Mutton Cookies and Battenburg Cake

Sautéed eggplant and pasta

Food Diary (October 21, 2011)

Breakfast: Semolina porridge with banana, coconut and sunflower seeds

Lunch: Sautéed eggplant and pasta

Dinner: Polenta

Baking/sweets:

On a regular basis I check to see what search terms brings visitors to my site. Most of the key words are nothing unusual such as 3 ingredient oatmeal cookie, daim cookie and polenta bread. But then every so often unusual items pop up. Today I saw that my site is ranked #1 if you search for “ice fish spread” in google, and it comes in at number 4 if you search for mutton cookies. I have never made or tried mutton cookies. I have posted a recipe for spinach cookies though. Perhaps I need to make meat cookies to reach the number 1 spot!  

Today's Favourite Photo

Source: Sprinkle Bakes

"Batty" Battenburg Cake

Today’s Favourite Blog

Source: Time  and Center for Retail Research

The Centre for Retail Research in Britain does research on shrinkage of food, in other words food disappearing from retailers. According to the survey the causes of shrinkage are: 

- Customer theft, including shoplifting and organized retail crime: 43.2%

- Dishonest employees: 35.0%

- Internal error including mispricing, invoicing errors and administrative failure cost: 16.2%.

Total global shrinkage in 2011 cost retailers $119 billion, an average of 1.45% of global retail sales. India had the highest shrinkage rate of 2.4% followed by Russia at 1.74% and Morocco at 1.72%. The lowest three on the list of countries surveyed were Switzerland (1%), Hong Kong (0.95%) and Taiwan (0.9%)

Cheese is the most popular item with an estimated 3% of the world's cheese disappearing. Other popular items are fresh meat (2.79%), candy, confectionary and chocolates (2.78%), luxury cooked meat (2.74%), alcohol, liquors and whisky (2.47%), high quality seafood/fish (2.46%), infant formula (2.33%) and spices, seasoning and vanilla (2.02%).

I am a bit surprised to see fresh meat in the list since it’s a relatively large item. And no vegetables in the top 6. Some of the vegetables such as garlic and chilli are relatively more expensive. I don't want to give ideas but a couple of bulbs of garlic or few chillis could cost more than a chunk of meat, and its much smaller and easier to conceal. I guess shoplifters don't think, or they would not shoplift if the thought about their action, other than cases of desperation.

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