Starbucks is getting into the bread business.

The Seattle-based coffee chain announced plans Monday to buy San Francisco-based Bay Bread and its La Boulange bakery brand for $100 million.

"This is an investment in our core business," said Howard Schultz, Starbucks chief executive, in a conference call with financial analysts. "After more than 40 years, we will be able to say that we are bakers too."

Schultz said one-third of Starbucks transactions include the purchase of a food item. Food now accounts for $1.5 billion in sales at U.S. company-operated Starbucks stores and has grown sharply in recent years, he added.

Starbucks will create a "new methodology" to produce fresh baked items, Schultz said without elaborating.

Read - Starbucks: 'We are bakers too'

Previously - You're eating too much salt. Consider not doing that.

Breakfast at Burger King is about to get more humane.

The nation's No. 2 fast food chain announced an agreement Wednesday with the Humane Society of the United States to switch to eggs from hens not kept in cages, and to only use pork products from pigs also not kept and bred in small cages.

While rivals McDonald's, Wendy's and other food-service companies already have policies or agreements with the Humane Society on the humane treatment of pigs, Wednesday's announcement was the first by a major chain that it would switch to cage-free eggs.

"What this does is send a clear message to these industries that their customers and the public don't want animals confined for their entire lives in cages. They will have to make changes," said Matt Prescott, food policy director for the Humane Society.

Read - Burger King to use eggs from cage-free hens

Previously - Egg-splained: Free-range, cage-free and organic

Want some crushed bugs with your Starbucks frappuccino?

Well, you'd better get on it, because soon it will be too late. The coffee franchise announced that it's phasing out the use of insects as food coloring in its drinks and food products.

Starbucks President Cliff Burrows wrote, in a Thursday blog, that Starbucks is "transitioning" away from the use of an insect called the cochineal.
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Feeling flush this Tax Day and looking to blow your whole refund on a single meal? You're in luck, because Triomphe restaurant in New York City is hosting a 12-course "Great Write-off" dinner at a mere $1040 a head.

While you're busy gobbling down caramelized foie gras and toast with ramp jam and Ossetra caviar with traditional accompaniments, the rest of us will be frantically clicking "like" on Facebook, shaking printer cartridges and rifling for couch change to take advantage of these national Tax Day food deals.
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Free ice cream - how cool is that?

In celebration of their 34 years of business, on April 3, Ben & Jerry's Scoop Shops around the globe will serve up complimentary cones from noon to 8:00 pm.

Founders Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield began the Free Cone Day tradition as a staff and customer thank you on the first anniversary of their Burlington, Vermont, store in 1979. The company was acquired by Unilever in 2000, but the custom remained.

The company is expected to give away more than 1 million cones of ice cream or Greek frozen yogurt worldwide during the event. Most Scoop Shops will partner with a local charity to raise money and awareness for the cause of their choice.
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Dried, crushed cochineal beetles add the red tint to Starbucks' strawberry and cream cappucino. The Food and Drug Administration says they're safe to consume, but vegetarians are awfully bugged out by the revelation.

Previously - Health department bugs out over grasshopper tacos and I scream, you scream, we all scream when there are cicadas in the ice cream

Candy, flowers and bling may dominate Valentine's Day gifts, but this year, one more item is likely to be among the love offerings: heart-shaped pizzas.

Searches on Google for "heart-shaped pizzas" have soared 230% since January, according to Google's research tool Insights for Search.

And the highest number of searches for heart-shaped pizzas over the past few weeks is coming from Illinois, Texas and California, according to Google.

The novelty pizza has easily been around for decades but lately, pizza sellers - large and small - have been rushing to capitalize on this quirky trend, especially around Valentine's Day.

Read - Heart-shaped pizzas hot for Valentine's Day

If you must waffle on Valentine's Day, don't make it about who you're taking to dinner. The "where" is a lock: Waffle House.

WALB reports that some Waffle Houses across the chain's 15-state span are tossing tablecloths over the formica and chrome, dimming the lights, pouring alcohol-free sparkling drinks and emphasizing menu items like ribeye and eggs, porkchops or T-bones in addition to their perhaps better-known breakfast fare.
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If at some point my rapidly advancing decrepitude becomes just too much for me to bear, I'm not too fussed. I have a plan. I'm going to quit my job, my home, my life up North and seek employment at the first outpost of the K&W Cafeteria chain that will have me. By all reputable accounts, no one who works there has ever aged so much as a day since they opened in 1937.

I have no empirical proof that this is true. I've only been aware of the existence of the K&W for the past seven years, but I've been privy to enough anecdotal accounts to suggest that the "congeal" molecule in a K&W tomato aspic is the key to life eternal. This was, in fact, a discovery made by the owners - members of an alien race who came to Earth many decades ago to study us and keep us in their sway via the power of luscious gravy, sweet tea and reasonable prices on classic Southern cafeteria-style food. And, I'm cool with it.
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