The recalled “Quenby Hall Blue Stilton Cheese” was distributed nationwide in retail stores.

The product comes in bulk (Round Half 8.5-9.6 lbs) and random weight wedge cuts (UPC 0813555010000 – label states “Imported by: ANCO Fine Cheese) and the affected lots are 019 through 034. Additionally, the affected lots are marked with expiration date of 6/15/2011 through 6/29/2011. The product could be cut at retail from the bulk or purchased and sold as pre-cut wedges.

No illnesses have been reported to date in connection with this problem.

Read official press release here.

In a bid to expand its e-commerce empire, the Gilt Groupe has raised $138 million in its latest financing round. Best known for its limited sales of women’s and men’s apparel, the Manhattan-based company has raised capital from several new investors, including Goldman Sachs, the media conglomerate Softbank Group, New Enterprise Associates and Draper Fisher Jurvetson Growth. Two previous investors, General Atlantic and Matrix Partners, also participated in the round, which values the company at about $1 billion.

Read whole article by clicking here.

Today May 17th, 2011, Florence Fabricant of NY Times reports Gilt Groupe has launched Gilt Taste. Article snippet:

Along with selling high-end clothing and luxury travel online, the Gilt Groupe has started Gilt Taste, offering artisanal hard-to-find foods. Some are exclusive and some have been sold only to chefs. Ruth Reichl, the former editor of Gourmet magazine and former restaurant critic of The New York Times, is its editorial adviser, curating the selections, as well as editing essays, articles and recipes that will be included.

Read whole article by clicking here.

Looks like the cheese is curated by Murrays Cheese Shop.

Can a company that got it start selling clothes make the jump into Specialty Food and succeed?

Cheese Monger Invitational 2011 from CamLin Productions on Vimeo.

The Cheesemonger Invitational is the ultimate party for cheese lovers and the lovers of cheese. It is an all you can eat affair where Chef Fromager Tia Keenan will dare to create a unique, mind blowing, cheese-based smorgasbord of food unlike anything we have seen or tasted before. Come hungry because it is all you can eat.

The main event of the evening is Cheese-O-Mania. Some of the best cheese shops in the Milky Way will be endorsing their finest monger to compete in a no-holds barred cheese battle extravaganza. That’s right a cheese battle extravaganza. Forty mongers will begin. Only one monger can win. It is like the Olympics meets Fight Club for CHEESE.

There are 4 rounds of competition: 1) tasting 2) cutting & wrapping 3) plating and 4) pairing cheese. The top ten mongers will split a prize purse valued at $10,000. We believe in supporting cheesemongers and the cheese shops that promote them. That is why 5 percent of the event’s profit will also be donated to the ACS Fromager Certification program.

Ultimately, we will be celebrating coddled curd by dancing the night away with a belly fully of cheese, surrounded by lovers of cheese with music provided by deejay’s whose day job is cheese. It is going to be cheesey. Libations provided by Six Point Craft Ales.
MUST BE 21 YEARS OF AGE TO ATTEND EVENT.

Click here for more info.

Read full press release by clicking here.

The NY times wrote a good piece on Inflation and they said:

Consumers continued to feel the pinch at grocery stores and gasoline stations in April as higher prices pushed up a widely used index of inflation at the fastest 12-month pace since the later part of 2008, according to government figures released on Friday. The Labor Department said in its monthly report that the Consumer Price Index, the most widely used measure of inflation, was up 0.4 percent in April from March, and up 3.2 percent from a year earlier. The 12-month figure represents the biggest jump in the index in any 12-month period since October 2008. Analysts had forecast the same monthly rise but a slightly smaller increase for the year, at 3.1 percent.

Food and gasoline price rises accounted for most of the increases, with gasoline accounting for almost half of the month-to-month rise. Food prices were up 0.4 percent in April, smaller than the 0.8 percent rise in March as prices for fresh vegetables slowed their advance. Energy prices rose 2.2 percent in April, the 10th consecutive monthly increase, although it was smaller than the jumps of 3.5 percent in March and 3.4 percent in February, the report said. Gasoline prices were up 3.3 percent in April. According to the report, energy prices have now risen 19 percent over the last 12 months, with gasoline prices up 33.1 percent.

Consumers are “painfully aware” that if high energy and food costs continue, “the cost of living is going to go up,” said Stuart Hoffman, the chief economist at PNC Financial Services Group.

Read more of the NY Times article by clicking here.

But if banks aren’t your thing, credit is an issue or you want to try something unique…

Just read an interesting article on crowd funding and peer-to-peer lending.

Big thoughts:

CASH WITHOUT BANKS

Peer-to-peer sites connect individual borrowers with lenders and take a fee for the service. Lending Club, for instance, takes a 2% to 5% cut for “providing the services of screening borrowers and issuing the loans.”

Crowdfunding sites usually pool a large number of small loans or donations. The sites vary, but one of the most known, Kickstarter.com, posts details on creative projects that range from producing a movie to opening a vegan restaurant.

UNCONVENTIONAL POPULARITY

During tough economic times, cash-strapped entrepreneurs were willing to experiment with unconventional financing, he says. They sought out microloan providers, business plan competitions and crowdfunding sites.

WEB MAKES IT POSSIBLE

Lenders have gotten comfortable with using Amazon Payments, PayPal and other accounts to transfer money online. And, as overall use of the Web rises, so does the ability for entrepreneurs to plead their case to potential backers.

There’s also the convenience that goes into online borrowing: Small-business owners don’t have to go to a bank for a loan. They can put out feelers from the comfort of their homes.

BE CAREFUL

The plethora of financing options means more fundraising opportunities. But it also brings about a larger chance of getting burned by high interest rates, hidden service fees and other unexpected costs.

Borrowers should also keep an eye out for scam artists.

Be wary of unsolicited loan offers that come via the phone or e-mail, small-business experts say. Borrowers should also review any potential lender’s references, and be sure to get details on who the money was raised for, and at what terms.

Read the whole article by clicking here.

My favorite part:

In EU terms, seldom have so many multi-billion-euro decisions been taken in so short a time under such pressure.

Getting the 17 countries that share the euro, and the broader EU, to agree emergency loans for Greece, Ireland and Portugal, as well as to organize a 440 billion euro temporary bailout mechanism and a 500 billion permanent one, all in the space of a year, is unprecedented in both speed and scope.

Despite all that effort — involving countless late-night euro zone summits, the expending of political capital and the striking of last-minute deals to satisfy one constituency or another — the crisis shows no signs of slackening.

“From the start they have misdiagnosed the problem — they haven’t come clean about what the problem is and hence the medicine is all wrong,” said Simon Tilford, chief economist of the Center for European Reform in London.

Read the whole article here.

I am eager to see how this affects the dollar.

The first rule strengthens FDA’s ability to prevent potentially unsafe food from entering commerce. It allows the FDA to administratively detain food the agency believes has been produced under insanitary or unsafe conditions. Previously, the FDA’s ability to detain food products applied only when the agency had credible evidence that a food product presented was contaminated or mislabeled in a way that presented a threat of serious adverse health consequences or death to humans or animals.

The second rule requires anyone importing food into the United States to inform the FDA if any country has refused entry to the same product, including food for animals. This new requirement will provide the agency with more information about foods that are being imported, which improves the FDA’s ability to target foods that may pose a significant risk to public health. This new reporting requirement will be administered through the FDA’s prior notice system for incoming shipments of imported food established under the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002.

Read FDA’s full press release regarding these new rules by clicking here.