N.J. Senate Approves Menu Labeling

Nationwide state legislators and local officials continue to push menu labeling regulations even as the U.S. House and Senate work on health-care reform legislation that include provisions for a national policy.

Recently, Montgomery County, Md., a suburb of Washington D.C., passed such a bill, and now New Jersey legislators are considering regulations for that state. If approved, New Jersey would become the fifth state to pass a menu labeling law.
 
On Dec 10th, the New Jersey state Senate passed a bill that would require restaurants with 20 or more locations nationwide to post calorie information for food and beverages on menu boards, according to a story in The Star-Ledger.
 
From The Star-Ledger:

Chain restaurant owners and Republican legislators called the bill unnecessary because the House and Senate versions of the health care reform bills include very similar menu disclosure requirements. (Sen. Joseph) Vitale said he wanted consumers to have the information sooner than the two to three years it would take for the health care bills to be implemented.
 
If approved by the state Assembly and governor, the bill would go into effect a year after it was passed. Operators who failed to comply would face fines of $50 to $500, with the higher fee for subsequent offences.

Proponents of the menu labeling bill maintain that it will “provide consumers with information that can assist them with their food choices if they care to use it, not unlike most product labeling in our grocery stores,” said state Sen. Joseph Vitale, one of the bill’s sponsors.  The bill now goes to New Jersey’s General Assembly.

 Critics include chain restaurant owners and some Republican lawmakers, who counter that the law would be too expensive for franchisees.

“We don’t believe that menus should be used for public-service announcements,” said Deborah Dowdell, president of the New Jersey Restaurant Association. “They are marketing tools and should be maintained as such.”

They also say that the state law is unnecessary, because the U.S. House and Senate versions of the health-care bills include similar menu labeling requirements. The legislation being considered by Congress would pre-empt all state and local regulations.

DDIFO lobbied in Massachusetts for the State Department of Health to hold off implementing a menu labeling requirement until the US Senate and House passed national menu labeling.

Good News in the Daily Grind

Your Coffee May Have Some Health Perks, but Can Brew Trouble in People With Certain Conditions

Melinda Beck writes in the Wall Street Journal that judging by recent headlines, coffee could be the latest health-food craze, right up there with broccoli and whole-wheat bread.

But don’t think you’ll be healthier graduating from a tall to a venti just yet. While there has been a splash of positive news about coffee lately, there may still be grounds for concern.

This month alone, an analysis in the Archives of Internal Medicine found that people who drink three to four cups of java a day are 25% less likely to develop Type 2 diabetes than those who drink fewer than two cups. And a study presented at an American Association for Cancer Research meeting found that men who drink at least six cups a day have a 60% lower risk of developing advanced prostate cancer than those who didn’t drink any.

Earlier studies also linked coffee consumption with a lower risk of getting colon, mouth, throat, esophageal and endometrial cancers. People who drink coffee are also less likely to have cavities, gallstones, cirrhosis of the liver, Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease, or to commit suicide, studies have found. Last year, researchers at Harvard University and the University of Madrid assessed data on more than 100,000 people over 20 years and concluded that the more coffee they drank, the less likely they were to die during that period from any cause.

Watch a Video interview of Melinda Beck:

But those studies come on the heels of older ones showing that coffee—particularly the caffeine it contains—raises blood pressure, heart rate and levels of homocysteine, an amino acid in blood that is associated with stroke and heart disease. Pregnant women who drink two or more cups of coffee a day have a higher rate of miscarriages and lower birth-weight babies; caffeine has also been linked to benign breast lumps and bone loss in elderly women. And, as many people can attest, coffee can also aggravate anxiety, irritability, heartburn and sleeplessness, which brings its own set of problems, including a higher risk of obesity. Yet it’s just that invigorating buzz that other people love and think they can’t get through the day without.

Why is there so much confusion about something that’s so ubiquitous? After all, some 54% of American adults drink coffee regularly—an estimated 400 million cups per day—and coffee is the second most widely traded commodity in the world, after oil.

 

Read more at: Wall Street Journal

Dunkin’ Donuts To Open First Location In Bridgeport, West Virginia

Dunkin’ Donuts, will celebrate the grand opening of its first restaurant in Bridgeport, West Virginia on Wednesday, December 30th. The restaurant, located off Interstate 79 at 50 Genisis Blvd at Charlespointe, is housed in the Exxon fueling station owned by Dunkin’ Donuts’ franchise partner, Joe DeFazio, a prominent member of the local business community. In addition to the Dunkin’ Donuts location, Mr. DeFazio has also owned and operated several fueling stations in the Bridgeport area for more than 50 years.

To celebrate the grand opening, free coffee and donuts will be given away at the pumps to help fuel weary last minute shoppers and travelers on December 22 and 23 from 8:00 to 10:00AM. The coffee and donut giveaway at the pumps will resume the morning of “black Saturday,” December 26, 8:00 to 10:00AM, to offer a jump-start to the post-holiday gift returns rush.

“We’re proud to serve the hard-working people of Bridgeport, and honored to open the first Dunkin’ Donuts restaurant in West Virginia,” said DeFazio. “Our goal is to provide the ultimate customer service experience and change people’s expectations about what is possible at a quick service restaurant.”

In addition to providing the people of Bridgeport with a new option for their morning coffee ritual, the new location will also help to stimulate the economy by creating 25 new full and part-time jobs. DeFazio, who plans to open two more Dunkin’ Donuts restaurants in the market next year, says he chose Dunkin’ Donuts because of its new restaurant design, freshly-brewed coffee and high-quality baked products and all-day snacks.

“Despite our name, we offer more than just delicious donuts,” says DeFazio. “We hope to become a popular spot for on-the-go customers looking for high quality coffee and baked goods that will be delivered fast, fresh and at an affordable price.”

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Dunkin’ Donuts to Open Distribution Center in North Carolina

A Dunkin’ Donuts distribution center will open up early next year in an 80,000-square-foot building near Interstate 40 and Piedmont Triad International Airport.

Dunkin’ Donuts Mid-Atlantic Distribution Center, a Westampton, N.J.-based distribution cooperative, has signed a lease for the building at 8416 Triad Drive, just below West Market Street.

Officials with Dunkin’ Donuts MADC declined to comment. But real estate brokers involved with the deal confirmed the move. The new distribution center will provide supplies and ingredients to stores in Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia and South Carolina, said John Schultz, managing partner at High Point-based Triad Commercial Properties, who represented Dunkin’ Donuts MADC.

Schultz said the cooperative plans to start operations early next year, likely in January.

Dunkin’ Donuts gives $27K to build homes for soldiers

The Warwick Beacon reports that Dunkin’ Donuts franchisees in Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts donated $27,500 to Homes for Our Troops recently, to help build a new, specially adapted barrier free home for Army Staff Sergeant Michael Downing from Middleboro, Mass.

The funds were generated during Dunkin’ Donuts’ Iced Coffee Day this spring, during which 5 cents for every small iced coffee purchased, was donated to Homes for Our Troops. In Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts, 100 percent of the proceeds from each iced coffee sold were donated.

“On behalf of Dunkin’ Donuts and the Dunkin’ Brands Community Foundation, I am so proud to make this donation, and am thankful to my fellow franchisees and our loyal customers for helping to make this contribution possible,” said Joe Prazeres, Dunkin’ Donuts franchisee and board member of the Dunkin’ Donuts and Baskin-Robbins Community Foundation.

Army SSG Michael Downing was on his second deployment when he was left a double amputee after an IED explosion in Afghanistan in September 2008. The force of the blast threw SSG Downing from his truck, throwing him into enemy territory, unprotected. Quick action by patrol leaders secured the area, all the while exchanging small arms fire as the medics worked to aid the wounded.

SSG Downing, after calling out to each of his team members to check on their conditions, suddenly realized he had irreversible damage to both of his legs and a severely injured arm as well. He was placed on the hood of a truck and rolled to a more secure area. Transported first to Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan, he was later airlifted to Landstuhl, Germany and finally to Walter Reed Army Medical Center where he remains at this time.

Homes for Our Troops has completed 48 specially adapted homes since its inception in 2004. Currently there are 33 homes in various stages of construction throughout the United States. The financial support from organizations like the Dunkin’ Donuts and Baskin-Robbins Community Foundation and volunteer commitment from General Contractors MCD International and Regency significantly decreases building time by 25 percent, from groundbreaking to the presentation of the keys taking approximately six months. The average cost of each home, depending on location is approximately $275,000. All homes are presented to the veteran at no cost.

Dunkin’ Donuts iPhone App Wins Best Ad

Brian Steinberg of the Boston Globe awards the Dunkin Donuts iPhone App as one of the areas ten most memorable ads in 2009.

#3: There’s A Glazed Chocolate Doughnut For That
What: To get closer to its customers, Dunkin’ Donuts issued a Dunkin’ Run iPhone app allowing people to tell their friends they were about to visit one of the doughnut and coffee emporiums, then take orders for food and beverages. Downloading the app, conceived by Dunkin’ with Boston’s Hill Holliday and digital specialist Studiocom, was free. Purchasing more caffeine and cake was not.

Why: In these days of digital outreach, every part of our daily lives is targetable by outside commercial interests. What could be more innocuous, more benign, than a coffee bun? Yet Dunkin’s digital tool turned that daily event into a business opportunity and set the chain up as the catalyst to bring groups of people together through this once-quotidian event.

More than 26,000 people downloaded the app, said a spokesman for Canton parent company Dunkin’ Brands.

Drive-Thru Baby Shower

No doubt you’ve used a drive thru-window to get a quick cup of coffee or a snack. But, a group of people came together in a random act of kindness to give — instead of get — through a drive-thru window.

A Dunkin’ Donuts employee gets a drive thru baby shower.

Watch the video below or at: WJHG Channel 7 Panama City, Florida

Green Mountain Has More Upside Brewing

Ken Shreve, Profolio Manager at the Street.com reports at Yahoo Finance that when you think of coffee and Wall Street, it’s easy to point to Starbucks as the stand-alone coffee brand. After rapid expansion and perhaps a loss of focus, Starbucks has engineered an impressive turnaround by shuttering stores and regaining focus.

But the real story in coffee recently has been in the single-cup coffee market — a market where Starbucks hasn’t been able to make meaningful inroads. The dominant company here is Green Mountain Coffee Roasters. “K-cups,” which contain a filter and a single serving of coffee, are used in Green Mountain’s fast-selling Keurig coffee brewers, a brand it acquired in 2006.

Green Mountain sells more than 100 coffee selections under its own name, as well as under the Newman’s Own Organics brand and others, but its underlying goal is to sell as many Keurig machines as possible to businesses, homes and hotels. The real profit driver is the K-cups. Earlier this year, Green Mountain announced a deal to distribute Keurig brewers and K-cups in over 3,000 Wal-Mart locations.

Peet’s Coffee and Tea wanted in on the K-cup market and offered to buy Diedrich Coffee for $26 a share. Diedrich is a licensee of Green Mountain, but Green Mountain used its sheer size and financial muscle to swoop in and ultimately win the bidding war for Diedrich. It paid $290 million, or about $35 a share. Green Mountain had to pay a termination fee of $8.5 million to Peet’s.

Acquiring licensees is a familiar strategy for Green Mountain. In September 2008, Green Mountain acquired the wholesale and supply-chain business of Tully’s Coffee for $40.3 million. Last month, Green Mountain paid $157 million for the wholesale operations of Timothy’s Coffees of the World. Prior to the Tully’s buy, Green Mountain sold its coffee and K-cups via 4,800 supermarkets mainly on the East Coast. With the Tully’s brand, Green Mountain now has a major West Coast presence.

It’s estimated that Green Mountain controls about 80% of the single-cup coffee market. Patents for its K-cup technology expire in 2012, but some analysts say that downside is limited because of Green Mountain’s first-to-market position and sheer domain.

Read More at: Yahoo Finance

Comedian Bob Marley – Dunkin-Hunkin-Munkin Audio Clip

Very funny audio clip about Dunkin Donuts from Maine Comedian Bob Marley

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Jon Luther and four others inducted into Mass. Hospitality Hall of Fame

Metrowest Daily News reports that Harvey Allen, Billy Costa, Donato & Filippo Frattaroli and Jon Luther were recently inducted into the Massachusetts Hospitality Hall of Fame at the 20th annual awards dinner at Anthony’s Pier 4 in Boston.

Run by the Southborough-based Massachusetts Restaurant Association, the event honors those individuals who have exhibited extraordinary dedication to the hospitality industry in Massachusetts. Allen is the president and CEO of M.S. Walker Inc., producers and marketers of alcoholic beverages throughout the United States. Costa is a well-known entertainment personality, originally on “The Phantom Gourmet” and now on NECN’s “TV Diner.”

Brothers Donato and Filippo Frattaroli were both honored for their service to the Boston area through their philanthropic endeavors and restaurants, Ristorante Lucia and Fillippo Ristorante.

Jon Luther is CEO of Dunkin’ Brands.

Metrowest Daily News

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