Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• HR's vital role in how employees spend their time, talent, and energy (HBR)
• The TV ad isn't going anywhere - it's going everywhere (Wired)
• Walgreens and Rite Aid cut price of merger (NYT)
• The rise of new retail models (Progressive Grocer)
• IKEA's 'open source' sofa invites customization (WSJ)

Stephan's Monday Picks

• Grocery store tomatoes taste like cardboard - Florida researchers are fixing that (LA Times)
• How retailers should think about online versus in-store pricing (HBR)
• Target tightens grip over chemicals in bid to make goods safer (Bloomberg)
• Tesco's cunning succession plan (Gadfly)
• Vendors skeptical as Walmart changes sourcing roles (Supermarket News)

Stephan's Friday Picks

• How NAFTA fueled the great avocado boom (Vox)
• American beef boom is probably over, squeezing Tyson Foods (Bloomberg)
• Amazon now has over 250 Dash buttons for easy ordering (Engadget)
• Uncommon sense: Wrangling data in a big-data world (Nielsen)
• Tesco to buy Budgens and Londis brand owner Booker for $4.6B (BBC)

Stephan's Thursday Picks

• Reorganizing supermarket layouts could make us eat more veggies (Food and Wine)
• Mall owners rush to get out of the mall business (WSJ)
• Ahold Delhaize CEO: We continue to focus on fresh (Bloomberg)
• Samsung looks to repair consumer trust (WSJ)
• Dynamic capabilities at Samsung: Optimizing internal co-opetition (Berkeley)

Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• The world's biggest public companies (Forbes)
• Why ex-Canadian Tire CEO Michael Medline is the man to fix Sobeys (Canadian Business)
• Metro considers switching from Air Miles over consumer backlash (Globe and Mail)
• Target plans to introduce its own smartphone payment service in stores later this year (Recode)
• Much of the cuisine we now know, and think of as ours, came to us by war (Smithsonian Mag)

Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• Really big data at Walmart: Real-time insights from their 40+ petabyte data cloud (Forbes)
• How the barcode changed retailing and manufacturing (BBC)
• Swedish supermarket replaces sticky labels with laser marking (The Guardian)
• The cost-plus format is making a comeback (Supermarket News)
• Retail malaise puts pressure on chains to shutter more stores (Bloomberg)

Stephan's Monday Picks

• The most coveted ball in golf is from Costco (WSJ)
• When robots take all our jobs, remember the luddites (Smithsonian Mag)
• Why innovators should study the rise and fall of the Venetian Empire (HBR)
• HR at a crossroads? Time for a better lens (Deloitte)
• Tim Hortons, Burger King launching mobile order-and-pay app in Canada (Toronto Star)

Stephan's Friday Picks

• Sarah Davis named Loblaw president amid Galen Weston executive shift (Financial Post)
• Nestle should leave baby food maker Mead Johnson in the corner (Gadfly)
• How Kraft Heinz plans to build a new global food giant (Fortune)
• 2016 was a record year for data breaches (Bloomberg)
• Do online reviews matter to businesses (K@W)

Stephan's Thursday Picks

• An MIT professor designed the supermarket of the future (Business Insider)
• The firm of the future (Bain)
• Second-class shareholders becoming the new normal (Financial Post)
• General Mills turns to kale chips to boost growth (Bloomberg)
• Do digital brands need physical stores (Business of Fashion)

Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• Sears clings to catalog thinking in an online world (NYT)
• The wonder of Wegmans (PYMNTS)
• British American Tobacco takes control of Reynolds for $49bn (BBC)
• Japan's richest man loses $1.4 billion in one day due to 'warm weather' (Yahoo) 
• Traditional retailers are using a trick to make same-store sales look better (Business Insider)

Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• Last on the shelf: How products dwindle out of favor (WSJ)
• Muhtar Kent: What I've learned as CEO of Coca-Cola (Fortune)
• Stefano Pessina, Walgreens Boots Alliance, on dealmaking (Financial Times)
• Woolworths appoints Tesco veteran as supermarkets boss (Sydney Morning Herald)
• The rise of visual content online (MIT SMR)

Stephan's Monday Reads

• Food typically purchased by SNAP households (U.S. Department of Agriculture)
• Supermarkets urged to share customers' data (Brisbane Times)
• Note to dejected U.S. retailers: Malls are still big in Canada (Bloomberg)
• Beauty is skin deep, but ugly produce causes much deeper waste issues (Food Dive)
• Jet.com founder shakes up Walmart staff (CNBC)

Stephan's Friday Picks

• Sobey's parent Empire Co. names Michael Medline as new CEO (Empire)
• Americans are drinking less milk, but can't get enough cheese (Bloomberg)
• Three brands ahead of the mobile curve (L2)
• Amazon to add 100,000 jobs as bricks-and-mortar retail crumbles (NYT)
• In retailing, assortment is job one (HBR)

Stephan's Thursday Picks

• The dark (and often dubious) art of forecasting food trends (NYT)
• How retailers can cope as egg prices bounce back (Food Dive)
• Can an ethnic beverage brand challenge Coca-Cola in India (K@W)
• What is Filipino food and where to eat it (Bloomberg)
• Whole Foods cancels Alberta expansion plans as Canadian expansion plan slows (Globe and Mail)

Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• The case against overly perky salespeople (Bloomberg)
• Hudson's Bay Co shares hit all time low (Financial Post)
• How to be an effective early-stage employee. Hint: Be helpful (Medium)
• Gildan of Montreal pays $88 million for insolvent American Apparel brand (CBC)
• The great department store meltdown? Or a bumpy transformation? (Robin Report)

Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• Why is healthy food so expensive? Maybe because we expect it to be (WaPo)
• Inside Sears' death spiral (Business Insider)
• All things pass: The next CEO of Sam's Club (Kantar Retail)
• Rethinking pharma productivity (MQ)
• Do corporate boards pick the best CEO (Stanford)

Stephan's Monday Picks

• Department stores, once anchors in malls, become millstones (NYT)
• Cause and effect: do prescription drug ads work (K@W)
• AB In-Bev to work with Keurig on a home solution for boozy drinks (Bloomberg)
• Food supply chain suffers 40% food loss post-harvest: Will disruptive tech help (Supply Chain Dive)
• Ray Dalio offers a radical solution to the threat of 'fake news' and details life inside Bridgewater (Business Insider)

Stephan's Friday Picks

• A study of 46,000 shoppers shows that omni-channel retailing works (HBR)
• Walmart strikes deal with Visa to settle credit card fee dispute (CBC)
• Walgreens Boots CEO: No Plan B for Rite Aid merger (WSJ)
• Nestle looks for ways to boost stale growth as consumers snub unhealthy food (The Economist)
• The American food paradox: Growing obese and growing hungry (Working Knowledge)

Stephan's Thursday Picks

• Canadian scientists are trying to make your tomatoes tasty again (Globe and Mail)
• J.C. Penney strikes sale-and-leaseback deal for Texas headquarters (WSJ)
• Amazon, Forever 21 vying for bankrupt American Apparel (Reuters)
• Corporations need a new reason to be (Bloomberg View)
• Low wage workers are getting a raise, economists are getting an experiment (538)

Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• Managers push back against big data (Financial Times)
• The store as a showroom (Huffington Post)
• How Starbucks's culture brings its strategy to life (HBR)
• 5 new retail technologies coming to a store near you (Toronto Star)
• How is mobile changing the loyalty program game (CG)

Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• How to stop short-term thinking at America's companies (The Atlantic)
• How 4 retailers became "best places to work" (HBR)
• How much sugar can you avoid today (NYT)
• A manifesto to end meetings (WSJ)
• How to make sure nothing gets done at work (Fortune)