Numlock News: September 29, 2026 • Mallomars, Radar, Shelf Life

Sep 29, 2026

By Walt Hickey

Bogeys

Robin Radar is a Dutch company that was formed five decades ago with the goal of producing radar systems that could manage the tricky task of detecting birds, with the goal of preventing the animals from striking aircraft. Soon enough, warfare increasingly began to rely on small, lightweight drones, and the company’s shift to drone detection systems has paid off incredibly handsomely, with Ukraine-driven and -inspired business pushing sales of those radar systems well above the bird business. Last year, the company booked 115 million euros (US$131 million) in sales, up 174 percent from 2023’s sales. About 300 of the 800 drone radars installed globally are in Ukraine, but its tech has also protected the FIFA World Cup, the Paris Olympics and a brisk business in the Middle East.

Charlotte Hughes-Morgan, Bloomberg

Mallomar

The seasonal re-emergence of Mallomar cookies in September has arrived, as the cold-weather chocolate-covered marshmallow and graham cracker snack hits shelves. The tempered chocolate melts in summer, so Mondelēz just doesn’t bother producing them then, not to mention that a little seasonal scarcity can go a long way in getting people to stock up once the treat becomes available. The cookie is still relatively small, though a steady and reliable performer, racking up $11 million in annual sales despite effectively no marketing; it’s also expanded beyond its traditional regional footprint in the Northeast, thanks in part to snowbirds who split to Florida and demanded Publix stock the cookie.

Christopher Doering, Food Dive

Sour Grapes

Though it may be harvest time for grapes, California vineyards are dealing with a serious contraction in demand for the fruit. While the state has 600,000 acres of vineyards, as it stands, farmers have removed or stopped growing wine grapes on about a quarter of that area; despite this, California is still producing too many grapes. In the United States, sales of wine cases declined from 427 million in 2020 to 329 million in 2025, and total wine spending dropped 22 percent from $94 billion to $74 billion. Globally, wine consumption is down 14 percent from 2018, and there’s been some serious issues in the export business, with the largest international buyer of California wine, Canada, eschewing Napa and Sonoma following tariffs and more direct geopolitical slights.

Terry Chea, The Associated Press

Downhill

Vail Resorts, one of the two large ski resort companies, is reporting expectations of a very soft winter, with the company selling 12 percent fewer annual passes through September 18 for the coming North American season compared to the same period of last year. This was already a rough year for Vail, which reported a revenue decline of 4.5 percent thanks to record low snowfall in the West, where many of its resorts are located. The main issue for Vail, though, is that the crux of its business — selling its multi-resort Epic Pass to dedicated skiers — may have essentially hit its total addressable market, and the company has had to cut the price of an Epic Pass for skiers aged 13 to 30 by 20 percent in order to develop the market.

Allison Pohle and Katherine Hamilton, The Wall Street Journal

Automobiles

China has a car manufacturing capacity of about 40 million vehicles per year, which greatly exceeds demand, which is under 20 million vehicles domestically and 10 million vehicles exported. The government has been eager for a wave of consolidation in the automobile business, which remains relatively fractured among a number of companies, and has pushed automakers to increase cross-regional consolidation. The combined market share of the five top-selling carmakers in China has remained stubbornly low, given how many companies are in the space, totaling just 47 percent in the first eight months of the year.

Gloria Li, Nikkei Asia

Airfare

The price of a barrel of jet fuel cost $99 on February 27, the day before the United States’ war with Iran began, a price that doubled to $209 by April and has since settled at around $195 per barrel in mid-September. That in turn has led to a surge in airfare prices that have remained stubbornly high even as the price of kerosene fluctuates; the average fare increased from $405 in the final three months of 2025 to $428 in the first quarter and remained $436 in the April-June period; Hopper, which tracks fares, expects the price of a round-trip ticket for Thanksgiving travel to come in 31 percent higher than last year.

Rio Yamat, The Associated Press

Shelf Life

A new study published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology found that participants tended to rate products with shorter shelf lives as being healthier. In one portion of the study, participants were asked to compare potato chips with a five-month shelf life with chips with a nine-month shelf life, and they rated the shorter-lived chips as both more natural and more healthy. In another experiment, when researchers primed the subjects by emphasizing the importance of consuming natural foods, participants chose a pasta sauce with a one-year shelf life 70 percent of the time over a pasta sauce with a three-year shelf life. When researchers primed them by emphasizing the importance of protecting the environment, that flipped, and they went with the one-year shelf-life sauce only 43 percent of the time.

University of British Columbia

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Numlock News is written each day by Walt Hickey. Email me with numbers, tips or feedback at walt@numlock.news. Every post is entirely by a human; send corrections or typos to the copy desk at copy@numlock.news. If you enjoy Numlock, tell a friend, word of mouth is the only way that independent publications like this one grow.

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