🐤 Meat in the middle

Markets: Wall Street closed on a high note yesterday, with all three major indexes posting gains for the day and the week. But the big news came out of the cryptocurrency market, where investors were eagerly awaiting Bitcoin’s move past the $100,000 threshold. It hadn’t happened as of Friday afternoon, but it came closer than ever before.

Out of left field: Hurricane Milton left Tropicana Field, home of the Tampa Bay Rays, severely damaged. And while the city council of St. Petersburg, Florida, originally approved nearly $24 million to cover the extensive necessary repairs, local leaders called for a second vote that shot down the funding. That decision came on the heels of a council decision to delay a proposal to fund a new ballpark for the Rays. As for the MLB team, it plans to play next season at Steinbrenner Field, a spring training ballpark in Tampa, while repairs are completed.

Staying up late: Travis Kelce might have received most of the attention due to back-to-back Super Bowl wins and a high-profile relationship with Taylor Swift. But his brother Jason has a pretty impressive NFL career too — and now he’s got a new gig to promote. The elder Kelce is taking a stab at hosting his own late-night talk show, which is set to debut on ESPN early next year. Five hour-long episodes of “They Call It Late Night” (a play on the 1967 film “They Call It Pro Football”) will be recorded in front of live audiences and feature an assortment of guests.

Breathing easier: Well over a decade after she was first diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, 57-year-old Cheryl Mehrkar received a new lease on life thanks to some very precise robots. She became the first person to successfully receive a double lung transplant via a fully robotic surgery. Of course, a very talented human, Dr. Stephanie Chang, was controlling the robot, Da Vinci Xi, over the course of the marathon seven-hour procedure. The use of robots meant the transplant required smaller cuts and less downtime for Mehrkar.

Stacking the deck: The good news for consumers came when the Federal Reserve finally cut sky-high interest rates earlier this year. But the bad news is that retailers far and wide had been anticipating that move and were taking steps to ensure they still got as much interest as possible. Macy’s, Gap, and Big Lots, and many other stores were found to have increased the annual percentage rates of their respective branded credit cards. Many reached the highest rates on record and, on average, the APR on these store-branded accounts rose by 1.5 points.

Chances are you know a vegan and probably a vegetarian or two. And you likely also know a few folks who consider bacon a garnish. But a closer look at some relevant data reveals a national divide that goes much deeper than whether you choose to eat meat or not.

A look at the facts

Let’s start by stating the obvious: Most Americans eat meat and animal products … a lot of it.

Per year, the ordinary adult in the U.S. eats:

• 224 pounds of meat
• 280 eggs
• 667 pounds of dairy

So it’s clear that vegans and vegetarians are in the minority, but they do represent as much as 6% of the population. Of course, that’s based on self-reported labels and many who identified as vegetarian also acknowledged that they sometimes eat meat.

As for their motivation, most people who avoid animal products cite environmental and/or animal welfare concerns.

And the chasm widens

There’s a notable dichotomy that emerges when you take a look at two recent trends. On one hand, households that reported abstaining from meat increased from 4.1% to 4.6% between 2005 and 2020. Meanwhile, meat purchases by weight have continued to increase.

This suggests either that there are slightly fewer meat-eaters who are now eating even more meat or many of those self-identified meat-avoiders weren’t being honest.

The share of the U.S. population that abstains from all animal products — milk, eggs, etc. — has also increased, but only to the rate of 1 in 100.

Older people are also statistically more likely to consume meat, which at least partially accounts for the rise in Americans who avoid meat. Those born after 1980 are 50% more likely to avoid meat (and twice as likely to avoid animal products) than their older counterparts.

It’s a fact of life, and with the holiday season approaching let’s just get it out in the open. Some people simply suck at giving gifts. But before you write it off as simply an inability to pick out the right item, experts say there might be more going on than meets the eye.

A universal problem

Researchers found that well over 1 in 4 Americans returned or exchanged gifts during 2023. If you were one of them, let’s take a closer look at some of the reasons you might have received that bad gift in the first place:

• Making a spectacle: Some people tend to make gift-giving a show (often with themselves as the protagonist) and disregard what the recipient might really want.
• Trying too hard: This good-intentioned (but still frustrating) reason involves a person sincerely attempting to buy something that interests the recipient but not knowing that individual well enough to get it right.
• Insult to injury: The most sinister motivation occurs when someone tries to make a statement, often via self-aggrandizement or passive-aggression, with a gift.

But no matter what the reason, you’ve still got a gift on your hands that you don’t want.

And here’s what to do

Start by expressing gratitude for the gift — and please, try to make it sound sincere. From there, you can give some items away as gifts to someone else or donate them to a charitable organization.

If you’re one of those notoriously bad gift-givers, there is hope. It really is the thought that counts, so try to be as considerate as possible. And generally speaking, a gift you give for no particular reason often lands better than one seen as an obligation.

If all else fails, there’s nothing wrong with asking people what they want.

Scientists say scents play a major role in forming memories and evoking emotions, so it’s no wonder that hotels are interested in presenting a unique and inviting aroma. Maybe you haven’t paid much attention, but hotels and a number of other hospitality-based businesses are spending big bucks to smell better than the competition.

It’s an entire industry

The marketing world has long been segmented into different specializations, but one that you might not be too familiar with is “scent marketing.” At its root, this field is concerned with using scents to accomplish several goals:

• Increasing brand equity
• Enhancing customer experience
• Improving moods

While you’ll find the results of scent marketing in a host of commercial spaces, it might be most prominent in hotels. After all, these are places where customers are intended to live for days at a time, so providing a constant — and consistent — fragrance is key.

Developing a scent identity

There are several crucial factors at play when it comes to deciding on a trademark aroma. In the case of hotel rooms, there’s scientific evidence suggesting that the scent of lavender boosted happiness. Some hotels choose scents associated with their theme or image, such as a coconut-scented aroma wafting through a Hawaiian-inspired lobby.

Of course, it’s easy to find evidence of scent marketing just about anywhere you go. Starbucks, for example, has long prioritized the aroma of its roasted beans to boost customer loyalty and brand identity.

While that strategy clearly paid off for Starbucks, other businesses have tried it with less success. A number of scent marketing failures have either been displeasing to a wide number of customers or even been blamed for causing headaches.

But those who like the idea have fueled a new industry promising resort-inspired scents in the privacy of your own home.

Do you know what the dentist of the year receives?

A little plaque.