Happy Friday and welcome to Food Fix! I am back from maternity leave and it also just so happens to be on the two-year anniversary of this newsletter. First, I want to extend a special thanks to our wonderful guest writers and to all of you for your incredibly kind emails and well wishes. It was so important for me to take time to care for and bond with baby Eleanor – here’s a fresh pic!
Get in touch: What’s happening? What have I missed while in Babyland? Help me get up to speed! Send me a tip, story idea or just say hi: helena@foodfix.co
Anniversary sale: For a limited time, new subscribers can get a one-year subscription to Food Fix for 20 percent off. This is the first sale we’ve done in two years, so if you’ve been on the fence about subscribing now’s a good time to make the jump! Go here and use code FF20 at checkout.
Becoming a paid subscriber gives you access to Tuesday newsletters, which offer more analysis and insight on everything from processed food to school meals and the farm bill. We’re also gearing up for some special election coverage for paid subscribers. Thank you for your support!
Alright, let’s get to it –
Helena
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Food Fix is two! Five things I’ve learned
For those who are new around here: I launched this newsletter after leaving Politico, where I led food policy coverage for nearly a decade and had just published a series of investigations into the government’s mishandling of the infant formula crisis, along with a slew of other pressing food issues. My reporting there ultimately helped fuel one of the biggest reorganizations in FDA history.
I loved my colleagues at Politico and tbh, I’m still as surprised as anyone that I quit a coveted staff job in journalism to start something from scratch. Before doing this, I never considered myself entrepreneurial. But, as I wrote when Food Fix launched: I saw a need that wasn’t being met. Food policy is usually seen as a niche beat that’s not worthy of much coverage or investment in newsrooms. But from political fights over what foods are served to millions of school kids to questions about how the government will handle a wave of food innovation flowing out of Silicon Valley, these stories don’t just affect the trillion-dollar food industry. They affect every single one of us.
From the very beginning, I aimed to serve two audiences: the policy insiders that operate in this space (think congressional and agency staff, advocacy and industry groups, lawyers, etc.) and the legions of consumers who are increasingly interested in news about what they eat. I’m pleased to report that this dual approach is working.
I made the bet that there is a growing audience for smart, in-depth coverage of these “niche” issues, and you all prove me right every single week. Thank you so much for being here.
To mark this milestone, here are five things I’ve learned in the two years I’ve been doing this:
News consumers value direct connection. One thing that’s surprised me going from an established platform to creating a new publication is how much more connected I now feel to my readers. As I noted last year, I get far, far more reader emails now than I ever got at Politico, even though my overall readership is significantly smaller. There’s something much more personal about sending an email directly to each of you. I also now occasionally use the first person in my writing, something I almost never did at Politico, which allows me to include more analysis and informal insight than one can when sticking to the conventions of news writing. This is also part of a broader trend in media, as audience shifts from institutions toward individuals – this isn’t necessarily always good, but it’s a natural consequence of the media environment splintering and decentralizing.
Quality wins every time. In the media world, there’s a lot of hackery around how to build an audience, but I’ve found that the best way to bring in new readers and keep them is to publish high-quality content. This may sound super obvious, but quality is often the first thing to go as media outlets struggle financially, as so many are right now. (You may recall, I wrote about why the current media implosion scares me earlier this year.)
There’s no question it’s slower to grow organically, but the audience tends to stick around. Food Fix has a very high email open rate and high click-through rate (two measures of reader engagement) because, generally speaking, those who have signed up – you! – have a genuine interest in what I cover.
Paying for media is essential. There’s a reason you’re running into more paywalls to read news and consume other media these days – it’s expensive to produce good content, and publishers have learned the hard way that digital ads are often not enough to make the math work. I plan to always have a free edition of Food Fix – I think it’s important to reach far beyond Washington insiders – but paid subscriptions are really what make all of this possible. Paid subscriptions help cover the cost of my time, an editorial assistant and a trio of editors, tech support, design and, while I was on maternity leave, freelance journalists to help keep all of this running.
Most paid subscribers are expensing the subscription through their workplace, which is great. If you’ve been on the fence about subscribing, now is a great time to pull the trigger: For a limited time, new subscribers can get 20 percent off to celebrate our second anniversary (use the code FF20 at checkout). Subscribe here.
(On a related note, we offer free subscriptions to individuals who qualify for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or other federal nutrition benefits, just shoot an email to info@foodfix.co. We also have student subscriptions at a steep discount! See here.)
Data is important. In my past journalism jobs, I didn’t have access to much data about whether my work was resonating with the people reading it. Sure, a top editor might swing by my desk and mention a particular story was doing exceptionally well, traffic-wise, or I’d figure out if a story was being brandished in a congressional hearing, but other than that I was sort of in the dark about how my stories did. Of course, there are good reasons to shield journalists from certain kinds of data – aiming for high traffic alone can incentivize sensationalized reporting (not good!) – but now that I have access to much more information, I think it can be a very good thing.
I now know which topics are most important to both the insider and the consumer audiences for Food Fix. For example, some of the top issues for paid subscribers include anything related to fights over the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, food as medicine, FDA regulation, food additives and the farm bill (all of the newsletters linked here clocked an open rate well over 80 percent, which is bonkers by industry standards). I also know that some of the most-read Friday newsletters have been about nutrition policy, SNAP, the child tax credit and food in the U.N. climate talks. Anything related to ultra-processed foods also tends to do quite well for both audiences.
Curation is valuable. There was a time when I rolled my eyes at any form of aggregation or curation. Journalism has long placed a lot of value on original content, which makes sense! However, writing this newsletter has taught me that news consumers also really value curation because the internet is a chaotic place. One of the most consistent pieces of feedback I’ve gotten about Food Fix is how much you all love the “What I’m reading” section. Over time, I’ve expanded this section in response to that feedback. On that note, I really do read all of your emails!
If you want to see a particular topic covered or if you have other feedback, drop me a line: helena@foodfix.co. In the meantime, thank you so much for reading Food Fix each week. I couldn’t do any of this without you.
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What I’m reading
What I learned about ultra-processed foods from stuffing my face at the world’s leading food technology event (STAT). “My bender – as deranged and delicious as it was – raised a number of tough questions,” Nicholas Florko writes. “How much data about the health impact of ultra-processed foods do we need to amass before companies should be expected to start selling something healthier? Should they be praised for developing slightly healthier versions of ultra-processed foods, even if they are still ultra-processed? And when does a well-made, irresistible snack cross over from addictive in the colloquial sense to actually addictive?”
Bird flu cases among farm workers may be going undetected, a study suggests (NPR). “I am very confident there are more people being infected than we know about,” said University of Texas researcher Gregory Gray, whose new study suggests a national undercount of bird flu cases. “Without more assistance for farmworkers, and cooperation between the government and the livestock industry, Gray said, the U.S. risks remaining in the dark about this virus,” writes Amy Maxmen.
Black and other minority farmers are getting $2 billion from USDA after years of discrimination (Associated Press). “The Biden administration has doled out more than $2 billion in direct payments for Black and other minority farmers discriminated against by the USDA,” Summer Ballentine reports. “Most payments went to farmers in Mississippi and Alabama.” The agency has “a long history of refusing to process loans from Black farmers, approving smaller loans compared to white farmers and in some cases foreclosing quicker than usual when Black farmers who obtained loans ran into problems.”
White House chef Cristeta Comerford is retiring after 29 years (The Washington Post). “The chef in chief, who served state dinners and family meals to five presidents over her 29-year tenure, is retiring, according to a spokeswoman for first lady Jill Biden,” reports Emily Heil. “Comerford joined the White House kitchen in 1995 and in 2005 was the first woman to be appointed to the top culinary job, a post from which she oversaw dozens of state dinners and countless glittering social events – as well as the preparation of plenty of humble late-night presidential snacks. The Philippines-born chef is also the first person of color to hold the prestigious position.”
Food as you know it is about to change (The New York Times). “Over the past few years, as the world has begun a belated sprint toward renewable energy sources, we’ve gotten a pretty clear picture of what is often called the energy transition – clean power, primarily from wind and solar, that will be so cheap and abundant that the dirty old sources can’t possibly compete,” writes David Wallace-Wells in an essay. “It is considerably harder to picture the equivalent for the food system: a proper food transition, delivering better nutrition more equitably and more affordably to more people, all without devastating ecosystems or polluting local environments or pushing the planet further into climate disarray.”
Prescriptions for healthy food? What to know about the ‘food is medicine’ movement (TIME). “The philosophy of Food Is Medicine (FIM) is simple: Nutritious food is as critical to health as other medical treatments like prescription drugs and should be included in health care coverage,” Claire Sibboney writes. The movement’s recent traction has been driven by “heightened national attention to health disparities” and “high costs of popular injectable weight loss medications” since the pandemic. “If food is truly medicine, say experts, interventions like produce prescriptions should become as routine as taking a pill – and become fully integrated into the health care system.”
FDA to hold public meeting on the agency’s post-market assessment of chemicals in food (FDA). “The FDA is developing a systematic process for conducting post-market assessments of chemicals in food,” the agency said Thursday. “This includes ingredients considered generally recognized as safe (GRAS), food additives, color additives, food contact substances and contaminants … The FDA will host a public meeting to share the agency’s enhanced systematic process for post-market assessment of chemicals in food and hear stakeholder perspectives on this proposal.”
The British Olympic team has picked a food fight with France (The Wall Street Journal). “The Paris Olympics were supposed to be a culinary dream,” write Andrew Beaton and Joshua Robinson. “Then the British arrived and said, Non merci.” The British delegation “has run into issues with both the quality and quantity of the food in the Olympic Village,” which contains “twice as much plant-based food as previous Olympics” – a move by the organizers to “cut the carbon footprint of the Games’ catering operations in half.”
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