This year, the global food market revenue stands at around 9.36 trillion US dollars. For comparison, Germany's entire economy is valued at "just" $4.4 trillion. What's more, it's estimated that the figure should continuously increase between 2023 and 2028 by 38.46 percent and reach $12.97 trillion.
But big money brings tough competition, and businesses may try all sorts of tactics to get an edge.
Interested in the practices of this sector, Reddit user Lilyxrx made a post on the platform, asking everyone, "What's a secret the food industry doesn't want you to know?" Turns out, many more wanted to know, too. As of now, the post has 4.6K upvotes and 3.5K comments. Here are some of the most interesting ones.
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Beekeeper checking in - there is no such thing as organic honey. I do not treat my bees with chemicals, but I have no idea where they get their nectar. A bee can fly up to three miles from a hive to get nectar. It is virtually impossible to guarantee they have not gotten nectar from a chemically treated source.
Or found a can or cup containing soda. Now that it is winter they visit convenience store trash cans.
The American FDA takes food additive safety claims from corporations at face value. If a corporation has done internal testing and says it’s safe the FDA approves it. In the EU, Canada, Australia, New Zealand etc if a corporation wants to get an additive approved, the governments have their own food labs. They will take your testing procedures/results and then do their own testing to see if they think your additives are safe, and then approve or deny accordingly. Same goes for medicines in farm animals. Canada won’t allow BGH (bovine growth hormone) as it shows up in the milk. America gets angry because they can’t sell dairy to Canada and the EU but we have rules banning widespread use of Antibiotics and hormones in farm animals. If you are ever travelling outside of America, pick up some food products off the shelf that look like the American brands and read the ingredients list. It’s probably half as long. I’ll let you work out that obesity epidemic cause for yourselves.
Basically during the 80s, testing was outsourced to the producers of the products being tested. Same thing happened in the pharmaceutical industry. Regan's big push for deregulation at work.
We managed to get in touch with the author of the post, and they were kind enough to have a little chat with us about it.
"I own a TikTok account where I repost questions from 'Ask Reddit' and the replies they receive, so I thought I might as well create my own thread," Lilyxrx told Bored Panda about its origins.
Five Guys- not really a secret but everything was fresh as could be, we did not have a freezer at all only the fridge. Every morning the burgers were rolled into balls and weighed to make sure all were the same. Bread made fresh from local factories. Potatoes straight from Idaho or Washington. Freshly cut and washed 3 times to remove the starch before being cooked. All veggies were labled by date for freshness. Honestly probably one of the cleanest places ive worked at.
Also at the register every single person would ask why it was so expensive but proceeded to buy it anyway. As if I could change the price for them.
It's nice to hear this. Used to go occasionally to a store east of Dallas. Was really, really good. Last one I went to southwest of Dallas was awful and dirty. So much salt on everything. It was just a bad store/management. After reading this I'll try it again giving the chance.
They're making BANK windfall record profits right now under the guise of "inflation" and "supply issues".
Who and when is this going ti stop? Answer: Not any time soon. Too many powerful people are getting paid!
After going through the discussion their post has ignited, the Redditor has noticed that one theme definitely stood out from the rest. "From what I can see, it seems that the food industry is more unsanitary than we think," they said.
And they're probably right. Unsafe food containing harmful bacteria, viruses, parasites, or chemical substances can cause more than 200 different diseases, ranging from diarrhea to cancer. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that around 600 million – almost 1 in 10 people – fall ill after eating contaminated food each year, resulting in 420,000 deaths and 33 million healthy life years (DALYs).
Chef here. It’s salt and fat. If you have a question about anything it’s salt and fat.
Cows make milk not because they are cows but because they are mothers
However, as we can see from this list, not all parts of the industry are working as they should (and there are plenty of things we regular folks don't know about) even though we all depend on it.
Lilyxrx believes that we often end up in the dark because of greedy businessmen and corporations, as industry leaders would rather chase money and cover up their questionable conduct instead of doing everything by the book.
Sadly, there are plenty of examples that support their words. And we don't need to look that far back to find something. On the night of October 4, Homeland Security and FBI agents teamed up for a raid on Gerber's Poultry in Ohio, United States, and found over two dozen children (mostly said to be from Guatemala) who were illegally employed in meat processing and sanitation.
Hopefully, with time and effort, the industry becomes more transparent.
The reason restaurant food tastes better than what you make at home is probably because it was drowned in butter or oil.
Also MSG is in nearly everything. Totally safe and delicious. And it definitely isn’t what is giving you a migraine. The fact you ate 4000 calories and 3 times your daily salt intake is probably what gave you the headache.
The reason restaurant food tastes better than what I make at home is because I didn't have to cook it.
Unless it’s a health conscious food joint you’re eating at, the food we serve is designed for maximum taste. It’s either dense with fat and sugar, or fat and salt . E.g. Those mashed potatoes you like? Made with cream, butter, and salt. The quiche? made on cream, not milk. Etc, etc.
It is amazing just how much salt, fat and sugar enhance flavors. Try making a cheese sauce with cornstarch and only a pinch of salt instead of butter and flour and you'll find out really fast just how much of the "cheesy" flavor of that sauce is from the fat and salt in the butter!
At least up until the pandemic hit, there is a 100% chance that you've eaten at a restaurant where 1 or 2 of the people directly handling your food were legitimately sick enough that they should have stayed home, but they had to come in to work anyway because they couldn't get their shift covered and they can't get a doctor's note without insurance or the money for a copay.
Everything on the Mexican menu uses the same ingredients. Just built it different and give it a different name
Tortillas
Cheese
Salsa
Beans
Rice
Meat
Tacos, burrito, chilaquiles, tostada, chimichanga
It's all the same thing!
* written by a Mexican cook
The amount of sugar that goes into costco bakery products is absurd, especially the apple pie. That being said; Costco does not f**k around when it comes to food safety. Every area that is responsible for producing food is most likely cleaner than a white room for producing computer parts. There are virtually zero roaches, we found one in the bakery once and shut it down until the exterminator did his thing that very night. Someone returned a package of dinner rolls because their child had bit into one and a sharp piece of metal was in it, within less than 2 minutes every manager in the building was doing an investigation that led all the way up to the regional manager and his boss for several hours and determined that it had come off of a piece of machinery before it reached our location. We throw away rotisserie chickens if they have left (even for a few minutes) the shelf and someone tries to put it back.
Dragon fruit isn’t an exotic Asian fruit. It’s a cactus fruit, and as such are native to the Americas and can even be grown in the US.
I really, really, really, really, REALLY, want to try Dragon Fruit
The trick to good fried rice is old rice. It has to dry out for a bit in the fridge.
Many of the cooks making your food are high and/or drunk.
It's not exactly a secret, but it's not common knowledge either.
Except for infant formula, dates are not an indicator of the product’s safety and are not required by Federal law. Phrases like "Best by [ date ]" or "Sell by" or "Use by" aren't regulated or required, and they are not (outside of baby formula) a statement of safety.
Manufacturers would rather have you throw out product, wasting it, and buying more, than stockpiling. So they put "best by" or "use by" dates even on non-perishible items like *salt*.
Not a thing in the UK, as we use shelf life testing to determine the dates. A best before date means exactly that, it tastes best before that date, it can still be perfectly safe to eat. Use by should be stuck to, it's usually on things like meat and dairy. Using modern packaging means that bacterial growth is over safe levels when it passes. I'm a Quality manager for a food company.
the organic industry is a f*****g scam.
there are levels to this s**t, and yes, you can purchase food that is grown and/or sourced more ethically than other options, but don't kid yourself. it was most likely still grown on a factory farm, and chemicals were used, etc. etc. just different chemicals.
and a lot of it comes from china. no s**t.
I'm a trucker who hauls mostly refrigerated freight. I pick up at a lot of slaughterhouses. You really, really don't want to know what those places are like; let alone the conditions at feedlots or CAFOs.
The US has virtually no legislature in respect of animal welfare in food production. It's outrageous and disgusting.
The "natural flavors" are just big jugs of glycerin with hyper concentrated flavoring in it. Banana flavoring is fairly flammable.
Source: Worked in food manufacturing
Can confirm. My degree is in Food Science. Green Apple = actylaldehyde. Butter? That's dyacyl ketone. Dimethyl Sulfide tastes like corn. And yeah I have heard that about banana flavoring but I can't remember the name of it.
When you give back a pack of ketchup to the restaurant because you didn’t use it, they thank you and smile and then they throw it out because you’re probably a weirdo who injected bleach into the ketchup pack.
I used to work in a sliced bread factory. The amount of bread that gets thrown in the trash for being just a little overcooked after a mechanical failure is astonishing. I always thought they should give it to homeless shelters something like that
In the food factories where I worked, food waste was sold to pig farms, but maybe pig farms don't want bread.
A lot of the processed cheese and cream cheese is all the same recipe we just switch the labels and packaging for the different brands we run. Source: I work in a cheese factory in a company that services 75% of America's domestic market
King crab and Maine lobster prices that restaurants pay are cheaper than they have been since even before the pandemic, yet we still charge more than ever before
Pringles (and baked Lays/similar) are made of rehydrated and compressed rejected/excess parts of potatoes that go into regular chips. I learned that from my dietician at work and thought that was odd. I still like them over regular chips.
the inside of ice machines are covered in mold unless cleaned regularly. in the many different restaurants I worked in, exactly 1 cleaned the inside of their ice machine on a regular basis.
"SLIME in the ice machine!" -Marvin Zindler, Eye Witness News (Houston, Texas in the '80s.)
Well - I work at Dominos, and we are kept afloat by the people who don't coupon and pay full menu price. You people are the unsung heroes of labor.
Lol I'm pretty sure that's a picture of a Little Caesar's pizza, not Domino's
That all vodka is nothing more than pure grain alcohol cut to proof with water. Source: was lab tech in an alcohol plant. We made everything from Walgreens vodka to Smirnoff vodka. The only difference was the bottle and label.
Largely agreed. There are premium vodkas that somehow create flavor with the U.S. required 5 times distillation. Those are great for shots and sips. But if you're mixing in a Bloody Mary, Screwdriver, Martini (especially if it's dirty), you're wasting your money on a premium. Don't go plastic bottle rock bottom, but save your money for something else.
Diet, not exercise, is the main factor in determining weight gain/loss
Buffalo wings are not made of buffalo, they're made of chicken.
Buffalo don't even have wings.
I believe they are called Buffalo Wings because they were first popularized in Buffalo, New York.
The secret is that they can tell us all their secrets and we still eat it because we are lazy, short-term-thinking f***s.
Or maybe because not every one has the space, money or other resources to do something about it.
When you order "Shrimp fried rice" there isn't actually a shrimp frying the rice.
Subway- if it’s 12 inches or 11 inches, you’re getting the same amount of bread. Sometimes we’re just too lazy to stretch the bread
Alot of cooking is just the reheating of prep and Chef Mike (the microwave) gets used alot more than you think.
The reason orange juice tastes consistently the same year round, even though it's a crop harvested once a year, is because citrus oils and citrus flavor are added back to different batches and blended all together. Similar to how whiskey is blended from multiple barrels to make it consistent.
The difference is that even though extra stuff is added back into the OJ, it doesn't need to be labeled because the flavors contain all ingredients from oranges (FTNF-from the named fruit) so the FDA doesn't mandate labeling additional ingredients.
Olive Garden makes all their necessary pastas for the whole day from 8-10am every morning. Partially cooked. So when an order comes through, they grab a serving of the needed pasta style and flash cook them in hot water. Also, it’s just the brand, Barilla.
Ooh I got one. Lots of manufacturing places nowadays are trying to push for "less than daily" sanitation. You heard that right. They want to use these machines all day long, not clean them overnight, and start up like normal the next day.
Currently working in a place that just started this practice. USDA is on board with it, they only care that the product tests well for culture counts before it's shipped off.
So when you have stuff in your fridge and it seems to expire faster than it used to it's probably because you got some 2 day old room temperature product mixed in with the fresh stuff.
The only places I've worked that do this are wineries. Wine is a very inherently antimicrobial product so you can get away with running the same equipment without a clean. Especially since the next run is only about four hours out.
When I worked at a mass production bakery the chocolate for the chocolate covered doughnuts came in giant frozen blocks of 4x4 peices and contained no actual chocolate what so over. When unfrozen it was like some sort of nasty smelling paraffin wax that I would break up with a hammer and place into a melter that would then pour over the doughnuts.
most meat you buy in stores is packed with water and additives that add taste so you won't notice that it's all water. most meat shrinks when you fry it, the more shrinkage the more water was in the product in the beginning.
You technically can't get addicted to sugar, but sugar dependence is very real and can give you similar withdrawal symptoms to caffiene withdrawal. Your brain gets dopamine when you eat sugar, which means that most companies put as much sugar in their products as they can get away with so you feel good by eating them.
Fancy restaurants' regular food tastes so good because it's DROWNED in butter and MSG. I dishwashed at a fancy seafood/steakhouse on the water and an average serving of asparagus had about a quarter stick of butter in it. People always asked what their "trick" with the asparagus was.
I was a young lad working at Church's Fried Chicken during the summer, many years ago. The owner refused to throw out chicken that had already gone bad; to the point where you'd gag if you smell them. Apparently if you batter them bad boys up and deep fry them, the rancid smell goes away. His customers never knew they were eating spoiled chicken.
Had a lady tell me that she doesn’t eat ketchup. When I asked her why she said that she was once the safety manager at a Heinz factory. Her job was to test for contamination of the batches. She said an alarm would go off when the levels got too high, and she would have to go and test the batch with a test strip. She said that no matter what the strip showed she would turn off the alarm and tell them to continue. She said she watched all kinds of s**t go in the batch. Spiders, bugs, etc.
Has nothing to do with ketchup per se. There's no way you can avoid eating bugs or such things as mouse/rat hair. Doesn't matter where you get your food or ingredients. That's a simple fact of life.
That fancy dessert you bought at an expensive sitdown place was purchased frozen, warmed up, and sprinkled with chocolate to make it look like they made it themselves.
Your local health dept is probably overworked and understaffed. You should take an active role in evaluating if the restaurant is up to your standards.
Excuse me, I need to see your kitchen, freezers, pantry and storage before being seated.
The apples you are buying from the produce department are anywhere from 9-14 months old.
Organic means nothing. Same with all natural. They are marketing terms.
Castorium is from a beaver's b******e, and it is used to make artificial raspberry flavor. (ETA) It can also used for strawberry and vanilla
Every packaged and processed item you purchase is actively being worked on to be made cheaper, less nutritious or less flavorful. It’s the curse of “continuous improvement”. All it’s doing is making what once was a decent quality food item way worse for you and more expensive.
This is stupid. Manufacturers do try to make products cheaper to produce, yes, but no one is "actively" working to make foods less nutritious and flavourful (except in edge cases perhaps such as making some strongly flavoured products milder to appeal to a wither consumer base). Where that happens, it's a side-effect of trying to achieve product efficiencies. Which leaves us with the claim that making a product cheaper makes it more expensive. Which is nonsense.
And the other half are all repeating themselves and saying the same thing.
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And the other half are all repeating themselves and saying the same thing.
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