The Highly Unusual Company Behind Sriracha, The World’s Coolest Hot Sauce
David Tran, CEO of Huy Fong Foods, shuns publicity, professes not to care about profits, hardly knows where his sauces are sold, and probably leaves millions of dollars on the table every year.

The Food Expiration Dates You Should Actually Follow
Here’s the first thing you should know: Expiration dates are not expiration dates. Food product dating, as the U.S. Department of Agriculture calls it, is completely voluntary for all products — with the exception of baby food. Not only that, but it has nothing to do with safety.

Can Kyoto’s Buddhist Cuisine Teach Us All To Eat Better?
From the Buddhist perspective, cooking is a form of spiritual practice that produces nourishment to prepare the body for hard work and meditation. Its goals are nothing less than permanent enlightenment, nirvana, the fundamental transformation of the human mind and society.

The Taste Of America
Joshua Smith, 2019 Iron Viz co-champion, used data provided by Pitney Bowes to create a dashboard about how international cuisine shapes food identity in the US. The visualization tells a story of what is on American tables using tile maps that display the prevalence of international cuisines by state, compared to the national average.

Dystopian Photos Of London’s Bankers In Meltdown
Having been a fixture in and around the banks since the rumors of trouble first started circulating, photographer Stephen McLaren was embedded on the frontlines when what would become the 2008 Global Financial Crisis began to first take shape.

The Great American Labor Paradox: Plentiful Jobs, Most Of Them Bad
The numbers tell one story. Unemployment in the US is the lowest it’s been in 50 years. More Americans have jobs than ever before. Wage growth keeps climbing. People tell a different story. Long job hunts. Trouble finding work with decent pay. A lack of predictable hours.

The Tricky Economics Of All-You-Can-Eat Buffets
For a small fee, you’re granted unencumbered access to a wonderland of gluttony. Is it possible to out-eat the price you pay for a buffet? How do these places make money? We looked at the dollars and cents behind the meat and potatoes.

“A Lot Of Us Are Suffering”: The Dark Side Of The Flight Attendant Lifestyle
The dizzying highs of the airborne lifestyle can come with a side of abject lows, including poor mental health, sleep disorders, and substance abuse issues. Those factors compound, with crew members sometimes resorting to alcohol and prescription drugs to combat sleeplessness or anxiety.

Why The Coming Foreclosure Crisis Will Look Nothing Like The Last One
A prominent housing analyst expects hundreds of thousands of defaults next year as mortgage forbearance periods end. At first glance, those projections look bad. On closer inspection, however, this round of foreclosures should be mild in comparison to the financial carnage of 2008 to 2010.

Inside The Pampered And Personalized World of DC’s VIP Diners
The big restaurant lie: Everyone is treated the same. For a select group of dining heavies around town, a whole other world of special perks and suck-uppery awaits.

Rubber Tires — A Dirty Business
The booming global tire market is worth billions – but this comes at a high price, both to humans and the environment. Over 50 million car tires are sold each year in Germany alone. But where does the natural rubber for them come from?

What Does Uber Love More: Restaurants or Investors?
Eateries are getting squeezed by delivery apps. Restaurants can enjoy a 69% profit margin onsite, versus just 38% from deliveries. Uber could give up profit to keep them happy, but that’s not what IPO investors want to hear.

Why Amazon Has So Many Counterfeit Goods
Seizures of counterfeit products at U.S. borders have increased 10-fold over the past two decades as e-commerce sales have boomed. The total value of seized goods – if they had been real – reached nearly $1.4 billion in 2018. Most are coming from mainland China or Hong Kong.

An Ode To Being Old
Success in business, even in the fast-paced start-up world, isn’t just about age-related smarts. Wisdom, a deeper kind of knowing that can only be gained through experience, matters too. And apparently, it matters quite a bit.

The Price Of Plenty: How Beef Changed America
Exploitation and predatory pricing drove the transformation of the US beef industry – and created the model for modern agribusiness. The industrial slaughterhouse was a triumph of human ingenuity as well as a site of brutal labor exploitation.

Sweden’s Cashless Society Dream Isn’t All It’s Cracked Up To Be
Just one per cent of Sweden’s GDP circulates as cash. As debates over the need for cash rage along lines of age, wealth and location, the country is looking to create a digital currency.

Will An All-Meat Diet Kill You Or Cure You?
In anecdotal testimonials, people say that eating an all-meat diet helped them drop 10, 20, 40, 80 pounds and cured them of depression, fatigue, diabetes, autoimmune diseases, joint pain, and insomnia. How is this possible? And what is going on in these people’s intestines and arteries?

Setting A Maximum Wage For CEOs Would Be Good For Everyone
A limit would help to slow the growth of economic inequality and prevent reckless risk-taking by CEOs who otherwise might feel motivated to try to drive up the stock price of their company and therefore their bonus.

An Eco-Friendly, Plastics-Free Way For Supermarkets To Package Vegetables
A handful of supermarkets in Vietnam are attempting to move away from plastic. One of the most-pernicious, least-recycled/recyclable forms is the plastic film that food is often wrapped in. So supermarket chains including Lotte Mart, Saigon Co.op and Big C have started wrapping produce in banana leaves rather than plastic.

The Lie That Helped Build Nintendo
In 1981, a young Swede called Owe Bergsten strolled through Singapore to pass the time before his flight home. Passing a camera shop, he spotted a two-button LCD game called ‘Fire RC-04’ in the window. The story of a man, a lie, a video game handheld, and a business empire.

How The Wealthy Hide Billions Using Tax Havens
Every year, about 70 billion dollars that the US could be using for infrastructure, law enforcement, healthcare or education is missing. It’s hidden deep within shell companies and anonymous entities in places like the British Virgin Islands. What exactly is a shell company and how does it work?