100-Mile Local Food-Sourcing? Think Again

(5/18/2016) Are you willing to pay more in restaurant for local food sourcing, organic food, or non-GMO ingredient? If so, this article (Farm to Fable-- At Tampa Bay farm-to-table restaurants, you’re being fed fiction) will interest you and make you rethink again. It is an example of investigative journalism, which is very rare in modern days.

Many high-end restaurants claim their ingredients are from local farmers (and they normally charge a premium on that): the pork is from Farmer A, organic salad green is from Farmer B. There are several operational constraints that are too tough to pass.

First, many local farmers are small in scale and cannot afford to hire a professional account manager to handle all restaurants that 'claim' to be their clients. Most of these farmers have their produces handled by one or several distributors. They don't deal with so many restaurants directly.

Second,  if a restaurant claims the ingredients are from more than several dozen's suppliers, the complexity of inbound logistic, paperwork, and account management is way too much for a stand-alone restaurant to handle.

Third, if the restaurant claims ingredients are shipped 'directly' from suppliers, the transportation cost is also very expensive. Food ingredients have to be fresh, so let's assume there are two delivery shipments every week. So how many pounds of pork could a restaurant buy every time? 200 pounds? This volume will be shipped at high cost because the volume is too small. So who is paying the premium in logistics?

Source: http://www.tampabay.com/projects/2016/food/farm-to-fable/restaurants/

Why A Vacation Home Town Doesn't Want to Be A Vacation Hometown?

(04/09/2016) It is a new about a seaside town in Cornwall is taking on the out-of-towners (those who buy vacation homes there)?
"On May 5th, when the town votes in a referendum on a number of local issues, tucked into the ballot will be a particularly controversial question: whether to make it a legal requirement that all new housing in the area must be for principal residences only. The town expects over 1,000 new homes to be built before 2030. If the measure passes, outsiders will still be able to buy existing properties as second homes, but not new ones."

Why a vacation home town is not good for the vacation home town? I visited a vacation Mecca of New England -- Provincetown, MA several times in the past 7 years. This is what I heard from people living there about the struggle of a vacation home town.
1. Housing prices skyrocketed, natives of the town cannot afford living there anymore.
2. Increase infrastructure spending for the local government, maintaining them is not cheap. Increased property tax does not offset this new spending.
3. Increase peak- and off-season, testing the livelihood of people supporting the town's economy. If you are a plumber, you will be very busy in the peak season, but not many jobs in the off season. How do you hire workers (they will be temporary migrants too because you don't need them in the off-season).
4. Increased rent, make local businesses less sustainable. With demand fluctuation of peak- and off seasons becomes more challenging to maintain business.

I do like the idea of this town -- Cornwall. Making people who buys the home there staying there, keep local economy going healthily all year around.

Provincetown, MA

Warka Water -- Innovative Future Water Solution

(4/4/2016) Some may be aware that water will be a scarce resource on earth. For some countries (like Ethiopia) in Africa, scarce water has been a reality for centuries. Inspired by Warka tree in Ethiopia, designer Arturo Vittori comes up with a solution -- WarkaWater Tower: "a semi-rigid exoskeleton built by tying stalks of juncus or bamboo together and an internal plastic mesh, reminiscent of the bags oranges come in. The nylon and polypropylene fibers act as a scaffold for condensation, and as the droplets of dew form, they follow the mesh into a basin at the base of the structure"

Tesla Model 3 - A Game Changer for Tesla

(04/02/2016)Looking their pre-order volume, Model 3 will be a game changer for Tesla by achieving economy of scale and cut production cost. In just two days, the pre-order volume has reached 180,000 cars, which is almost 40% of Tesla's new annual production capacity. This analysis says: "With an average selling price of $42,000, that equates to around $7.5 billion."

Elon Musk is not a great speaker like Steve Jobs, but I like him way more. He is the one who takes Jobs' podium now.

 

Smartphone's Design Fatigue

(03/22/2016) In less than 10 years after Apple's first iPhone launched in 2007, Apple's new iPhone SE goes from bigger to smaller. It is a 4-inch smartphone, like iPhone 4s, accompanies with some updated features that iPhone 6s has. Exciting? Probably not for even loyal Apple fans. There are several other signs showing that the steam of smartphone is losing strength. For example, iPhone 6s sales dropped lower than iPhone 6; the sale of Samsung's Galaxy 6 was also bad in 2015, which makes Samsung to boost its Galaxy 7 with either free Gear S2 Smartwatch Or free Gear VR Headset.

I have not updated my smartphone for more than two years. Other than terrible battery life, I feel no need to upgrade. Smartphone makers may really bump into the first growth bottleneck of smartphone.

Selfie for Mobile Payment Confirmation?

(3/15/2016) Do you like to take selfie photos? If so, do you like to send it to your credit card company? MasterCard will launch a new technology for mobile payment confirmation. If you pay plastic surgery with your cell phone, the credit card company maybe able to tell you whether your $$$ is well spent.

Smile!

Replenish -- Green packaging

(3/11/2016) Shipping and logistics cost can sometimes be 20% or more on the total product final cost. For some product, water is also the heaviest element inside the product. Think of the coke, beer, tea, detergent .... Since the weight mostly determines the shipping cost, if we can reduce water then we can save some shipping cost. Now Replenish wants to change the packaging to this (see below), consumer just need to add right amount of water back to the product. Will business adapt it? Will consumers buy it?

Some may wonder, why should they still include the big container? Why don't they just sell refill packages? Well there are several reasons. First, the big container shows the exact portion of water (especially for those product that chemical mix has to be exact). Even if the product is not dangerous if the chemical mix is wrong, consumers often fail to follow instruction correctly. See the concentrated detergent example in the US (that's why eventually P&G designs Tide Pods). Second, small refill package looks less valuable and easy for stealth.

I guess is, "It's a good idea. But it will only be in a niche market for specific products." I don't expect that I will be able to buy Arizona Greentea concentrate and add water on my own.

Prototype of Replenish packing.