food and beverage

Beer is one of the oldest drinks known to man. Researchers have found evidence of the beverage as far back as the 5th millennium BC, in the regions of Egypt and Mesopotamia. Americans also have a long and storied history with their beers, and it's no surprise many beer breweries are...

Resturants are hard work, for owners, managers and staff. And they can be a risky business, with a failure rate of about 60 percent within the first three years. But there are also eating establishments whose popularity have turned them into major companies and household names, both in the U.S...

Wendy's (NASDAQ: WEN) may describe itself as “the world's third-largest quick-service hamburger company,” but the Dublin, Ohio-based company has been growing and nibbling away at the market share of fast-food giant McDonald's (NYSE: MCD). According to the restaurant industry web site QSR, 2013...

What will 2014 mean for the price of your daily cup (or two) of coffee? If you purchase that morning beverage or afternoon pick-up from your local barista, you probably won't see much of a change. But a continuing oversupply of coffee on a global scale probably means supermarket and wholesale...

Starbucks is everywhere! While that cry became a rampant cliché in American pop culture, and fodder for many a late-night talk show monologue, Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX) often seems to be on virtually every corner of every street in metropolitan America. While exaggerated, that claim...

Last-minute shoppers and diners enjoyed the luxury of some of the nation’s biggest retailers being open on Christmas day. An estimated fifty 50 million Americans took advantage of these openings, giving the already-inflated retail sector a boost. According to SpendingPulse, retail sales from...

Whole Foods Market (NASDAQ: WFM) will reportedly stop selling America's most popular brand of Greek yogurt, Chobani, early next year,  because the yogurt contains genetically modified ingredients. The Wall Street Journal reports Whole Foods is removing Chobani to make room for other brands of...

Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) has filed for a patent application for an ordering and reservation system that could work with various Apple iDevices. According to the Patently Apple web site, the company's patent “generally relates to systems, methods, and non-transitory computer-readable storage media...

Writing in the January 2014 issue of Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine, columnist James Glassman picked Coca-Cola as a favorite for 2014. Although it did not perform as well as other selections for 2013, Glassman described Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO) as, "a classic 'faith-based stock' that is a...

A major consolidation in the food service industry, following word on Monday that Sysco Corp. (NYSE: SYY) would purchase rival US Foods. According to a press statement, Sysco will pay around $3.5 billion in cash and stock for US Foods, and will assume about $4.7 billion of US Foods' debt. The...

In February of this year Landry's, which operates McCormick & Schmicks, Chart House and several other restaurant chains, made an offer of $22 a share for Ark Restaurant Corp. (NASDAQ: ARKR). Ark Restaurants, which owns and operates 19 restaurants and bars, along with 22 fast food concepts...

Every investor is looking for that bullet-proof stock -- the one that holds up  against any and all market and economic conditions while others plunge. As detailed before in a previous article on Benzinga, these equities with low betas have been proven to be high reward investment vehicles over...

It's been a very good year for wine and wine sales. Sales of domestic and foreign wines in the U.S. last year were reportedly up two percent compared to 2011 – to a record 360.1 million cases with an estimated retail value of $34.6 billion. California wines make up nearly 60 percent of overall...

For some time now, fast food stocks havebeen a relatively safe stock bet for investors.  But we've recently seen many of the top fast food brands overhauling their images in a number of ways, not the least of which has been revamping their menus from top to bottom. Some have even taken the...

America's spice industry is nothing to sneeze at. Research and Markets reports the industry's revenue came in at $8.4 billion during 2011, with an estimated gross profit of over 35 percent. So it's serious business when a new FDA report says that 12 percent of spices imported to the U.S. were...