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.
When Artists, Engineers, And Pepsico Collaborated, Then Clashed At The 1970 World’s Fair
A year and a half in the making, the Pepsi Pavilion drew eager crowds and elicited effusive reviews. Just a month after the opening, the partnership with Experiments in Art and Technology—E.A.T.—collapsed amidst a flurry of recriminating letters and legal threats.
How The Government Came To Decide The Color Of Your Food
Tomatoes are red, margarine is yellow, and oranges, are, well, orange. We expect certain foods to be in certain colors. What we don’t realize is that these colors are not necessarily a product of nature but rather of historical controversies and deliberate decisions by various actors—including the government.
They Loan You Money. Then They Get A Warrant For Your Arrest.
High-interest loan companies are using Utah’s small claims courts to arrest borrowers and take their bail money. Technically, the warrants are issued for missing court hearings. For many, that’s a distinction without a difference.
I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave
My brief, backbreaking, rage-inducing, low-paying, dildo-packing time inside the online-shipping machine, under conditions that were surprisingly demoralizing and dehumanizing, even to someone who’s spent a lot of time working in warehouses, which I have.
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 Doomed Masa Son-Adam Neumann Relationship Set WeWork On The Road To Disaster
For Japanese billionaire Masayoshi Son, Neumann was the prodigal son he never had, with a wild-eyed vision to rival Son’s own. The inside story of how it all went wrong.
“Dominion”, How Animals Are Used And Abused By Humans
Dominion exposes the dark underbelly of modern animal agriculture, questioning the morality and validity of humankind’s dominion over the animal kingdom. While mainly focusing on animals used for food, it also explores other ways animals are exploited and abused by humans, including clothing, entertainment and research.
How Boeing Crashed: The Inside Story Of The 737 Max
Boeing used to represent the gold standard in aircraft safety, but critics say it has lost its way in the pursuit of profit. We tell the story of two fatal crashes involving the 737 Max 8 jet: the Ethiopian Airlines crash last March that killed 157 people and the Lion Air disaster in October 2018 that killed all 189 on board.
The Benefits Of Intermittent Fasting
I’ve long thought the human body was not meant to run on empty, that fasting was done primarily for religious reasons or political protest. But it turns out there is something to be said for a daily fast, preferably one lasting at least 16 hours.
First Came Better Beer. Now Craft Breweries Want To Be Better For The Planet
In the age of climate crisis, water’s role in craft beer is under increased scrutiny. Small breweries might make better beer, but large breweries are traditionally far more efficient with water usage — and are only getting better at pointing this out to sustainability-minded consumers.
Barilla Pasta’s Turnaround From Homophobia To National Pride
After chairman Guido Barilla rebuked gay families on national radio, his CEO spent five years cleaning up the company’s reputation. Barilla transformed from a pasta giant that would never feature homosexuals in its campaigns into one that sells spaghetti in homoerotic packaging.
How Chicken Became The Rich World’s Most Popular Meat
Humans gobble so many chickens that the birds now count for 23bn of the 30bn land animals living on farms. Chicken is cheap and delicious. Fans of cheap chicken have selective breeding to thank. Farmers have also benefited from the healthy reputation of chicken.
The Start-Ups Building ‘Dark Kitchens’ For Uber Eats And Deliveroo
Venture capitalists have all aligned on the best solution: kitchens that only serve delivery customers, known as “cloud”, “ghost” or “dark” kitchens, that use a combination of advanced food preparation, underused real estate and algorithm-driven optimisation to lower overheads and increase output.
The Real Problem With The Cruise Industry
What the novel coronavirus has revealed about the cruise industry is a “hidden in plain sight” problem — an international maritime regulatory structure that obfuscates and often ignores legal and social responsibility, accountability and culpability.
Inside The Failure Of Google+, A Very Expensive Attempt To Unseat Facebook
Create a social network or risk everything. That was the original pitch for Google’s Facebook rival, Google+, a refrain hammered over and over by the social network’s chief architect, Vic Gundotra, in meetings with the company’s top brass.
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 Food Deserts Of Memphis: Inside America’s Hunger Capital
In the ‘food deserts’ of Memphis, Tennessee, dominated by fast food outlets and convenience stores, locals lack what seems a basic human right in the richer half of the city: a supermarket. With a big gap in life expectancy, are these Americans doomed to die younger than their neighbours – or can they fight for their right to nutrition?
Where Amazon Returns Go To Be Resold By Hustlers
Liquidity Services, the operator of liquidation.com, became a major (though not exclusive) handler of Amazon’s American liquidations. The company calls dealing with returns “the reverse supply chain”—a part of the retail business that has been growing in importance as online shopping becomes more popular.
The Dark Side Of Electronic Waste Recycling
Electronics can be hazardous when disposed of improperly, and the Basel Action Network, or BAN, investigates the underground world of the e-waste trade. The nonprofit group secretly embeds trackers in discarded devices, then hands them to recyclers to see where they end up, exposing bad practices in the process.
The Economics Of Airline Class
The story of the development of airline classes really isn’t the story of how airlines developed more and more luxurious seats, it’s how they cut costs to allow more and more people to fly. It’s also a fascinating demonstration of economics.