Fresh Take: A Grocery Mega-Merger And More To Expect In 2024

Welcome to 2024! Some major headlines are bound to bubble up on the food beat this year, and I’m ready to go.

I’ve already been diving into my first stories of the year, and as I plan out more for this newsletter, I’d love to know what you’d like to read more about in Fresh Take. (Email me at csorvino@forbes.com!)

I’m also gearing up for a reporting trip to Los Angeles. Guess which food factory I’m headed to! Expect that fun feature soon, and a lot more to come in the new year. Send me your Los Angeles eating recommendations, and have a great weekend!

— Chloe Sorvino, Staff Writer

Order my book, Raw Deal: Hidden Corruption, Corporate Greed and the Fight for the Future of Meat, out now from Simon & Schuster’s Atria Books.

This is Forbes’ Fresh Take newsletter, which every Friday brings you the latest on the big ideas changing the future of food. Want to get it in your inbox every week? Sign up here.

What’s Fresh

Why Grocery And Pharmacy Workers Oppose The Kroger/Albertsons Merger

Kroger and Albertsons plan on merging, creating a 5,000 store grocery behemoth. But some of their workers don’t think this is such a great idea.

COP28 Leaders Deliberate The Way Forward For Food Systems

One hundred and fifty-nine countries have now pledged to incorporate food into their climate strategies by the year 2025.

Here Are The Foods Hit Hardest By Climate Change In 2023

In 2023, the hottest year on record, global food security was impacted by climate change-related extreme weather. Here are the foods which were hit the hardest.

Field Notes

My new year’s black eyed peas, thanks to my Rancho Gordo bean club membership. These tender beans came alive alongside a smoked ham hock, carrots, celery, onion and garlic.

Thanks for reading the 97th edition of Forbes Fresh Take! Let me know what you think. Subscribe to Forbes Fresh Take here.

Chloe Sorvino leads coverage of food and agriculture as a staff writer on the enterprise team at Forbes. Her book, Raw Deal: Hidden Corruption, Corporate Greed and the Fight for the Future of Meat, published on December 6, 2022, with Simon & Schuster’s Atria Books. Her nearly nine years of reporting at Forbes has brought her to In-N-Out Burger’s secret test kitchen, drought-ridden farms in California’s Central Valley, burnt-out national forests logged by a timber billionaire, a century-old slaughterhouse in Omaha and even a chocolate croissant factory designed like a medieval castle in northern France.