Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Opinion podcast count Us Saturdays
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Speaker 2: Welcome to Bloomberg Opinion. I'm Maybe Morris. This week we
Speaker 2: look at the potential of making birth control pills available
Speaker 2: without a prescription, the future of ghost kitchens might just disappear.
Speaker 2: And we'll look at conservation, climate change and how communities
Speaker 2: are finding solutions. We begin, though, with political strategies. I'm
Speaker 2: Rondy Santis, and I'm running for president to lead our
Speaker 2: great American comeback. Florida Governor Ronda Santis has officially announced
Speaker 2: his candidacy for president, but we are going to look
Speaker 2: not on a national scale, but at a more local level.
Speaker 2: Because even in Florida, where the governor has announced his
Speaker 2: Republican run for the White House against GOP favorite Donald Trump,
Speaker 2: Republicans lost the mayoral race in Jacksonville in northern Florida.
Speaker 2: The GOP also lost the mayoral race in Colorado Springs,
Speaker 2: another traditional Republican stronghold. So now only two out of
Speaker 2: thirty two of the largest US cities will have Republican mayors.
Speaker 2: Have Republicans just given up on local politics in favor
Speaker 2: of the national stage. Bloomberg opinion columnist Jonathan Bernstein covers
Speaker 2: politics and policy, and he joins me, Now, Jonathan, what
Speaker 2: was your first thought when you saw that Republicans lost
Speaker 2: the mayoral races in Colorado and in Florida, areas that
Speaker 2: are traditionally pretty deep red.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, it's sort of there's a couple things
Speaker 3: you can say. One of them, which is just a
Speaker 3: sort of right now, is that despite Joe Biden's low
Speaker 3: approval ratings, Democrats are doing very well in elections and
Speaker 3: that's sort of continuing into special elections and these off
Speaker 3: year elections this year. But there's also a longer term
Speaker 3: story about this, which has to do with that Republicans
Speaker 3: have given up on being competitive in cities, and they've
Speaker 3: gone up on caring about cities and the people and
Speaker 3: issues and interests that are urban. And it's it's sort
Speaker 3: of astonishing that Republicans now, after losing these two only
Speaker 3: two of the large two of the thirty two largest
Speaker 3: United States cities, only fourteen of the seventy largest will
Speaker 3: have Republican mayors.
Speaker 2: That is astonishing those numbers in particular. Now, is it
Speaker 2: because urban areas simply aren't as important to the national
Speaker 2: political conversation anymore?
Speaker 3: Exactly? You know, there's a lot of stories about how
Speaker 3: Republicans used you know, the thing about this that people
Speaker 3: might not know is that if you go back to
Speaker 3: the middle of the twentieth century, there were a lot
Speaker 3: of Republican cities. Los Angeles was a Republican city, Detroit
Speaker 3: was a Republican city, you know, in the nineteen four
Speaker 3: in nineteen fifties. There's a complex, complicated story of how
Speaker 3: Democrats took the lead in cities. But there's also a
Speaker 3: institutional and rules based reason why Republicans felt have been
Speaker 3: willing to just give up on this, and it has
Speaker 3: to do with the electoral college. At one point in
Speaker 3: the middle of the twentieth century, the big cities were
Speaker 3: crucial to the electoral college, and states such as New
Speaker 3: York and Illinois were big swing states and so you
Speaker 3: had to compete there. That's changed a lot over the years,
Speaker 3: and now in the last election, only two top ten
Speaker 3: cities were in swing states, only Philadelphia and Phoenix. So
Speaker 3: you can sort of not compete in the cities and
Speaker 3: still be competitive for presidential elections.
Speaker 2: Republicans are doing this, though, but not Democrats. Can Republicans
Speaker 2: afford to ignorge cities where Democrats are focusing.
Speaker 3: At some point there may be some tipic point where
Speaker 3: it actually costs them. But so that For example, in Texas,
Speaker 3: where Republicans used to hold or be competitive for mayor
Speaker 3: seats in the big cities, now all the big cities
Speaker 3: have Democratic mayors. That's part of why Texas could eventually
Speaker 3: become a much more competitive state. Because Republicans don't have
Speaker 3: anything to say to people who live in cities. They
Speaker 3: don't have any policies, they don't have anything really that
Speaker 3: you know, Republicans increasingly caring about rural areas, which are
Speaker 3: over emphasized in presidential elections and are really over emphasized,
Speaker 3: over rewarded in US Senate elections, just don't have, you know,
Speaker 3: is there an urban policy that Republicans have not? Really?
Speaker 2: Now, let's talk little bit more about the electoral college,
Speaker 2: because I grew up a political junkie, and that was
Speaker 2: where you won the delegates. That's where you won the
Speaker 2: electoral colleges in the cities that's how it used to work.
Speaker 2: What is the X factor? What changed?
Speaker 3: You know, a lot of it. There's a whole bunch
Speaker 3: of different pieces to it. One is that there are
Speaker 3: just are fewer swing states than there used to be.
Speaker 3: And as far as I know, and some political scientists
Speaker 3: have look at this, and I don't think they've ever
Speaker 3: concluded anything except that it's sort of coincidence. It just
Speaker 3: happens that there was a period of time where a
Speaker 3: whole bunch of states were very closely contested and now
Speaker 3: less so. And there were times in the past, you know,
Speaker 3: we had a period of time where the entire South
Speaker 3: was not competitive in presidential elections. So if you go
Speaker 3: back sort of one hundred and fifty years, there were
Speaker 3: very few states there were competitive, and then the course
Speaker 3: of the twentieth century we wound up having a whole
Speaker 3: bunch of competitive states, including a whole bunch of big
Speaker 3: competitive states. And the electoral college tends to reward states
Speaker 3: in numbers. Let me sort of go back in basic numbers.
Speaker 3: People will say, well, the electoral college rewards small states
Speaker 3: because the formula for the electoral college is the number
Speaker 3: of House seats and the number of Senate seats you have,
Speaker 3: so that you know, if you have ten House districts,
Speaker 3: you get twelve electoral votes for your ten House seats
Speaker 3: plus two senators. And because the Senate is each state
Speaker 3: has the same weight, so the Wyoming has the same
Speaker 3: two senators that California has, that over rewards Wyoming. But
Speaker 3: in fact, you notice very very few presidential candidates campaigning
Speaker 3: in Wyoming because it has three electoral votes and who cares.
Speaker 3: And even a fairly close electoral college state like say
Speaker 3: New Hampshire or Maine, that's a small state, you don't
Speaker 3: get a whole lot of attention from presidential candidates because
Speaker 3: the states that really are advantaged by their ears through
Speaker 3: college are big, close states. So you know, Florida and
Speaker 3: Ohio in relatively recent elections got a huge amount of attention.
Speaker 3: Now that those are a little less competitive, you know, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, Minnesota,
Speaker 3: all pretty big states are the ones that get the attention.
Speaker 3: But it happens that, you know, with the exception of Philadelphia,
Speaker 3: most of those don't have big cities in them, and
Speaker 3: that seems to be sort of just coincidence of how
Speaker 3: the votes happen to stack up. It's not like by
Speaker 3: design or you know, a deliberate attempt by anybody to
Speaker 3: make it turn out that way, But it just happens
Speaker 3: that we don't have a whole lot of big cities
Speaker 3: in the competitive states.
Speaker 2: I'm curious about the concept of tribalism entrenched electorate. You know,
Speaker 2: if people are on a side, that is the side
Speaker 2: they are on, you are not going to change their mind.
Speaker 2: Is this a factor to some.
Speaker 3: Extent, Yes, we have. We do have more partisan voting
Speaker 3: these days than there was fifty sixty years ago, and
Speaker 3: so it means that, you know, if you have a
Speaker 3: group that's votes strongly for one party, it doesn't really
Speaker 3: pay the other party to bother with that group because
Speaker 3: they're so strongly entrance. That's always sort of been part
Speaker 3: of how politics works anyway. It's a little stronger now,
Speaker 3: so there's less split ticket voting. Part of what happened
Speaker 3: in these cities recently and the mayor elections could be
Speaker 3: a reaction to national trends. Whereas at one point, you know,
Speaker 3: people who are upset with Donald Trump vote for the
Speaker 3: Democrat from mayor. That didn't use to be true nearly
Speaker 3: to that extent.
Speaker 2: Where is this headed what are the consequences that are
Speaker 2: going to come from this?
Speaker 3: Well, I think that it's you know, it has had
Speaker 3: the consequences that Republicans do not have. Republicans don't have
Speaker 3: policies that appeal to broad to the broad country. They
Speaker 3: have increasingly talked only to themselves and tried to rally
Speaker 3: their own supporters. I think to some extent, partisan polarization
Speaker 3: makes that true for both parties. But the particulars of
Speaker 3: the electoral college and what gets rewarded and what doesn't
Speaker 3: make it even easier for Republicans to feel that, well,
Speaker 3: we're not going to win cities anyway, so let's give
Speaker 3: up on well, let's give up on Black Americans because
Speaker 3: they live in cities, so we don't need them.
Speaker 2: It just seems like that would create more tribalism, more entrenched,
Speaker 2: not open. The big tent concept seems to be gone.
Speaker 3: Exactly that it tends to reinforce the already the tendency
Speaker 3: to begin with for partisanship, and it just reinforces it.
Speaker 3: And especially again especially for Republicans, because Democrats, because rural
Speaker 3: voters are so over valued in the Senate, Democrats can't
Speaker 3: just say, yeah, we were doing badly among rural voters.
Speaker 3: Forget about it. You know, we'll just lose them. And
Speaker 3: you know, you hear that in the rhetoric both parties use.
Speaker 3: You never get Democrats or never is too strong. Always
Speaker 3: you rarely get Democrats who would, you know, bash rural
Speaker 3: areas in general or bash rural states. And it's not
Speaker 3: uncommon at all for Republicans to just criticize you know,
Speaker 3: New York City or big Cities, or California or you know,
Speaker 3: other states that they have no chance in because the
Speaker 3: way that electoral Senate and centives work, Democrats are not
Speaker 3: willing to totally give up on rural voters in the
Speaker 3: way that Republicans have given up on urban voters.
Speaker 2: Bloomberg Opinion colonist Jonathan Bernstein covers politics and policy, and
Speaker 2: coming up, we'll look at the debate over one birth
Speaker 2: control pill and whether it might soon be sold over
Speaker 2: the counter without a prescription. You're listening to Bloomberg Opinion.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Opinion Podcast. Catch us Saturdays
Speaker 1: at one and seven pm Eastern on Bloomberg dot Com,
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, and the Bloomberg Business App, or listen
Speaker 1: on demand wherever you get your podcasts, you're.
Speaker 2: Listening to Bloomberg Opinion. I'm Amy Morris. In South Carolina,
Speaker 2: senators passed a bill banning abortions after six weeks of pregnancy.
Speaker 2: The governor says he'll sign it, but women in the
Speaker 2: South Carolina Senate have spoken out against it across party lines,
Speaker 2: including Independent Senator Mia McLeod.
Speaker 4: It's so disheartening to think that forty one men in
Speaker 4: this body can make decisions for women and girls that
Speaker 4: will impact women and girls across our state for generations
Speaker 4: to come.
Speaker 2: And it's not just South Carolina. More states are considering
Speaker 2: similar bands. Meanwhile, access to contraception can be harder than necessary,
Speaker 2: But now a panel of independent advisors to the Food
Speaker 2: and Drug Administration have unanimously voted in favor of approving
Speaker 2: over the counter availability for a birth control pill called
Speaker 2: O pill. The panel has made its recommendation and now
Speaker 2: it's up to the FDA. We get more now with
Speaker 2: Lisa Jarvis, a Bloomberg Opinion columnist who covers biotech, healthcare,
Speaker 2: and the pharmaceutical industry. Okay, Lisa, how would this work?
Speaker 2: And over the counter birth control pill? Would you need
Speaker 2: a physical exam. Would you need to be under a
Speaker 2: doctor's care? How does this work?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 6: I think the idea is that we have decades of
Speaker 6: safety data on birth control, and in particular this type
Speaker 6: of birth control, which is a progestin only pill. And
Speaker 6: you know, most women might get a cursory twenty minute
Speaker 6: visit with a doctor and they have a prescription that's
Speaker 6: refilled without follow up visits, and it's perfectly safe to
Speaker 6: do that without the doctor's visit. It would lower a
Speaker 6: lot of barriers to access and so and we have
Speaker 6: a lot of experience with it to know that it
Speaker 6: would be safe.
Speaker 2: Why has it taken us so long to get here?
Speaker 6: Oh my goodness. In nineteen ninety three there was an
Speaker 6: editorial and a major medical journal asking for over the
Speaker 6: counter birth control. I mean, I think there's just a
Speaker 6: lot of hesitancy, probably for political reasons, but you know,
Speaker 6: we're really at a place where the urgency is there.
Speaker 6: Women have fewer options for how they addressed an unwanted pregnancy,
Speaker 6: and so the stakes are really high, and so I
Speaker 6: think there's been a lot of pressure. The FDA has
Speaker 6: punted this. It was supposed to be reviewed back in November,
Speaker 6: and so now here we are and advisors unanimously. It
Speaker 6: was to me very interesting to hear their comments said
Speaker 6: this needs to happen.
Speaker 2: What were some of their comments, you know, some.
Speaker 6: Of the criticisms of the data that was presented in
Speaker 6: the two days that advisors meant to talk about this
Speaker 6: from the FDA were around what their women could adhere
Speaker 6: to taking the pill, which the directions are very simple,
Speaker 6: take one pill at the same time every day. We
Speaker 6: know that in the real world adherence you know, when
Speaker 6: you get it prescribed by a doctor, isn't great. And
Speaker 6: we know that in the trial that they ran to
Speaker 6: show that people could do this, the reason that they
Speaker 6: didn't adhere was largely because they couldn't get back to
Speaker 6: a clinical trial site to get their pills renewed. So,
Speaker 6: you know, kind of gets at the heart of the problem.
Speaker 6: If you could go to your corner CBS and fill
Speaker 6: in that gap, you would really be in a lot
Speaker 6: better place.
Speaker 2: So is that the strongest pushback that this might be facing.
Speaker 2: The one argument that would be louder than the others,
Speaker 2: or would have more traction than the others, is that
Speaker 2: consistency and being able to do this on a regular
Speaker 2: basis for the patient, for the woman, she may not
Speaker 2: be able to pull that off.
Speaker 6: It's one of three arguments that got the most attention
Speaker 6: during the two day meeting. The other one was around
Speaker 6: whether women could correctly decide if the pill was appropriate
Speaker 6: for and safe for them. There's just what, well, really,
Speaker 6: there's just one group that would have a risk of
Speaker 6: this particular kind of pill, and that is women who
Speaker 6: have a history of breast cancer. It would be contraindicated.
Speaker 6: It could help your potentially help the cancer come back.
Speaker 6: But you know, the thing is, there was very good
Speaker 6: data I thought presented on that because you know, most
Speaker 6: women who undergo breast cancer treatment are above the age
Speaker 6: where they would be then bearing children. The ones who
Speaker 6: aren't typically get an IUD. Beyond that, if you're like
Speaker 6: in a situation where you might be in the small
Speaker 6: percentage of people who'd be interested in hormonal birth control pills,
Speaker 6: there's a very clear label on the box that says
Speaker 6: do not take if you have a history of breast cancer.
Speaker 6: So I think, you know, overwhelmingly the gynecologists who were
Speaker 6: reviewing this for FDA said, you know, most of those
Speaker 6: women are seeing their doctors on a regular basis and
Speaker 6: will be told do not do this, you know, and
Speaker 6: so the public health benefit really outweighs the very small
Speaker 6: risk of someone making that mistake.
Speaker 2: I have to say as a breast cancer survivor my oncologist,
Speaker 2: like the third thing she said after explaining treatment was oh,
Speaker 2: and birth control pills are in your past. This will
Speaker 2: not happen for you, though you'll never take those again.
Speaker 2: She could not have been more clear.
Speaker 6: Thank you for saying that, because I think that point
Speaker 6: was not sufficiently appreciated in the meeting, even though people
Speaker 6: were saying it. It kind of you know, people the
Speaker 6: oncologists who were presenting kept saying over and over again,
Speaker 6: this is the thing we talked to patients about. They're
Speaker 6: under regular care anyways, and we will repeat it to
Speaker 6: them so.
Speaker 2: They watch you like a hawk. Lisa, something that you
Speaker 2: had said that caught my ear was, you know, the
Speaker 2: question of would women know enough about their own bodies
Speaker 2: or about their own health care to be able to
Speaker 2: make the decision to buy this pill on their own
Speaker 2: without a doctor's prescription. Now, as a woman, my first
Speaker 2: response is you know, to burst into flame and side,
Speaker 2: who do you think you are? But you know, because
Speaker 2: women do actually are sentient beings and do have in
Speaker 2: mind of their own However, did you get that sense
Speaker 2: when you were listening to these arguments made? Were they
Speaker 2: they weren't being insulting, they were being concerned? Like, what
Speaker 2: was the sense in the room?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 6: I mean, I think most of the concern was around
Speaker 6: adolescents and teens, you know, in excess or people who
Speaker 6: have low literacy, and whether they would understand how to
Speaker 6: appropriately read the directions on the box. And the concern
Speaker 6: was less that it would pose a danger, but that
Speaker 6: if you didn't take it appropriately you were still at
Speaker 6: risk of a pregnancy, or that teens in particular might
Speaker 6: confuse this with Plan B, you know, and not use
Speaker 6: it correctly. I think the trials showed they enrolled a
Speaker 6: lot of people in those groups and showed that they
Speaker 6: did a good job and probably about the same as
Speaker 6: they do when they're under a doctor's care. And we
Speaker 6: know a lot of teams take birth control for a
Speaker 6: variety of reasons, not just to prevent an unwanted pregnancy,
Speaker 6: but to deal with act near you know, other you know,
Speaker 6: kind of reproductive health issues.
Speaker 2: So how would an over the counter availability for a
Speaker 2: birth control pill change the landscape. I mean, how earth
Speaker 2: shattering would that be.
Speaker 6: I think it would be a big deal. I mean,
Speaker 6: part of the most compelling testimony I thought in the
Speaker 6: two days was from college age women who talked about
Speaker 6: you know, I'm very educated, but when I moved to
Speaker 6: a new state for college, I had trouble getting my
Speaker 6: birth control because you have to find a new doctor.
Speaker 6: You can't just transfer a prescription. You might not have
Speaker 6: a ride to a provider to get that prescription. I
Speaker 6: think there's just a lot of barriers for a lot
Speaker 6: of women, whether you're in an urban setting or a
Speaker 6: rural setting, and it would just lower those Is.
Speaker 2: This a clap back to the rollback of abortion access?
Speaker 2: Is that what's spurring this on?
Speaker 6: I mean, it had been in the works before that.
Speaker 6: I think there's a new urgency around it, for sure.
Speaker 6: I mean, certainly the stakes have never been higher. And
Speaker 6: by the way, even if you live in a state
Speaker 6: where you have access to abortion, pregnancy itself is a
Speaker 6: risky proposition these days that I've written in the you
Speaker 6: know recently about the rise of maternal mortality rates. So really,
Speaker 6: we want to have women empowered to make good choices
Speaker 6: about their reproductive health. And this gives them one more
Speaker 6: but of course especially important in those states where they
Speaker 6: no longer have abortion access.
Speaker 2: When the FDA receives a recommendation from an independent panel
Speaker 2: like this one, does it usually take a long time
Speaker 2: to be able to come to a decision, to put
Speaker 2: it to a vote, and then get the drug to market.
Speaker 6: The FDA usually has a date by which they have
Speaker 6: to make this decision. In this case, it's unclear how
Speaker 6: long it will take, and they don't, by the way,
Speaker 6: have to follow the advice of their advisors, which was
Speaker 6: why I wrote this column sort of saying you should
Speaker 6: follow their advice. They typically do, but we have many
Speaker 6: instances of times when they haven't, especially in areas where
Speaker 6: it's some controversy or political controversy. And in particular, the
Speaker 6: FDA has been to me overly cautious on things around
Speaker 6: women's health. We know that they've put a lot of
Speaker 6: restrictions on medication abortion, for example, despite safety data. So
Speaker 6: you know, hopefully this is available by next year, I hope.
Speaker 2: Lisa Jarvis is a Bloomberg opinion columnist covering biotech, healthcare,
Speaker 2: and the pharmaceutical industry. Now coming up, we're going to
Speaker 2: take a look at ghost kitchens, how they came to be,
Speaker 2: and why they're disappearing. This is Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Opinion podcast. Catch us Saturdays
Speaker 1: at one and seven pm Eastern on Bloomberg dot Com,
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app and the Bloomberg Business App, or listen
Speaker 1: on demand wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2: This is Bloomberg Opinion. I maybe Morris zoom meetings, hand sanitizer,
Speaker 2: flexible workdays, QR codes. These are pandemic habits a lot
Speaker 2: of us have embraced. Even in this post pandemic era.
Speaker 2: These habits have staying power, but not so much for
Speaker 2: ghost kitchens. Those are restaurants that only offer delivery. Let's
Speaker 2: learn more with Bloomberg Opinion columnist Laticia Miranda. She covers
Speaker 2: consumer goods and the retail industry and joins me, now,
Speaker 2: could you explain what a ghost kitchen is and how
Speaker 2: that came about?
Speaker 5: Yeah? So, ghost kitchens also known as virtual or cloud kitchens,
Speaker 5: They are a group of kitchens that are built in warehouses.
Speaker 5: Usually there's some kind of a company like cloud kitchens
Speaker 5: that owns the warehouse and then invites or sells kind
Speaker 5: of a bunch of kitchen stations to different restaurants so
Speaker 5: they can cook their own food. And then from a
Speaker 5: consumer perspective, you'd probably interact with the ghost kitchen when
Speaker 5: you're you're ordering on Uber Eats or grub Hub, and
Speaker 5: you know you order from Jane or Joe's sandwiches, it
Speaker 5: could come out of one of these ghost kitchens or
Speaker 5: virtual kitchens, which is just sort of a kitchen station
Speaker 5: along with other ones.
Speaker 2: And what I learned when I was reading your column
Speaker 2: on the Bloomberg terminal is I always assumed these ghost
Speaker 2: kitchens were just sort of mom and pop independent restaurants,
Speaker 2: you know, just different individual places that are really trying
Speaker 2: to survive during the pandemic, so they created this sort
Speaker 2: of ghost kitchen where you order online and then it's delivered.
Speaker 2: I didn't realize that these could also be national chains
Speaker 2: like Wendy's jumping on this trend and it becoming such
Speaker 2: an enormous part of our and I hate to put
Speaker 2: it this way, but a part of our pandemic experience.
Speaker 5: Yes, a struggling kind of restaurants. Fast food chains jumped
Speaker 5: onto this trend, and because it's typically a lower cost
Speaker 5: way to deliver food. And it also what some restaurants
Speaker 5: started to do was they started to sell under different names. So,
Speaker 5: for example, Chuck E Cheese kind of came under some
Speaker 5: scrutiny for doing this where they had UH they were
Speaker 5: running a ghost kitchen called past Qualis that some people thought,
Speaker 5: uh was kind of a local pizza spot, but turned
Speaker 5: out to be uh run out of Chuck E Cheese's
Speaker 5: own kitchen. So yes, it is a bit confusing about
Speaker 5: who is who. And a lot of chains jumped onto
Speaker 5: this because it was a way to keep costs low
Speaker 5: and keep deliveries going out the door, but also a
Speaker 5: way to kind of maximize revenues.
Speaker 2: So it sounds like it was popular. Did it seem
Speaker 2: to have staying power when it was first started and
Speaker 2: as got some traction, I think a lot.
Speaker 5: Of restaurants saw a lot of promise because the costs
Speaker 5: are lower, it takes a smaller staff to run, and
Speaker 5: you know, it feels like forever ago. But during the
Speaker 5: pandemic when there were you know, kind of restaurants were
Speaker 5: closing doors because of mass mandate policies or because of
Speaker 5: different study ordinances around the pandemic to try to keep
Speaker 5: it from spreading. A lot of restaurants were struggling with
Speaker 5: figuring out how to jump onto the food delivery business.
Speaker 5: So this was kind of a way for large chains,
Speaker 5: which were struggling as much as the smaller businesses, to
Speaker 5: figure out how to keep how to keep the lights
Speaker 5: on even while people weren't coming.
Speaker 4: In to dine.
Speaker 2: What is the advantage for a business to have a
Speaker 2: ghost kitchen versus the advantage for a business to have
Speaker 2: people coming into the door as patrons.
Speaker 5: I mean, arguably, I think the ghost kitchen caught made
Speaker 5: a lot of sense when people were either afraid or
Speaker 5: weren't able to eat in person, and we didn't have
Speaker 5: sort of our normal, you know, working from the office habits. Now,
Speaker 5: though people are coming back into restaurants, they're going back
Speaker 5: to the drive through with the fast food chain, and
Speaker 5: so that a lot of companies are seeing that it's
Speaker 5: a lot more profitable to go back to kind of
Speaker 5: that traditional dining experience, that traditional drive through experience, rather
Speaker 5: than invest in a ghost kitchen that only offers delivery
Speaker 5: where you know Whereas Now, because people are coming back
Speaker 5: to restaurants, you can have them dine in and you
Speaker 5: can offer delivery. So you're kind of maximizing the value
Speaker 5: of that real estate space.
Speaker 2: I just thought they would have had more staying power,
Speaker 2: just as you described latistias out of convenience for customers
Speaker 2: and a less expensive, you know, less overhead for the
Speaker 2: restaurant owner, and didn't work out that way.
Speaker 5: What happened, Yeah, I mean I think there was a
Speaker 5: big issue too around transparency. The ghost kitchen concept is new,
Speaker 5: and like with a lot of business models that are new,
Speaker 5: it's difficult for regulators to figure out how to think
Speaker 5: about them, how to enforce labor codes and health codes.
Speaker 5: So that was something that definitely ghost kitchens got in
Speaker 5: trouble for early on, where you know, health and inspectors
Speaker 5: would come into a ghost kitchen see violations and then
Speaker 5: weren't sure about who's responsible for them. Is it, you know,
Speaker 5: the restaurant that runs that kitchen station, or is it
Speaker 5: the ghost kitchen operator. So that kind of created a
Speaker 5: lot of issues. And then, like I mentioned, on the
Speaker 5: consumer front, a lot of consumers didn't actually know who
Speaker 5: they were ordering from when they were online, and then
Speaker 5: we're surprised when you know, a pizza that's a lot
Speaker 5: like a Chuck E cheese pizza shows up at their house,
Speaker 5: but maybe they paid more for it because you know,
Speaker 5: Chuck E Cheese is selling it at a premium. So
Speaker 5: I think that it created a lot of issues up
Speaker 5: front that you know, kind of I guess set it
Speaker 5: up for it to not really survive in this sort
Speaker 5: of new era.
Speaker 2: Is this sort of part of the need to get
Speaker 2: out that pent up demand we've been hearing about people
Speaker 2: are just aching to leave their homes and go be
Speaker 2: social again.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think that definitely has a lot to do
Speaker 5: with it. People prefer to, you know, I think that
Speaker 5: people missed going to restaurants and getting out and seeing people.
Speaker 5: I think also as far as the rise again of
Speaker 5: the drive through, I think people are getting back to
Speaker 5: their kind of normal pre pandemic routines going into the office,
Speaker 5: maybe going to the gym, you know, kind of being
Speaker 5: out and about, and you know, going through a drive
Speaker 5: through or stopping by a restaurant seems a lot easier
Speaker 5: than you know before when we were just stuck at
Speaker 5: home and food delivery was really the only option. So
Speaker 5: I think it's both people missing being with people and
Speaker 5: then also just it's actually sometimes more convenient to have
Speaker 5: to go pick up something from a restaurant or run
Speaker 5: through the drive through.
Speaker 2: Do you think there would be a future for ghost kitchens.
Speaker 2: Do you think there's a possible market there that maybe
Speaker 2: somebody could come in and work through all the legal
Speaker 2: ees and figure out the way to make this work.
Speaker 2: It sounds like it could have potential.
Speaker 7: I think so.
Speaker 5: I think it's not I think with a lot of
Speaker 5: you know, Silicon Valley concepts, I think that the promise
Speaker 5: was a lot bigger than what this concept could actually
Speaker 5: accomplish right now. It does make a lot of sense
Speaker 5: for smaller businesses that are, you know, trying to get
Speaker 5: off the ground, because it is cheaper to just run
Speaker 5: a ghost kitchen than to go and find real estate,
Speaker 5: find a place that already has kitchen built in, find staff,
Speaker 5: do all your own marketing. So I think that there
Speaker 5: is a way to apply it some of these other
Speaker 5: some of these ghost kitchens, including a company called Reef
Speaker 5: that had signed a partnership with Wendy's to roll out
Speaker 5: their ghost kitchens that didn't actually end up working out.
Speaker 5: Wendy's is closing all of those, but now they're also
Speaker 5: pivoting to UH to do the technology behind food halls.
Speaker 2: At at airports.
Speaker 5: So when you go to an airport, there's a ton
Speaker 5: of different restaurants, and what REEF is doing is they're
Speaker 5: building the technology behind that so as a you know, consumer,
Speaker 5: or are somebody waiting at the airport, you can just
Speaker 5: order from through their platform and get your stuff delivered
Speaker 5: to your table or wherever you're sitting. It's similar to
Speaker 5: kind of what you already see in airports. But I
Speaker 5: think that that kind of application makes a lot of
Speaker 5: sense for a ghost kitchen that's kind of looking to pivot.
Speaker 5: But then yes, I think there there's also a possibility
Speaker 5: for smaller restaurants to continue using these opportunities.
Speaker 2: Leticia Miranda is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist who covers consumer
Speaker 2: goods and the retail industry. You're listening to Bloomberg Opinion.
Speaker 2: I'm Amy Morris. African lions have vanished from ninety four
Speaker 2: percent of their historical range, and there are fewer than
Speaker 2: twenty five thousand left in the wild. The International Union
Speaker 2: for the Conservation of Nature lists them as vulnerable to extinction.
Speaker 2: Laura Williams is Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering climate change, and
Speaker 2: she joins me now This is a big pro that
Speaker 2: leads to a bigger issue. First, I want to ask
Speaker 2: where do we assign blame for the dwindling lion population.
Speaker 7: It's a mix of reasons, but one big one is
Speaker 7: human wildlife conflict. So if lions don't have enough prey,
Speaker 7: then they will often resort to livestock, and then locals,
Speaker 7: in retaliation, because they've lost a source of food and
Speaker 7: a source of income, will often retaliate by killing the lions.
Speaker 7: And that's been that's been a huge problem for lions
Speaker 7: across Africa.
Speaker 2: What does that then portend for the rest of us?
Speaker 2: How is that a signal that there is a problem?
Speaker 7: I guess it shows us that climate change is increasing
Speaker 7: the pressures on humans and wildlife. And when we, you know,
Speaker 7: try and find solutions, we've got to put humans, you know,
Speaker 7: at the center of that as well as the wildlife,
Speaker 7: you know. I think what's positive is that, you know,
Speaker 7: through a lot of project all over the world, not
Speaker 7: just with lions, is that you know, what's good for
Speaker 7: humans is often actually really good for wildlife too.
Speaker 5: You can have both.
Speaker 2: Now, how are communities getting involved in helping in the problem?
Speaker 5: Sure?
Speaker 7: So I was I was really lucky to be able
Speaker 7: to speak to this amazing woman called Shivani Bala, and
Speaker 7: she has started an organization in Kenya called Oaso Lions
Speaker 7: in you know, the lion population in that landscape has
Speaker 7: grown from eleven in two thousand and eight to you know,
Speaker 7: about fifty in twenty twenty two, so it's a huge
Speaker 7: increase and the lions are stable. And I think what
Speaker 7: was really noticeable is that rather than working against or
Speaker 7: apart from those who were killing the lions, as you
Speaker 7: might imagine, she was working closely with them. She works
Speaker 7: with a group of people called the you know, the
Speaker 7: Zamburu people, and one of the warriors who would often
Speaker 7: actually you know, they hated lions, but he came up
Speaker 7: with the idea for a program called Warrior Watch where
Speaker 7: the Zambua warriors, who have this traditional role in protecting
Speaker 7: the community, they go out and they track the lions.
Speaker 7: And then by tracking the lions, they're able to tell
Speaker 7: the herders where to stay away from, you know, to
Speaker 7: keep their livestock out of harm's way. And that means
Speaker 7: that the line population is safe, the live stock is safe,
Speaker 7: and attitudes the lions have really improved over the course
Speaker 7: of this program.
Speaker 2: Are you finding in your research that more of these
Speaker 2: community centered projects are starting to crop up now as
Speaker 2: people find more solutions.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know.
Speaker 7: So every year this charity in London awards money to
Speaker 7: conservationists all over the world, and I got to speed
Speaker 7: to some of them, and you know, they're putting community
Speaker 7: at the heart, you know, of their work, like everywhere.
Speaker 7: So I spoke to somebody running a project in Managesta,
Speaker 7: and you know, part of that is not only education,
Speaker 7: but giving people sustainable livelihoods so that they can lift
Speaker 7: themselves out of poverty and also work to protect you know,
Speaker 7: the forests and the animals within those forests that are
Speaker 7: so valuable.
Speaker 2: Are the projects that you are watching, those that have
Speaker 2: been cropping up that have the community as the center.
Speaker 2: Do they have a future? Are they sustainable? Do they
Speaker 2: have traction?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 7: I absolutely think they do. Lots of people that are
Speaker 7: getting support from charities like the Whitley Fund for Nature,
Speaker 7: and I think as we enter this source of period
Speaker 7: where we're focusing and taking these issues more seriously, you know,
Speaker 7: lots of you know, new ways of creating funding for
Speaker 7: these projects are cropping up, and so what I really
Speaker 7: hope is that you know these new financing tools focus
Speaker 7: on those projects that are doing the most for humans
Speaker 7: and sustainable development, as well as the wildlife and the environment.
Speaker 5: That we need.
Speaker 2: Laura Williams is Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering climate change and
Speaker 2: that does it for this week's Bloomberg Opinion. We are
Speaker 2: produced by Eric Molow, and you can find all of
Speaker 2: these columns on the Bloomberg terminal. We're available as a
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Speaker 2: with us. Today's top stories and global business headlines are
Speaker 2: coming up. I'm Mimmy Morris. This is Bloomberg