Hood Downsizing Organic Dairies

| Posted in Farming

Today’s Press Herald published a pair of articles from the Bangor Daily News on downsizing in the organic dairy business. Hood has decided not to renew contracts with about a third of their organic dairies in Maine and asked the rest to decrease their output.

The farms being dropped by Hood are in Aroostook and Washington counties only, an area courted heavily by Hood just three years ago, when the organic boom was at its peak.

Hood ships Maine’s organic milk to New York to be processed and packaged and then returns it to Maine where it is sold as Stonyfield Farm Organic Milk.

This Week’s Events

| Posted in Events

RestaurantWeekME is in full swing this week. In addition to the prix fixe menus as 30+ Portland restaurants there are also special events on the schedule for RestaurantWeekME on Tuesday and Thursday. Also of special note this week are the Whole Hog Dinner taking place at Vignola on Thursday, the 2nd Annual Eco Appetito at Cinque Terre on Sunday afternoon and the first showing of the Food Film Series Sunday evening.  The biweekly Winter Farmers’ Market is scheduled for Wednesday. Piatto per Tutti is holding a cooking class on Monday and Black Tie Bistro is holding one on Wednesday. The Maine Food & Drink Institute’s cheese class starts Tueday night. Both the West End Grocery and Leroux Kitchen are holding wine tastings this week. If that all wasn’t enough to keep you busy this week, First Friday Art Walk is also taking place this week. For more information on these and other upcoming food happenings in the area, visit the event calendar.

Loco Pollo Review

| Posted in Reviews

Loco Pollo received 3 stars from this week’s Taste & Tell column in today’s Maine Sunday Telegram.

The arrival of a new menu in town is always something to be celebrated, and at Loco Pollo, the flavors of the Yucutan presented in soups and tamales are very good indeed – even if you might wish for a little more of them.

Price Fixing?

| Posted in Fisheries

An article in the latest issue of Working Waterfront reports on the belief by some that the recent fluctuations in lobster price are the result of price fixing.

Some fishermen think dealers and poundkeepers cheat them and have “since time immemorial,” to quote one, as a matter of course, and nothing will disabuse them of this notion. But fishermen and dealers from both sides of the border, this time, were sure someone-and by that they meant one of the big dealers or perhaps one of the big Canadian processors-must have been manipulating the price. There could be no other reason for the price to jump so high so fast.

Freaky Beans Closes 2 Locations (updated)

| Posted in Closings

According to the Westbrook Diarist, two of Freaky Bean’s locations have closed. Both the store in the Cabela’s mall, and the store on Main Street in Westbrook (which houses their roasting operation) were closed “due to ‘unforeseen circumstances'”. This comes just a few months after Maine Roasters Coffee demerged from Freaky Bean and resumed operation as a separate business.
The Bollard has also published a report on the closings at Freaky Bean and confirms that the location in South Portland and Scarborough are still open.