Pulling the Plug on CrunchFood

Michael Arrington

Sometimes it’s tough to be me. Sure, the money’s good, the naked adulation is exhilarating, the ability to control the destiny of thousands of food executives with some random typing on my keyboard is virtually all-consuming. But am I really happy? Is being able to ruin the career of some dork at Oscar Mayer by refusing to cover the latest launch of Lunchables all there is?

I don’t think so. And so I’m closing CrunchFood, and all the rest of the “Crunches” for that matter. I’m even abandoning the scheduled launch of our physical fitness site, CrunchCrunch. I’ll keep TechCrunch going for a short while; I can’t get Duncan Riley to stop posting—he’s got like 55 more posts in the hopper, so I owe that to him. But then it’s over.

I’d like to take a moment to thank the people who covered the launch of CrunchFood and also to apologize for its quick demise. Being a quasi-journalist myself, I know how angry it makes me when the subject of a story makes me look like a patsy. So, thanks to Jim Ledbetter at Fortune, Owen Thomas at Valleywag, Kara Swisher at All Things D, Brian Gardiner at Wired, Andy Baio at Waxy.org, John Murrell at Good Morning Silicon Valley, Tom Cole, Allison Mooney at PSFK and all you others who sent some of your visitors our way. Also, thanks to everyone that commented, especially the guy pushing his turkey farm in Ann Arbor.

And of course, thanks to me, Michael Arrington, for mentioning this site in CrunchNotes earlier this week.  Without me, the rest of you probably never would have even seen this blog, and I think I’ve been a damn good sport about the whole thing.

Come back next week and I’ll tell you my real identity before signing off for good. Until then, I offer you the last four titles of CrunchFood posts that I’m just too disillusioned to bother writing:

Generics: Me-Too Foods That No One Likes

Is Corn Really More Popular Than Cake? CornScore Says Yes. CornScore is Useless

Does Champagne Signal A Bubble?

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