Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• Toronto-based sushi-chain Bento plans IPO on TSX (CBC)
• Nestle's Maggi cuts salt to curry favour with health conscious (Bloomberg)
• The secret life of the aluminum can, a feat of engineering (Wired)
• How a gene editing tool went from labs to a middle school classroom (NPR)
• Smucker to acquire the Wesson Oil brand from Conagra for $285 million (J.M. Smucker)

Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• Eataly opens giant Moscow shop with no parmesan or Pama ham (Bloomberg)
• How corporate values get hijacked and misused (HBR)
• China is building some of the world's biggest packaged food companies (Bloomberg)
• The plant-based meatless burger is coming to the meat aisle of its first grocery chain (Quartz)
• Food fight: Jeff York is growing the Farm Boy chain one chef-prepared meal at a time (Financial Post)

Stephan's Monday Picks

• Upgrading the payments grid: The payoffs are greater than you think (Bank of Canada)
• The curious case of the disappearing nuts (Outside Online)
• Food megabrands to smaller rivals: Can't beat em, join em (Investopedia)
• The grocery shopping revolution (Consumer Reports)
• Consumers throw out over 40% of bagged leaves (The Guardian)

Stephan's Friday Picks

• Drones go to work (HBR)
• Target is said to invest $75 million in bedding startup Casper (Bloomberg)
• Kimbal Musk says food is the new internet (WSJ)
• Food tech patent watch: Pizza robots, synthetic meats, and more (CB Insights)
• Sears posts profit on Craftsman sale, cost cuts (Globe and Mail)

Stephan's Thursday Picks

• The business logic in debiasing (McKinsey)
• Amazon sets up shop in the heart of the publishing industry (NYT)
• The future of Whole Foods isn't about groceries (Bloomberg)
• The rice industry is furious at the existence of 'cauliflower rice' (Quartz)
• Does corporate storytelling work? Some mega-brands say no (Mark Schaefer)

Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• Consumer and retail M&A in 2017 (AT Kearney)
• Chinese online retailer JD.com is developing heavy-duty delivery drones (WSJ)
• Many workers at 'world changing' tech companies may as well work at Walmart (Quartz)
• The wondrous, and completely terrifying world of food (Fast Company)
• General Mills loses the culture wars (Fortune)

Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• Paul Polman: 'I could boost Unilever's shares. But cutting costs is not our way' (The Guardian)
• The art of war with Amazon (BoF)
• James Quincey, Coca-Cola CEO, on why brands have to take a stand (Financial Times)
• The never-ending battle for space on Canada's grocery shelves (Globe and Mail)
• The power of consumer stories in digital marketing (MIT SMR)

Stephan's Friday Picks

• VCs hunt for a food delivery business that's sustainable (Bloomberg)
• Policymakers around the world are embracing behavioural science (The Economist)
• How to close a store (Racked)
• H-E-B wins with fun, customer sourced, own brand commercial campaign (Own Brands Now)
• Two candy giants have fought in court for years over the shape of Kit Kat bars (Quartz)

Stephan's Thursday Picks

• Inside Lidl's blueprint to invade the US grocery market (Food Dive)
• Is British fast fashion too fast (Racked)
• This secretive dealmaker bets Wall Street is wrong on retail (Bloomberg)
• Trader Joe's cauliflower pizza is causing a ruckus (Bon Appetit)
• What's now and next in analytics, AI, and automation (McKinsey)

Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• It's probably more accurate to call breakfast the most dangerous meal of the day (Washington Post)
• 20 years on, Amazon and Jeff Bezos prove naysayers wrong (NYT)
• Britain's Sainsbury's looks to fashion instead of food (BoF)
• Lowe's is giving its workers exoskeletons to help lift very heavy things (Quartz)
• A decision support system for retail assortment planning (Retail Category Management)

Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• Britain's supermarkets don't want to be supermarkets (Gadfly)
• Sears CEO Eddie Lampert wary of 'opportunistic suppliers' (Globe and Mail)
• The beautiful upside of ugly produce (Civil Eats)
• Is the Amazon effect overrated (Forbes)
• Aldi ready for supermarket price war (The Guardian)

Stephan's Monday Picks

• How to become a customer-centric grocer (BCG)
• The crop that ate America (Bloomberg)
• How Sephora is thriving amid a retail crisis (NYT)
• Food research lab tracks consumer habits (CBC)
• Robert Cialdini on persuasion (Financial Times)

Stephan's Friday Picks

• Aldi raises stakes in U.S. price war with Walmart (Reuters)
• The curse of the consultants is spreading fast (Financial Times)
• Coke's new CEO must win over a new generation that shuns sugar (Bloomberg)
• Amazon goes north, forcing Canadian retailers out of hibernation (Bloomberg)
• Adidas sells golf business for $425 million (ESPN)

Stephan's Thursday Picks

• How the U.S. army recruits and retains millennials (Kellogg Insight)
• Amazon trounces rivals in battle of the shopping 'bots' (Reuters)
• The long, hard, unprecedented fall of Sears (Bloomberg)
• Four digital commerce lessons from Bonobos (Econsultancy)
• Whole Foods buys time (Gadfly)

Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• Jeff Bezos explains Amazon's artificial intelligence and machine learning strategy (Geekwire)
• Prepared food distribution service Power Supply rebrands as Territory and raises $6.7 million (Tech Crunch)
• Fresh food by prescription (NPR)
• Coke is hurting from the switch to online shopping too (Bloomberg)
• Winning in Polish grocery (Oliver Wyman)

Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• Alex Behring reveals his investment philosophy (Financial Times)
• Losses are the new black (L2)
• Why the retail crisis could be coming to American groceries (Bloomberg)
• Reinventing rice for a world transformed by climate change (MIT Technology Review)
• The superfood gold rush (NYT)

Stephan's Monday Picks

• Can Walmart's expensive new e-commerce operation compete with Amazon (Bloomberg)
• How discounters are remaking the grocery industry (BCG)
• Digital advertising takes a hit (MIT Technology Review)
• Why Hudson's Bay is shopping for a takeover amid 2017's retail bloodbath (Retail Dive)
• Stories vs Statistics (Collaborative Fund)

Stephan's Friday Picks

• Empire launches major transformation initiative (Empire)
• Unilever strikes deal with rival on bet in Myanmar (Financial Times)
• Why don't people return their shopping carts (Scientific American)
• The wine industry's battle with climate change (High Country News)
• The evolution of the digital supply chain (Logistics Management)

Stephan's Thursday Picks

• A chicken that grows slower and tastes better (NYT)
• Loblaws sees food prices moderating this year, but grocery wars still fierce (Globe and Mail)
• Kraft Heinz faces pressure to do a deal as sales stagnate (Bloomberg)
• Sainsbury's profits fall after 'pivotal' year (The Telegraph)
• Tesco launches campaign to drive its health credentials (Marketing Week)

Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• Who wants disease-resistant GM tomatoes? Probably not Europe (Wired)
• Ocado's ideas for happiness at home (Gadfly)
• Sustaining the aquaculture revolution (Chemical & Engineering News)
• Back to basics (CG)
• Cauliflower is the new kale (Bloomberg)

Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• Is there room for Tim Hortons on UK high streets (The Guardian)
• Paper or plastic? Canadian scientist at centre of grocery debate (CBC)
• Mondelez serves up 10 business cliches in one sentence (Financial Times)
• How artificial intelligence is pushing man and machine together (pwc)
• The business school boondoggle (WSJ)

Stephan's Monday Picks

• At Sobeys, 'change is imminent' (Globe and Mail)
• Trader Joe's new $4 4-pack of wine is a midsummer's night dream (Bon Appetit)
• New teams to lead Ahold Delhaize's brand-centric model (Progressive Grocer)
• Hard times for Whole Foods (The Guardian)
• Marks & Spencer and Ocado plot food delivery shakeup (The Telegraph)