From Across the Pond

From time to time I like to check in with my people from across the pond – it’s a relationship with the motherland that I like to keep at a distance, 3k miles to be exact. My point is, there can be, on occasion, the odd little tidbit of news that I take away with so much pride that it makes me so happy to be British. Let me tell you about a few of these food-related anecdotes that I think you might find interesting.

The first piece of this craziness is known as hobnobbing with the Hob Nobs… Keep with me. The Holiday Inn hotel chain in the UK carried out a “quiz” to 1,000 businesses re: biscuits. The results:

About four out of five UK businesses believe the type of biscuit they serve to potential clients could clinch the deal or make it crumble.

For Anglo-American clarification, biscuits in the UK are the equivalent of what you Americans call cookies, generally. I love this:

The chocolate digestive was deemed to make the best impression followed by shortbread and Hob Nobs.

My personal favourites are the Chocolate Hob Nobs, but it just baffles me that this could even be an issue in the boardroom. What do you think, would you be impressed enough with a particular snack in a meeting for it to be a make or break deal?

Read more of my homeland madness after the jump, and drop your thoughts in the comments.

It turns out there is a market research firm back home that is curious about the food we eat and don’t eat over lunch. It seems that oranges are off the lunch plate. Apparently people are so time-conscious that they have replaced oranges with satsumas and tangerines, citing ease of peeling:

Both are easier to carry in lunch boxes, quicker to peel and less messy to eat.

Are we really a generation that is this lazy, or lacks the time in the day? I’ve never had a problem spending a few moments at my desk peeling a piece of fruit, heck, my lunches usually take two hours as it is. Jealous? You should be. Do you sacrifice certain foods at lunch in order to save time?

The Motherland is a wasteful nation – this is something I’ve always known, but they have really gone to pot since I left five years ago. I came across this interesting article from the beeb which claims that the UK disposes of 1 million yogurt cartons daily, WTF. 1 million. That is a ridiculous number. The research suggests that this is $338 million per year. Reasons given for the phenomenon are:

Whether it’s an image thing too… But certainly the people buying these tend to have much more disposable income.

People are buying packs of six and eating one every other day, but the shelf life of the whole pack even when they bought it wasn’t enough to cover those 12 days.

I’m sorry, but yogurt is not a luxury item. This is just plain consumerism at its worse. For this, I apologise on behalf of my people.