Kraft targets men, millennials

The pot pie kit comes with pouches of Velveeta cheese, biscuit topping, vegetables and seasoning. The cook sautes chicken until done, then adds milk, vegetables and seasoning, and cooks for another minute. The chicken mixture goes into a baking dish and gets topped with the cheese. Finally, the biscuit mix, to which more milk has been added, goes on the very top. The Velveeta Cheesy Casserole is ready in about 18 minutes at 425 degrees.

Then there's Oscar Mayer's pulled pork that's sold in a clear plastic tub. It's precooked, shredded and seasoned. Kraft is selling the meat without the sauce so cooks can choose their own and add as much as desired.

These and other new products are part of Kraft Foods Group's efforts to attract new customers: millennials and men. The recession disproportionately affected men, who are now doing about 40 percent of the cooking, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Northfield-based Kraft has found that both groups are cooking more and looking for flexible recipes, ways to customize their food and have fun in the kitchen. So Kraft is updating its stable of mature brands in ways that appeal to them.

Millennials, age 18 to early 30s, are beginning to cook and don't want to do things like their parents did. So Kraft is offering more products that require some effort. Just not too much effort.

A Kraft study showed younger men cooking even more than their older counterparts — 42 percent of millennial men do all the cooking in the household, while 76 percent do at least some cooking. They also like to experiment with their dishes.

"Now they'll talk about cooking like guys would talk about a hobby 20 years ago," said Barry Calpino, vice president of breakthrough innovation at Kraft. "It's an adventure, it's an experience, it's fun, they talk about 'their signature.'"

Men feel they have more latitude as cooks, according to Robin Ross, associate director of culinary at Kraft. "Women want to please their families and for everyone to like what they make,'' she said. Men, she said, tend not to feel the same pressure. "Men have more of a free hand."

Kraft Foods, a $19 billion a year packaged North American grocery business, was spun off in October from Deerfield-based Mondelez International. Kraft CEO Tony Vernon promised mid-single-digit operating income growth rates for the company, and acknowledged it needs to develop new, more modern products for its brands and increase advertising support to make customers aware of them.

While Vernon hasn't released targets for his ad budget, Kraft has lagged competitors, investing the equivalent of 3 percent of sales toward advertising and marketing, compared with 4.5 percent of sales at competitors, according to the company.

During the company's most recent earnings call, Vernon underscored double-digit sales growth for Lunchables, Velveeta, and MiO, a liquid concentrate used to flavor water, citing new products and subsequent advertising. However, he acknowledged work to do with Jell-O, to capitalize on "yogurt's explosive growth," and with Planters "to re-establish category leadership and profitable growth."

On Friday, Kraft shares closed at $45.53, up 2 percent from the Oct. 1 spinoff.

Simply being a smaller company, Calpino said, means Kraft can lavish attention on brands like Velveeta, which hadn't seen much attention in decades.

"Five or six years ago, I'm not sure we'd do innovation reviews" on Velveeta, Calpino said. "It wasn't even on the list."

Phil Lempert, a supermarket industry expert, said the millennial generation poses challenges for big food companies, which are not known for rapid change. Companies like Kraft, he said, have to "keep it fresh, keep it changing." Young people, he said, "never want to wake up and have the same meal in an entire lifetime.'' He also said that unlike their predecessors, millennials are more interested in "ethnic foods and adventure than ever before."

Lempert said a lot of millennials' tastes are "being driven by food trucks,'' serving products like tacos with a few different meats with a level of high quality and bold flavors. In turn, that has raised millennials' expectations on everything from a restaurant meal to a box of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese.

Lynn Dornblaser, director of innovation and insight at Mintel International, said the fact that Kraft offers some of its new products like easy-to-use, three-pack sauce packets should be a hit because millennials love to cook, but hate to clean.

"Cleaning is a barrier to cooking from scratch," she said. It's the same for male cooks. Even making a white sauce for pasta, Dornblaser said, "you've got dishes to wash, measuring to do, steps to follow."

So products like Kraft's new Velveeta casseroles, pulled pork, Fresh Take cheese and bread crumb mixtures and Velveeta Toppers cheese sauce pouches "offer the ability for consumer to be a little creative with what they're cooking but without too much bother," she said.

Last year, Velveeta launched Cheesy Skillets dinner kits, the brand's biggest launch in more than 20 years. It's a stark departure for a brand best known for Shells & Cheese and its ability to melt over nachos. Consumers saute beef, add cheese sauce from a pouch, cook the pasta, mix, and add hamburger toppings such as shredded lettuce and diced tomato.

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Alderman calls fire that claimed the lives of 2 children 'senseless'

A 3-year-old boy and 2-year-old girl died this morning after they and two other children were left home alone in the Englewood neighborhood, officials say. (Posted Dec. 22nd, 2012)

A young boy and girl died in a fire this morning after they and two other children were left home alone in the Englewood neighborhood on the South Side, officials say.

The boy, 2, and the girl, 3, were found in a back bedroom after firefighters cut through burglar bars on the brick and stone two-flat in the 6400 block of South Paulina Street.

"Please, sergeant, please," a relative pleaded with an officer outside the home. "They're 2 and 3 years old."

The victims were identified at the Cook County medical examiner’s office as Javaris Meakens, a 2-year-old boy, and Jariyah Meakens, a 3-year-old girl.

A hot plate being used for heat might have sparked the fire while the four children, alone in the apartment, slept in two bedrooms, according to fire officials. Police said the children's mother and aunt were being questioned.

The cause of the fire is still under investigation.

But authorities are looking closely at the hot plate that was found in the bedroom, said Larry Langford, a spokesman for the Fire Department.
 
“There is no official cause yet,” Langford said. “We did not find one working smoke detector in that building.”

The surviving children, a 7-year-old boy and his 4-year-old brother, were rescued by an aunt and interviewed by investigators at a neighbor's home.

Darnell, 7, said he and Marquis, 4, had fallen asleep watching Batman cartoons. The two other children -- his 3-year-old sister and 2-year-old cousin -- were asleep in another bedroom. When he woke up, the fire was already burning.

"When the fire started, everything shut off," Darnell said.

The boy said he and Marquis were in a bedroom by the kitchen and "the fire was in the front room where the couch is at. When we saw the fire, it was like in the front room, then it was by the bathroom door."

Darnell said his aunt came rushing through the front door. "When (she) saw the fire, she called all our names. When I opened the door, she told me, 'Come on, the fire's getting closer.' I coughed, my auntie was choking. My sister was banging on the door.

"When we got outside, police passed us, then drove backward and came up because there was a fire," he said.

Darnell and Marquis were brought to a neighbor's house, where investigators from the Bomb and Arson unit and the Office of Fire Investigations (OFI) talked to them.

The investigator from OFI squatted down while talking to the boys. Only Darnell spoke. Marquis was quiet the entire time. Darnell spoke to a Tribune reporter afterward as he sat with four neighbors, all adults, in their home.

The children were later taken into protective custody by the Department of Children and Family Services.

When firefighters arrived around 3:30 a.m., they weren't able to get into the home because of intense heat and fire, a Chicago Fire Department official said. Fire was heavy throughout the basement and first floor, he said.

Firefighters cut through burglar bars on the windows, he said.

Firefighters eventually found the two children cuddled up in a bed, fire officials said at a news conference.

The basement windows were all shattered. A white Christmas tree, smudged with smoke, stood near a front room window.

A neighbor told an investigator that the second-floor tenants recently moved out of the brick and stone two-flat.

pnickeas@tribune.com

Twitter: @PeterNickeas

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Reports: Rolling Stones guitarist Wood ties knot

LONDON (AP) — Two British newspapers say Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood has married his fiancee Sally Humphreys at a ceremony at London‘s Dorchester Hotel.

The Sun and the Daily Mirror carried photographs of the 65-year-old rocker with a pale boutonniere and a dark blue suit, and his 34-year-old bride in a traditional white gown and a clutch of matching white flowers.

The Sun quoted Wood as saying “I’m feeling great” as he and his bride kissed and posed for pictures outside the exclusive hotel in London’s upscale Mayfair district.

The newspapers said the guests included singer Rod Stewart and his wife Penny Lancaster as well as ex-Beatle Paul McCartney and his wife Nancy Shevell.

A call and an email to Wood’s U.S.-based agent weren’t immediately returned Saturday.

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Genetic Gamble : Drugs Aim to Make Several Types of Cancer Self-Destruct

C.J. Gunther for The New York Times

Dr. Donald Bergstrom is a cancer specialist at Sanofi, one of three companies working on a drug to restore a tendency of damaged cells to self-destruct.

For the first time ever, three pharmaceutical companies are poised to test whether new drugs can work against a wide range of cancers independently of where they originated — breast, prostate, liver, lung. The drugs go after an aberration involving a cancer gene fundamental to tumor growth. Many scientists see this as the beginning of a new genetic age in cancer research.

Great uncertainties remain, but such drugs could mean new treatments for rare, neglected cancers, as well as common ones. Merck, Roche and Sanofi are racing to develop their own versions of a drug they hope will restore a mechanism that normally makes badly damaged cells self-destruct and could potentially be used against half of all cancers.

No pharmaceutical company has ever conducted a major clinical trial of a drug in patients who have many different kinds of cancer, researchers and federal regulators say. “This is a taste of the future in cancer drug development,” said Dr. Otis Webb Brawley, the chief medical and scientific officer of the American Cancer Society. “I expect the organ from which the cancer came from will be less important in the future and the molecular target more important,” he added.

And this has major implications for cancer philanthropy, experts say. Advocacy groups should shift from fund-raising for particular cancers to pushing for research aimed at many kinds of cancer at once, Dr. Brawley said. John Walter, the chief executive officer of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, concurred, saying that by pooling forces “our strength can be leveraged.”

At the heart of this search for new cancer drugs are patients like Joe Bellino, who was a post office clerk until his cancer made him too sick to work. Seven years ago, he went into the hospital for hernia surgery, only to learn he had liposarcoma, a rare cancer of fat cells. A large tumor was wrapped around a cord that connects the testicle to the abdomen. “I was shocked,” he said in an interview this summer.

Companies have long ignored liposarcoma, seeing no market for drugs to treat a cancer that strikes so few. But it is ideal for testing Sanofi’s drug because the tumors nearly always have the exact genetic problem the drug was meant to attack — a fusion of two large proteins. If the drug works, it should bring these raging cancers to a halt. Then Sanofi would test the drug on a broad range of cancers with a similar genetic alteration. But if the drug fails against liposarcoma, Sanofi will reluctantly admit defeat.

“For us, this is a go/no-go situation,” said Laurent Debussche, a Sanofi scientist who leads the company’s research on the drug.

The genetic alteration the drug targets has tantalized researchers for decades. Normal healthy cells have a mechanism that tells them to die if their DNA is too badly damaged to repair. Cancer cells have grotesquely damaged DNA, so ordinarily they would self-destruct. A protein known as p53 that Dr. Gary Gilliland of Merck calls the cell’s angel of death normally sets things in motion. But cancer cells disable p53, either directly, with a mutation, or indirectly, by attaching the p53 protein to another cellular protein that blocks it. The dream of cancer researchers has long been to reanimate p53 in cancer cells so they will die on their own.

The p53 story began in earnest about 20 years ago. Excitement ran so high that, in 1993, Science magazine anointed it Molecule of the Year and put it on the cover. An editorial held out the possibility of “a cure of a terrible killer in the not too distant future.”

Companies began chasing a drug to restore p53 in cells where it was disabled by mutations. But while scientists know how to block genes, they have not figured out how to add or restore them. Researchers tried gene therapy, adding good copies of the p53 gene to cancer cells. That did not work.

Then, instead of going after mutated p53 genes, they went after half of cancers that used the alternative route to disable p53, blocking it by attaching it to a protein known as MDM2. When the two proteins stick together, the p53 protein no longer functions. Maybe, researchers thought, they could find a molecule to wedge itself between the two proteins and pry them apart.

The problem was that both proteins are huge and cling tightly to each other. Drug molecules are typically tiny. How could they find one that could separate these two bruisers, like a referee at a boxing match?

In 1996, researchers at Roche noticed a small pocket between the behemoths where a tiny molecule might slip in and pry them apart. It took six years, but Roche found such a molecule and named it Nutlin because the lab was in Nutley, N.J.

But Nutlins did not work as drugs because they were not absorbed into the body.

Roche, Merck and Sanofi persevered, testing thousands of molecules.

At Sanofi, the stubborn scientist leading the way, Dr. Debussche, maintained an obsession with p53 for two decades. Finally, in 2009, his team, together with Shaomeng Wang at the University of Michigan and a biotech company, Ascenta Therapeutics, found a promising compound.

The company tested the drug by pumping it each day into the stomachs of mice with sarcoma.

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Emanuel explores Midway privatization

Mayor Rahm Emanuel's administration will explore the possibility of privatizing Midway Airport but will take a shorter-term, more tightly controlled approach than was employed by former Mayor Richard Daley's team on the city's first go-round.

Chicago's last try, a 99-year lease that would have brought in $2.5 billion, died in 2009 when the financial markets froze up.

The city's latest intentions are expected to be formally announced Friday, ahead of a Dec. 31 deadline for deciding whether to retain a slot for Midway in the Federal Aviation Administration's airport privatization pilot program. The city put off this decision several times previously.

The move, preliminary as it is, is sure to be politically charged, given the anger over the way Daley's 75-year parking meter privatization deal has played out, with proceeds used to plug operating deficits and meter rates rising sharply.

With that historical backdrop, Emanuel is suggesting a more conservative approach. It includes a shorter-term lease of less than 40 years; a "travelers' bill of rights" aimed at ensuring any changes will benefit passengers; and a continuing stream of revenue for the city, giving it a shot to capture some growth.

And unlike the parking meter and Chicago Skyway lease deals, a new Midway transaction would not allow proceeds to be used to plug operating deficits or to pay for operations in any way, Emanuel said in an interview Thursday.

"I will not let the city use it as a crutch to not make the tough decisions on the budget," he said.

But while a shorter lease and greater city control may play well locally, those sorts of terms may not appeal to investors, experts said in interviews this month.

"The shorter the lease term, the lower the bid prices are going to be — that's just the math," said Steve Steckler, chairman of the Infrastructure Management Group, a Bethesda, Md.-based company that advises infrastructure owners and operators. "I'd be shocked if investors offered more than $2 billion for a 40-year lease," Steckler said.

Emanuel said: "Nobody knows until you talk to people. … I'm the mayor and I'm not agreeing to … 99 years. I'm saying it's either 40 years or less." His office has not offered an estimate of what such a deal could bring in, saying it would be premature.

"No final decisions have been made, but we can't make a decision until we evaluate fully if this could be a win for Chicagoans," Emanuel said.

A private operator would take over management of such revenue-producing activities as food, beverage and car rental concessions and parking lots. The FAA would continue to provide air traffic control, while the Transportation Security Administration would continue to provide security operations. The city would retain ownership.

Few details were provided about how privatization would affect travelers and Midway employees. Emanuel said specifics will emerge over time.

By year's end, the city will send the FAA a preliminary application, a timetable and a draft "request for qualification," a document the city will put out early next year to identify qualified bidders for the project. A review of the potential bidders will be conducted in the spring.

Last year, Emanuel expressed hesitation in pursuing a private lease for Midway unless a careful vetting process was in place, saying taxpayers were correct to be wary, given the city's history.

The evaluation process will be deliberate and open to public view, he said Thursday.

He pledged to create a committee of business, labor and civic leaders that will provide updates to the public on a regular basis and that will select an independent adviser to vet the transaction. The committee will deliver a report to the City Council, and there will be a 30-day review period before any vote.

"I set up a different process and a different set of principles that stand in stark contrast to what was discussed or done in the past," Emanuel said.

The FAA pilot program frees cities from regulations that require airport revenue to be used for airport purposes. It allows money to be withdrawn for other uses.

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Metra to install defibrillators throughout system

(Tribune illustration / March 13, 2012)

Staff report

7:59 p.m. CST, December 21, 2012

Hundreds of defibrillators will be installed on all of Metra’s trains, officials said today.

The commuter rail line plans to equip its trains with nearly 300 of the automatic external defibrillators, according to a news release.

Another 125 of the devices will be installed “throughout work facilities and Metra police vehicles,” the release said.

Metra is partnering in the effort with Northwestern Memorial Hospital, the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and Cardiac Science.

chicagobreaking@tribune.com
Twitter: @ChicagoBreaking

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Brain Benefits for the Holidays? Stuff the Stocking with Video Games

Title Post: Brain Benefits for the Holidays? Stuff the Stocking with Video Games
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‘So You Think You Can Dance’ Hoofs It Into a 10th Season

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Put on your dancing shoes; “So You Think You Can Dance” has been given a 10th season, Fox said Thursday.

Auditions for the upcoming season will begin January 18 in Austin, Texas, before moving on to Detroit, Boston, Los Angeles and Memphis.

Fox’s president of alternative programming Mike Darnell praised “SYTYCD” creator Nigel Lythgoe in announcing the renewal.

“I couldn’t be more proud of the amazing work that Nigel and the entire ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ team has done over the past nine seasons,” Darnell said. “This show is truly one of the most compelling series on television and I can’t wait to bring it back for Season 10.”

Last season, the series underwent a format shakeup after Fox cut the show from two nights a week to one, eliminating the results shows.

Fox did not say when the new season of “So You Think You Can Dance” will premiere.

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Emanuel explores Midway privatization

Mayor Rahm Emanuel's administration will explore the possibility of privatizing Midway Airport but will take a shorter-term, more tightly controlled approach than was employed by former Mayor Richard Daley's team on the city's first go-round.

Chicago's last try, a 99-year lease that would have brought in $2.5 billion, died in 2009 when the financial markets froze up.

The city's latest intentions are expected to be formally announced Friday, ahead of a Dec. 31 deadline for deciding whether to retain a slot for Midway in the Federal Aviation Administration's airport privatization pilot program. The city put off this decision several times previously.

The move, preliminary as it is, is sure to be politically charged, given the anger over the way Daley's 75-year parking meter privatization deal has played out, with proceeds used to plug operating deficits and meter rates rising sharply.

With that historical backdrop, Emanuel is suggesting a more conservative approach. It includes a shorter-term lease of less than 40 years; a "travelers' bill of rights" aimed at ensuring any changes will benefit passengers; and a continuing stream of revenue for the city, giving it a shot to capture some growth.

And unlike the parking meter and Chicago Skyway lease deals, a new Midway transaction would not allow proceeds to be used to plug operating deficits or to pay for operations in any way, Emanuel said in an interview Thursday.

"I will not let the city use it as a crutch to not make the tough decisions on the budget," he said.

But while a shorter lease and greater city control may play well locally, those sorts of terms may not appeal to investors, experts said in interviews this month.

"The shorter the lease term, the lower the bid prices are going to be — that's just the math," said Steve Steckler, chairman of the Infrastructure Management Group, a Bethesda, Md.-based company that advises infrastructure owners and operators. "I'd be shocked if investors offered more than $2 billion for a 40-year lease," Steckler said.

Emanuel said: "Nobody knows until you talk to people. … I'm the mayor and I'm not agreeing to … 99 years. I'm saying it's either 40 years or less." His office has not offered an estimate of what such a deal could bring in, saying it would be premature.

"No final decisions have been made, but we can't make a decision until we evaluate fully if this could be a win for Chicagoans," Emanuel said.

A private operator would take over management of such revenue-producing activities as food, beverage and car rental concessions and parking lots. The FAA would continue to provide air traffic control, while the Transportation Security Administration would continue to provide security operations. The city would retain ownership.

Few details were provided about how privatization would affect travelers and Midway employees. Emanuel said specifics will emerge over time.

By year's end, the city will send the FAA a preliminary application, a timetable and a draft "request for qualification," a document the city will put out early next year to identify qualified bidders for the project. A review of the potential bidders will be conducted in the spring.

Last year, Emanuel expressed hesitation in pursuing a private lease for Midway unless a careful vetting process was in place, saying taxpayers were correct to be wary, given the city's history.

The evaluation process will be deliberate and open to public view, he said Thursday.

He pledged to create a committee of business, labor and civic leaders that will provide updates to the public on a regular basis and that will select an independent adviser to vet the transaction. The committee will deliver a report to the City Council, and there will be a 30-day review period before any vote.

"I set up a different process and a different set of principles that stand in stark contrast to what was discussed or done in the past," Emanuel said.

The FAA pilot program frees cities from regulations that require airport revenue to be used for airport purposes. It allows money to be withdrawn for other uses.

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Meteorologist: 'Stronger winds trumps the snow'

The first winter storm of the season is moving in fast and has hit the north and western suburbs with a fury as downed power lines were reported in McHenry County. 

Around 5 p.m., ComEd officials said more than 24,000 people were without power, most of those in the western Illinois region, like Rockford , Freeport and Dixon. At 5:35 p.m., less than an inch of snow was on the ground in Elburn.

A spokeswoman with ComEd said a few customers from Woodstock were powerless, but there weren’t any “significant” outages in that area.

Snow first hit Chicago around 5:30 p.m., when O’Hare airport reported seeing flurries, according to the National Weather Service. The snow will continue on throughout the evening, with a possible uptick around 9 p.m. or 10 p.m., meteorologists said.

Also, 30 to 40 mph winds have been reported with gusts as high as nearly 60 mph, said Ed Fenelon, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

“That trend is going to be continuing and some of the stronger winds will work their way“ to Chicago, Fenelon said. “That probably really trumps the snow as far as what kind of impact you can have.”

Hundreds of flights were canceled at O'Hare and Midway airports on the eve of the busiest travel day of the holiday season. Southwest Airlines scratched all of its flights scheduled after 4:30 p.m. today at Midway. People are being warned to stay off highways because high winds could whip up near blizzard conditions.

Delays at O’Hare were averaging 30 to 90 minutes, according to the FAA. Midway-bound flight delays were about 15 minutes or less.

At 6 p.m., a few crashes had been reported on roadways including I-290 at St. Charles Road and the inbound Edens Expressway at Tower Road.

The heaviest snow is expected to fall from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Three to 7 inches is expected in the far northwest suburbs, 2 to 4 inches in Chicago and 1 to 3 inches in the south and southwest suburbs.

The weather service says the winds will be the real problem. "We may not get a whole lot of snow but the potential for snowing, drifting and poor visibility is very high," weather service meteorologist Mark Ratzer said.

In its storm warning, the weather service said the greatest chance of near white-out conditions is near the shoreline in Lake and Porter counties in Indiana. The storm warning is in effect for those areas until 3 a.m. Friday.

In western Illinois and Wisconsin, a blizzard warning is in effect with as much as a foot of snow forecast. Snow could fall 1 to 2 inches an hour around Rockford, the weather service said.

To the south, a high wind advisory has been issued for Kankakee County.

The storm ends a record stretch of 290 days without snow in the Chicago area. This will also be the latest the city has seen its first measurable snowfall.

"It's going to be a shock to the system," said weather service meteorologist Ed Fenelon. "It's coming in with a bang."

ComEd said it was bracing for power outages due to the weather. The company said it was preparing additional crews and equipment and asking for help from other utilities to respond quickly to outages.

ComEd Vice President Terence Donnelly said the storm was “expected to be especially damaging” to the company's power system because of the combination of wind, snow and ice.

The Illinois Toll Highway Authority urged motorists to stay off the highways.

"This weather event is expected to impact most of the tollway system – from Rockford to Chicago – resulting in rapidly deteriorating driving conditions across the entire region,” tollway executive director Kristi Lafleur.  “We urge everyone to stay off the roads this afternoon and evening, if possible, but if you must drive, slow down and allow plenty of extra time for the commute home.”

Illinois Transportation Secretary Ann Schneider also said that “motorists should think twice before venturing onto roadways” Thursday night and urged drivers and their passengers “to buckle up, slow down and allow plenty of extra time to reach your destination. And, please don’t crowd the snow plows.”

IDOT was mobilizing more than 550 snow plows responsible for roads in northern Illinois while the Illinois Tollway was preparing its full fleet of 182 snow plows to try and clear the 286-mile network of toll roads in 12 counties in northern Illinois.

If conditions become extreme, the Illinois State Police is urging drivers involved in minor accidents where no one is injured to exchange insurance and driver information.

The agencies also provide multiple ways to receive updates electronically. Non-tollroad information can be found at www.gettingaroundillinois.com. Real time conditions on tollroads are available at www.illinoistollway.com. Drivers also can sign up for Tollway Tweets at the website or at www.twitter.com.

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