Traffic to salad chains dropped because people stopped eating salads. Why did they stop eating salads? Cyclospora outbreaks. A parasite that lives in greens and makes you sh*t yourself for weeks.
The restaurant industry spent two decades convincing Americans that eleven dollars for chopped lettuce in a bowl represented progress. They built entire chains around the concept. Fast-casual dining. Clean eating. Wellness. Then a microscopic organism reminded everyone that raw vegetables are just dirt with better marketing.
Retail traders saw the headlines and immediately checked their portfolios. Do I own salad stocks? Is there an ETF for this? Should I short romaine? They frantically Googled "cyclospora" while eating Chipotle burrito bowls, which contain the exact same greens, because pattern recognition is not their strong suit.
The parasite doesn't care about your technical indicators. It doesn't respect support levels. Cyclospora moves on volume alone, specifically the volume of contaminated irrigation water used on farms that supply every major distributor. But sure, check the RSI on your Sweetgreen position. That'll help.
Salad chains watched their foot traffic collapse in real time. Customers simply chose different foods. Foods that required heat. Cooking kills parasites. This is not advanced science. Humans figured this out approximately ten thousand years ago, right around the time we discovered fire, but the twenty-dollar grain bowl demographic needed a few outbreaks to jog their memory.
The funniest part? The same people avoiding salads right now will be back in three months. They'll forget. They always forget. Cyclospora will still be there, living its best life in organic spring mix, waiting patiently for the news cycle to move on and for idiots to return to their kale.
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