Category: General News

According to today’s Press Herald, Greg Williams and Brett Richardson have won the 2009 USM Student Business Plan Competition for their Organic Alchemy Composting proposal. Their business plan proposes turning food waste collected from local restaurants into organic compost.
Also, the Food and Health section has a report on the Food+Farm program taking place in early May.

The Portland Phoenix 2009 Reader’s Choice Awards results are now out. There are dozens of food related categories ranging from Bagel to Wine List and everything in between (Bakery, Beer Selection, Barbecue, etc). Portland Food Map won in the Best Food Blog category. Thanks so much to all of you who voted for the site!

There’s an article in today’s Press Herald on the four bills pending in the legislature that are focused on genetically modified crops in Maine.

Nobody knows just how many acres of genetically altered crops are grown every year in Maine.

A bill being proposed by Rep. Benjamin Pratt, D-Eddington, would change that.

“We need to know what we are dealing with,” Pratt said.

A Maine legislative committee has decided against a 10¢ tax on plastic bags at grocery stores. A working group has been set-up to study the issue.

Plastic bags are under assault from environmentalists as an example of waste, and many Mainers are already switching to reusable bags. Opponents argued that the fee would create administrative problems, inconvenience customers and simply increase sales of plastic trash bags.

Dean’s Sweets is running a special promotion. They’re “offering a free truffle to anyone that comes into their store between now and Tax Day”. You just need to mention the Tax Day truffle offer and you can select from one of Dean’s 18 flavors.

The results are in from this year’s Opinionated About Dining Survey. Both Hugo’s and Fore Street scored high enough, 94 and 92 points out of 100, to fall into the Highly Recommended category.

Portland was ranked #1 on Forbes.com’s list of the Most Livable cities in America. The article looked at income growth, cost of living, culture, crime and unemployment gleaned from Moody’s Economy.com, Sperling’s Best Places and the Bureau of Labor Statistics to tabulate the rankings.

The beer at Gritty McDuff’s might be enough to lure people to Portland…Tasty microbrews aren’t the only reason to like Portland. Thanks to high marks in five key quality of life metrics, Portland tops this year’s list of America’s Most Livable Cities.

Avery Yale Kamila at The Maine Switch has researched the drivers behind the increasing prevalence of beer 4-packs.

While I push a cart around the grocery store stocking up on things like organic kale and whole oat groats, my husband spends the bulk of his supermarket time contemplating the contents of the beer cooler. These sessions always end with the selection of new beverages to try and often some interesting observations. For instance, he recently remarked about the growing number of local craft brewers selling beer in four-packs.

Which got me thinking: Why four-packs? And why now? So I went straight to the experts to find out what is behind this growing trend.

The results of the Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram Readers’ Poll are out. Fore Street got the nod for Best Restaurant ahead of DiMillo’s—thankfully Olive Garden didn’t make the cut this year. But national chains McDonalds and Dunkin Donuts beat out local favorites Becky’s and Coffee by Design in the Cheap Eats and Coffee categories. See the article for the full set of results.