Stephan's Monday Picks

• When Sobeys met Safeway (Globe and Mail)
• Doubts about the promised bounty of genetically modified crops (NYT)
• The $100 million U.S. government fish farm nobody wants (Bloomberg)
• Attack of the cyber drones (Gadfly)
• How to improve online grocery: Learning from Kroger, Walmart (Forbes)
• These are Tesla's stunning new solar roof tiles for homes (Tech Crunch)
• Global consumers are no longer willing to pay full price for clothing (Quartz)
• Inside America's most sustainable supermarket (Food and Wine)

Stephan's Friday Picks

• Why are department stores so scared of Halloween (Business of Fashion)
• Improv-da: How Palantir has made corporate orthodoxy out of experimental theater (The Baffler)
• Frozen food comes in from the cold (Bloomberg)
• Grocers feel chill from millennials (WSJ)
• Whole Foods eyes millennials with meal delivery test (Fortune)
• U.S. retailers should pay attention to Lidl and Aldi's big problems in Ireland (Forbes)
• New technique may prevent the gruesome death of billions of male chicks (WaPo)

Stephan's Thursday Picks

• How Coca-Cola is fighting to keep its sales from becoming a casualty of the sugar wars (Forbes)
• Blue Apron is on pace for more than $1 billion in sales as it preps for an IPO (recode)
• Heineken puts faith in its seasoned CEO to take on AB InBev Goliath (WSJ)
• Competition Bureau ramps up probe into Loblaw pricing practices (Globe and Mail)
• Use social influences to be a better manager (Stanford)
• One of retail's most recognizable logos and the Minneapolis PR man who created it (Adweek)
• Internal Amazon documents reveal a vision of up to 2,000 grocery stores across the US (Business Insider)

Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• Shoppers Drug Mart formally applies to distribute medical marijuana (CBC)
• In Marlboro country, a big-money race for the new smoke (Bloomberg)
• What books inspired famous startup founders (Equities)
• Managing the bots that are managing the business (MIT SMR)
• Deal making preserves Coors clan as American beer dynasty (WSJ)
• Grocery e-tailer Satvacart attracts more angel investment (VC Circle)
• Uber self-driving truck packed with Budweiser makes first delivery in Colorado (Bloomberg)
• Online grocery shopping comes to Metro (CG)

Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• Meet the billionaires of Thailand's Red Bull fortune (Bloomberg)
• Philly was the first major US city to pass a soda tax. The mayor has advice for others (Vox)
• One of the most popular fruit crops in the world could be decimated by disease (Business Insider)
• It's time to think about flowers like we do about produce (Wired)
• How an analytics mindset changes marketing culture (HBR)
• Walmart insider says 'heartbreaking' amount of food dumped in trash (CBC)
• Blue Apron's winding road to an IPO (PYMNTS)
• No, content isn't king (Gadfly)

Stephan's Monday Picks

• The year ahead 2017: Retail (Bloomberg) 
• This is why you shouldn't believe that exciting new medical story (Vox)
• Push my buttons: Experiments in automated consumption (Economist)
• The many challenges of CPG and retail startups (Collaborative Fund)
• To Amazon and Wal-Mart, big data and small data are one and the same (Forbes)
• The weird economics of Ikea (fivethirtyeight)
• Watch out Wal-Mart. Amazon is coming after the grocery business (Bloomberg) 

Stephan's Friday Picks

• How 'Cage-Free' hens live (NYT)
• Why grocery stores are pushing packaged foods to the perimeter (Canadian Grocer)
• Google got it wrong. The open-office trend is destroying the workplace (WaPo)
• Tesco fires opening salvo at Sainsbury's in Christmas toy battle (Bloomberg)
• Aldi is fixing a major weakness and coming straight for Whole Foods (Business Insider)
• Alibaba launches 'Singles Day' promotions three weeks early (Retail Dive)

Stephan's Thursday Picks

• MOFAD City - Stories behind the way America eats today (Eater)
• Tesco boss: 'Food price inflation could be lethal for struggling millions' (The Guardian)
• Make it easier for happy customers to buy more (HBR)
• Pizza, the unsung agent of the robot revolution (Ars Technica)
• Business solutions that help cut food waste (Harvard)
• Is Amazon's "Last Mile" the "Last Straw" breaking retailers' backs? (Robin Report)

Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• The quest for quality in fresh-food retailing (MQ)
• Why Doctors Without Borders refused a million free vaccines (The Atlantic)
• Western Europe's consumer-goods industry in 2030 (MQ)
• Let's not kill performance reviews yet (HBR)
• Men not at work (Brookings)
• Walmart is now letting you stream a bunch of movies for free - with ads (Business Insider)
• Sainsbury's boss Mike Coupe: It is nonsensical to doubt Argos acquisition (Marketing Week)

Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• America now has 1.2 billion pounds of excess cheese - and nowhere to put it (Vox)
• Coty adds a touch-up deal (Bloomberg)
• What Walmart's pay-rise experiment says about the future of low-wage work (Economist)
• The return of the avocado as a luxury item (The Atlantic)
• Betting on zero-based budgeting's trifecta (Bain)
• Beware the little-known "spillover" effect of online ads (Stanford)
• Tesco price dispute sends Unilever brand perceptions tumbling (Marketing Week)

Stephan's Monday Picks

• How did Walmart get cleaner stores and higher sales? It paid its people more (NYT)
• How Target and Amazon are changing the rules of retailing (Knowledge@Wharton)
• What's healthy? What's natural" (The Atlantic)
• Is salmon jerky the next million-dollar snack food (Bloomberg)
• PepsiCo sets global target for sugar reduction (Reuters)
• Wells Fargo's textbook case of botched crisis management (WSJ)

Stephan's Friday Picks

• Marmite-gate is over: Unilever ends dispute with Tesco, says products will be 'fully available' (The Telegraph)
• Inside the secret, backroom deals big brands make to vie for control over grocery stores (Quartz)
• Creating good jobs at a Texas grocery chain (MIT)
• Succession "losers": What happens to executives passed over for the CEO job? (Stanford GSB)
• Hershey CEO Bilbrey to retire in July, stay as non-executive chairman (Reuters)

Stephan's Thursday Picks

• Amazon to expand grocery business with new convenience stores (WSJ)
• Wal-Mart, Kroger strive to counter Amazon's grocery challenge (WSJ)
• Molson Coors plans to bring more beers to Canada with Miller acquisition (The Globe and Mail)
• Sainsbury's to take on department store look in fight against discounters (The Guardian)
• Nestle just snatched up another big biopharma exec in its health care push (Fortune)
• Hidden in plain sight (The Robin Report)
• One of America's biggest meat companies just invested in vegan burgers (Vice)
• The Impossible Foods burger heads west (Tech Crunch)
• Tesco removes Marmite and other Unilever brands in price row (BBC)
• Food prices are dropping. Restaurant prices aren't (WaPo)

Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• The dizzying grandeur of 21st-century agriculture (NYT)
• Liquid assets: How the business of bottled water went mad (The Guardian)
• A fresh take on supply chain innovation (MIT SMR)
• Global e-commerce grocery market has grown 15% to 48bn (Kantar)
• Modern retail supply chains: Backbone for omnichannel (Bain)
• Walgreens differentiates customer experience with beauty enthusiast (Loyalty360)

Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• Honeycrisp was just the beginning (Vox)
• Making data analytics work for you (MQ)
• Wal-Mart and Flipkart: A grocery giant in the making? (Bloomberg)
• Unilever's 'People Insights' approach to understanding the customer (AMA)
• The role of IOT in the evolving retail landscape (Robin Report)
• Whole Foods sets up shop in low-income neighbourhoods (WSJ)

Stephan's Friday Picks

• Stop trying to sound smart when you're writing (HBR)
• Wal-Mart forecast disappoints as McMillon overhaul continues (Bloomberg)
• Why zero-based budgeting is shaking up the food sector (just-food)

Stephan's Thursday Picks

• Best Global Brands 2016 Rankings (Interbrand)
• Food prices are falling. How are customers benefiting? (WaPo)
• What it takes to build a data-driven customer insights approach (CMO)
• Clayton Christensen has a new theory (WSJ)
• Unilever: The biggest digital start-up in the world? (Econsultancy)

Stephan's Post-Wild Card Picks

• Touch 'em all, Edwin! (ESPN)

Stephan's Tuesday Reads

• Blue Apron is on pace for more than $1 billion in sales as it preps for an IPO (Recode)
• Wal-Mart's CIO on the retailer's push into online grocery shopping (WSJ)
• Lidl is coming: 12 reasons U.S. retailers should care (Forbes)
• Customer loyalty in the age of big data (Knowledge@Wharton)
• The 'insight-driven business': How to become a master of the data universe (Enterprise Tech)

Stephan's Monday Picks

• Gut feeling: new CEO to steer Nestle down uncharted health path (Reuters)
• Strategic decisions: When can you trust your gut? (MQ)
• PepsiCo's practical application of supply chain resilience strategies (Forbes)
• Using "digital footprints" to predict consumer motivation online (RTInsights)
• M&S's deafening silence (Bloomberg Gadfly)