5@5: Shoppers ditch ready-made meals for fresh produce | Grocery stores rescind hazard pay5@5: Shoppers ditch ready-made meals for fresh produce | Grocery stores rescind hazard pay

Locked down shoppers turn to vegetables, shun ready-to-eat meals

According to a new survey of 11,000 consumers in 11 countries, being forced to stay at home has largely encouraged participants to be both healthier and less wasteful. Heightened health concerns have led to an increase in fresh, canned or frozen fruit and vegetable purchases, and consumers are trying new recipes and making use of leftovers more than ever before as concerns regarding the food supply chain's stability mount. Read more at Reuters…

Grocery stores and coffee chains gave workers hazard pay. Now they’re taking it back

Only a handful of essential businesses gave their staff raises for showing up to work amid shelter-in-place orders, and now some taking them away even though a massive health risk persists. But there's hope: Federal hazard pay proposals are gaining traction among lawmakers, and this would help employers afford to hike up wages with support from a refundable tax credit. Read more at The L.A. Times…

Tabitha Brown is spreading joy and veganism on TikTok

Tabitha Brown has amassed over 2 million followers in just over two months on the popular TikTok app. On it, she moves through vegan recipes at a fast clip in addition to giving motherly advice to her quarantined viewers. The combination of simple, handmade, healthy comfort food and positive attitude reinforcement appears to be exactly what consumers need right now. Read more at The New York Times…

As hundreds of farmworkers test positive for COVID-19, many remain unprotected

Farmworkers are at high risk of contracting COVID-19 for various reasons, but until recently relatively few had tested positive for the virus. But a confirmed outbreak in Washington has agricultural workers stressed about the stark lack of regulations in place to prevent the coronavirus' spread in the agriculture sector. Labor advocates hope that immediate, widespread testing and enforceable regulations will help keep workers and the food supply chain out of harm's way. Read more at Civil Eats…

Trump's executive order seeks controversial overhaul of seafood industry

The Trump administration recently announced its approval of ocean aquaculture in federal waters. Environmentalists and fisheries advocates say that this move will bring all of the inherent problems of industrial farming to the oceans, inevitably reducing biodiversity and negatively impacting smaller producers. Read more at FERN…