in aesthetics, it makes up for in flavor.
The high demand is primarily the reason why it's so expensive.
Despite its popularity, it can take upto 6 to 12 months before eels are even big enough to be sold, Business Insider reports.
Moreover, cooking them is equally tricky as the chefs who prepare it need to be expertly trained for years.
3 years to cut, 8 years to master and an entire lifetime to learn to grill.
Damn, talk about commitment 🙌🏻 We can't even commit to a full-length movie
The final dish-mostly served in Michelin-star Japanese cuisine- is called 'Unaju' and can cost upto $91 depending on the price of adult eel, according to Business Insider.
Unaju is basically roasted eel, where the fish is split down the back (or belly), gutted, boned, butterflied, cut into square fillets, skewered and dipped in sweet-soy sauce over white rice.
Yep, doesn't sound complicated at all!
PS. It's a damn dish, not a Zen poem.
Some argue eel tastes bland but let us tell ya.. The taste is exquisite.
It's soft, fluffy, flaky and pleasant on the palate without a fishy aftertaste. A little like squid meat, only with a pinch of sweetness.
Plus, For those looking to drop the quarantine pounds, eel contains no sugar and is rich in protein and omega-3 fatty acids.
Sure, it's pricier than Caviar, White Truffle, Iberico Ham and even Gold, but that's the price you pay for a bite of heaven 🥢
Space 🚀 : China made history last week, with 1st rover landing on Mars. Until now, only NASA Spacecraft have explored the surface of the Red Planet.
Ok, now the real 'Space Race' can begin. Drag race those rovers. Winner keeps Mars.
The rover named "Zhurong" landed on an icy area in the Northern Hemisphere of Mars, known as Utopia Planitia.
Zhurong will soon be deployed to study Martian conditions and geology.
"You were brave enough [..] and placed our country in the advanced ranks of planetary exploration."
-President Xi Jinping
Our Thoughts💡: China is landing on Mars and Biden doesn't even know what planet he's on lmao
Quicker Bites:
Ariana Grande ties the knot with fiancé Dalton Gomez.
Gujarat State evacuates more than 200,000 people as Cyclone Tauktae hits.
Israel and Hamas continue aerial strikes as fighting enters a second week.
President Biden to send US-authorized vaccines abroad for the 1st time.
Biden to host South Korea President Moon Jae-in at White House.
New York to end capacity rule in restaurants.
Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin donates $1bn to charitable fund for India'a ongoing Covid-19 crisis.
Japan's Government says Tokyo Olympics will proceed as planned with proper anti-virus measures.
Singapore moves back toward lockdown as cases rise.
Uruguay had the World's highest Covid-19 death rate per capita in the last week.
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