Articles by Megan Pellegrini

Ready-to-eat, protein bowls and pre-made entrees continue to be popular. Have food safety regulations kept up?

Simply put, sanitation starts and ends with employees. How do companies maintain high standards when they likely experience high employee turnover?

When McDonald's delivers, it’s pretty clear lunchtime rules don't apply anymore. Uber Eats, DoorDash and flexible delivery or pick-up policies are changing how consumers view their lunch (or snack) options. Lunch formulations are changing because lunch consumers are changing.

Country of origin + region + protein + sweet and spicy dry marinades seems to be a winning formula. Now every night's dinner can taste straight out of a restaurant or cooking show.

New slicers are removing the need for human labor, so long as companies are willing or able to invest in them.

Where's the beef? Today, the better question to ask is what's the beef? Restaurants are marketing the tasty cuts blended together in their burgers and other dishes made of ground meat because it sets them apart.

In food processing plants, food safety garments are worn to protect the wearer and the product itself from cross-contamination. Simple enough. But how successful a plant is in preventing cross-contamination from uniforms is where it gets tricky.

There's nothing fishy about seafood's popularity. Americans are sampling more ethnic seafood dishes, poke, raw fish and snacks, and finding fish to be a versatile partner with street foods and spices.

Clean labels are certainly here to stay, but what replaces the chemicals being erased from marinades? “Everyone is waiting for the miracle molecule that will replace phosphate,” says Terry Houser, Ph.D., associate professor at Kansas State University, in Manhattan, Kan. “But I’m not aware of one so far. Phosphate is a unique application and hard to replace.”