
Smoothie chain
Jamba Juice is teaming up with
Organic To Go to
test out a new line of organic food products. In an effort to boost sales, Jamba Juice is considering adding Organic To Go branded items — grab and go salads, sandwiches, wraps, cookies, and yogurt parfaits — to their already existing menu of classic fruit smoothies. The testing will take place in three West Coast stores in Los Angeles and Orange County, CA, and Bellevue, WA.

Move over, Jared.
Subway's got a new guy in town, and his name is
Michael Phelps. The mega-medal Olympian continues to score endorsements faster than his swimming records.

Number two fast food chain
Burger King has been testing
a new line of premium items. This includes ribs and thicker burgers, made with grills, batch broilers, and other costly new kitchen equipment.
The fast food chain's decision to move in the direction of higher-price items comes at a time when the
casual restaurant industry is struggling.

Last Thursday, frozen yogurt chain
Red Mango announced that it would be partnering with pomegranate juice pioneer,
POM Wonderful, to debut its first
new flavor, Pomegranate by POM Wonderful.
But someone else had the same idea: Red Mango's biggest rival, cult favorite
Pinkberry.
New York magazine's food blog first reported that the rival chain's pomegranate flavor is slated to hit stores Nov.

A recent UK poll indicates that Gordon Ramsay Holdings is the
most admired restaurant brand in Great Britain. The restaurant group of the famed chef and TV personality
Gordon Ramsay topped the list of restaurant chain operators in a survey by consulting firm
Allegra Strategies, beating
McDonald's, which ranked number three, by two spots.
Ramsay
owns 11 restaurants in the UK alone, plus
three pubs, as well dining spots in New York, Los Angeles, Prague, Versailles, Dubai, and Tokyo, among others.
Darden Restaurants announced that beginning next week, it
will install wood-fired grills in all 680
Red Lobster restaurants.
The company has been testing the wood-grilled menu for over a year, and will train 3,500 employees on the grills. New items will be going on the menu, such as wood-grilled lobster, wood-grilled sirloin and shrimp, and wood-grilled fish.

Next month, number one
fast-food giant
McDonald's will unveil a
redesign of all its food products around the world. In what the corporation calls "the most comprehensive rollout in the brand's history," all 118 countries with McDonald's restaurants will launch new designs that advertise the chain's high-quality ingredients. The packaging, developed by UK marketing firm
Boxer, draws attention to fresh ingredients and preparation: The new
Big Mac box includes images of an onion, slices of cheese, a head of lettuce, and a freshly made hamburger, with the words "100 percent beef" and "all-beef patties" inscribed on the box.

Two months ago, we reported the
end of restaurant chains Bennigan's and Steak & Ale. Well, we've just learned that they're
coming back to life! Private equity firm Atalaya is buying the two brands and their trademarks.

Top fast food chain
McDonald's announced its third-quarter earnings today, and made reassurances that it would continue its efforts to be "recession-resistant."
The corporation made sure to squash swirling rumors that its
dollar menu may become a thing of the past. There will, in fact,
still be a dollar menu.

As colossal coffee chain
Starbucks struggles to keep up with past profit margins, its competitors continue to move in for the kill. Earlier this month, breakfast chain
Dunkin' Donuts introduced
its version of a recession deal. Now, in its latest ad campaign, the chain is
claiming it beat Starbucks in a blind taste test.In the campaign, Dunkin' Donuts, which is currently in the middle of a
national expansion effort, airs a new TV spot and launched a website,
Dunkin' Beat Starbucks, that will highlight the results of the taste test.