Newsletter August 2023

It's newsletter time!

One quick read - everybody knows the rules!

It’s time to call us out, yes you too!

I know, I know – we suppose to be positive and encouraging at all times. Positive vibes, law of attraction bla bla and more bla bla bla. It’s cool if you can be that positive fountain of youth, seeing everything through a pink lens with a half glass full kind of mentality - everything is colorful, bright and perfect. Personally, myself I cannot, I’m sorry. It’s time to call out things – connected to the culinary world, that are just simply put – fucked and wrong (pardon my language). So, what am I so upset about here? Let me explain.

A topic that has many layers and concerns all of us but let’s begin here - Food Fraud! What’s the definition of ‘food fraud’ exactly? Food fraud is a collective term used to encompass the deliberate and intentional substitution, addition, tampering, or misrepresentation of food, food ingredients, or food packaging; or false or misleading statements made about a product for economic gain. So in simple words, you can’t just lie to people by falsely advertise or deceive costumers about what their about to buy and eat.

It is wild and concerning how many brands, restaurants, chefs are blatantly getting away with fraud and actually betray their customers in order to secure their profits into their pockets. Is there any moral ground here, do people have a true conscious, do people really care about others or is it just about the bottom line - money, greed, clicks and likes?

On the other side of the spectrum, the reason why it keeps happening is because it works! Isn't it worrying how the average consumer is not aware enough to actually notice, the lack of push back or boycott and how we got to this state of consumerist behavior. Within the digital world we are living now, everything centers around advertising, everywhere you go, whatever you do, you get ads thrown down your throat and you can't escape them. Same goes for the big food chains - from Burger King, KFC, Mc'Donalds and others, we have all fallen victim to their advertisements which resulted in us purchasing a newly launched menu item, that frankly didn't look anything like promoted.

It is a one to one reflection of our current society in 2023, how people move and carry themselves, just look at their social media accounts and then meet them in real life - it ain't that glamorous nor pretty as they make it look like!

I'll give the fast food chains a slight pass on this matter, as this has been known now for decades and we should truly be aware of it, as well of the nutritional drawback you can get from consuming fast food. We know, we should stay away from it, no matter if the french fries look like advertised or not. Still, should they be more transparent with what they advertise? Yes of course they should, but consumers shouldn't be surprised at this point anymore if they get bamboozled. So this doesn't bother me as much as when things get labeled 'FRESH' , 'HOMEMADE', 'ORGANIC' and its not.

Generally speaking, most people would be shocked if they knew how much food they've been served in a restaurant that actually comes directly from the freezer. I've been to plenty of places where I've seen what's going on behind the scenes, especially at big name hotels. One in particular that comes to mind in Phuket, located directly at sea, still they would freeze local seafood instead of getting it fresh daily but of course promote it as FRESH. Thaw it up in minutes and cook it up. Disgusting, and that was a 5 star resort!

Another term that is widely used to attract costumers is 'Homemade' but in truth, nothing is homemade at all. Consumers are just not sophisticated enough in taste to know it. To be frank, I don't know what's more sad about this statement. There's a place for frozen food - definitely not my first choice but there's a place for it, just not in restaurants where they charge you decent prices and take a huge piss out of your stupidity because you're paying for it.

Speaking of paying, consumers these days are willing to spend more if they can have organic food options. Unfortunately, the evil of humans leaks out here as well, as many claim to be serving organic to charge extra but it's not. It is indeed extremely difficult to prove or verify claims such as organic, sustainably grown, no waste, slavery-free, no deforestation etc. Even the highest standards of traceability cannot guarantee that the products fulfill such requirements and no substitution, adulteration or mislabeling took place.

Studies have shown that up to 65% of consumers are happy to spend more for environmentally friendly products. But what is truly sustainable and what are blatant marketing stunts? Is it really sustainable to grow food the way we widely grow it? Or is it just a tool you are using to attract more people to your establishments, products or services in order to make more profits? Are you really having no waste in your restaurant or are you just using this for your customer acquisition purposes and to think you have an 'edge' over others?

Last but not least are the chefs who take advantage of their clientele by mislabeling, substituting ingredients and lie about what they are serving. A private chef in Koh Samui comes to mind who I had the displeasure working with, he would print 'Wagyu' on the menu, but you can guess it, it wasn't. Real classy, old-timer! Which reminds me of my time in Switzerland where food fraud often occurred in the supermarkets, when they sold us Beef that was actually horse-meat. An other case that made the news and drew quite some media attention was when we were made to believe, we're eating local chickens and support our local farmers. Instead the birds came from Hungary, which are a fraction of the price of chickens that are locally raised.

Who's to blame in all of this? Everybody! I takes everybody for this to become so widely spread. From supplier, restaurant or service provider and end-consumer. Restaurants have to rethink their food calculations and pricing, if they need to refer to dirty tricks like this to run sustainable businesses, something is wrong and you might be in the wrong industry.

I blame all the so called influencers and social media addicts who have to hype up everything, therefore it's difficult to distinguish between mediocrity and true gems with great quality food. To them everything is great, how could it be different when they get sponsored or invited for free. I blame social media for the out of control media it has become. The lack of fact checking and transparency, anyone can claim, sell whatever they want on these platforms without getting checked, pushed back or straighten out.

I blame myself, you and everyone else for allowing it to flourish, in the way these scams and frauds have flourished. I blame society to pressure businesses to go greener, but they themselves drive their cars to work everyday, go on overseas holidays multiple times a year and mine their crypto currencies. It's all hypercritical and there is no easy or simple answer in sight, unfortunately. As people get less informed, less intelligent, have less of an attention span - they get more and more addicted to their screens and are not aware what's happening in real life - things will keep heading south and become more divided the longer we go on, on this way we've been on.

What's up August?

Join us for an ultimate 'Ganjalicious' casual fine dining dinner at High Society, courtesy of Empty Plates Bangkok.

Picture this: Fine dining 5-course tasting menu, with options for regular or high infusion (if you catch our drift ), happening on Saturday August 5th.

We've got the perfect combo of premium flowers and refreshing drinks to keep the good vibes flowing! Seats are exclusively limited, so you gotta reserve ahead to secure your spot. So don't wait any longer and reserve your table now!

Phrom Phong - Sukhumvit 31

10:00 AM to 1:00 AM

+66 80-006-3496

Or email us: bookings@emptyplatesbangkok.com

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