Best of Pax Westona: May 2017

• ·         Alex Behring reveals his investment philosophy (Financial Times)
• ·         How to become a customer-centric grocer (BCG)
• ·         How discounters are re-making the grocery industry (BCG)
• ·         Empire launches major transformation initiative (Empire)
• ·         Who wants disease-resistant GMO tomatoes? Probably not Europe (Wired)
• ·         How the U.S. Army recruits and retains millennials (Kellogg Insight)
• ·         Drones go to work (Harvard Business Review)
• ·         H-E-B wins with fun, customer sourced own brand commercial campaign (Own Brands Now)
• ·         Is British fast fashion too fast (Racked)
• ·         General Mills loses the culture war (Fortune)

Best of Pax Westona: April 2017

• ·         Boston Dynamics has been using its robotic ‘dog’ to deliver packages in Boston (Recode)
• ·         Walmart’s plan to trick people into saving money (The Atlantic)
• ·         A rare venture capitalist – female and retail-focused (New York Times)
• ·         Amex, challenged by Chase, is losing the snob war (New York Times)
• ·         How Dollarama became the retail king of knockoffs (Macleans)
• ·         How Amazon Go ‘probably’ makes ‘just walk out’ groceries a reality (Ars Technica)
• ·         How Trader Joe’s wine became cheaper than bottled water (Thrillist)
• ·         Strategic choices need to be made simultaneously, not sequentially (Harvard Business Review)
• ·         Amazon wants Cheerios, Oreos, and other brands to bypass Walmart (Bloomberg)
• ·         Amazon and Walmart are in an all-out price war that are terrifying America’s biggest brand (Recode)

Best of Pax Westona: March 2017

• ·         Reckoning in retail (L2)
• ·         Amazon’s ambitions unboxed (New York Times)
• ·         The brain in the supermarket (MIT News)
• ·         How Chobani’s Hamdi Ulkaya is winning America’s culture war (Fast Company)
• ·         Inside Amazon’s battle to break into the $800 billion grocery market (Bloomberg)
• ·         We have no idea how bad fast fashion actually is for the environment (Racked)
• ·         Capturing value from your customer data (McKinsey)
• ·         The rise (and fall?) of food writing (The Ringer)
• ·         Blockchain: A better way to track pork chops, bonds, bad peanut butter (New York Times)
• ·         An inside look at the ups and downs of Walmart’s journey (Harvard Business Review)

Best of Pax Westona: February 2017

• ·         Warren Buffet’s letter to shareholders (Berkshire Hathaway)
• ·         Inside the brutal transformation of Tim Hortons (The Globe and Mail)
• ·         Do sin taxes really change customer behaviour (Knowledge @ Wharton)
• ·         Amazon’s living lab: Re-imagining retail on Seattle’s streets (New York Times)
• ·         The making of a brand (The Collaborative Fund)
• ·         This company rents brains to PepsiCo and others with thorny problems (Bloomberg)
• ·         1 in 7 employees are stars. The best companies cluster them together (Harvard Business Review)
• ·         Should government control what low-income people eat (Brookings)
• ·         Leading people too smart to be led (Harvard Business Review)
• ·         Robotic grocers have learned how to handle vegetables (MIT Technology Review)

Best of Pax Westona: January 2017

• ·         How the barcode changed retailing and manufacturing (BBC)
• ·         Stefano Pessina, Walgreens Boots Alliance, on dealmaking (Financial Times)
• ·         How products dwindle out of favor (Wall Street Journal)
• ·         The dark (and often dubious) art of forecasting food trends (New York Times)
• ·         The case against overly perky salespeople (Bloomberg)
• ·         How to be an effective early-stage employee. Hint: Be helpful (Medium)
• ·         Inside Sears’ death spiral (Business Insider)
• ·         Nestle looks for ways to boost stale growth as consumers snub unhealthy food (The Economist)
• ·         Canadian scientists are trying to make your tomatoes tasty again (The Globe and Mail)
• ·         How to stop short-term thinking at America’s companies (The Atlantic)

Best of Pax Weston: December 2016

• ·         How breakfast cereal got its sugar fix (The Globe and Mail)
• ·         Perception beats reality in pricing (Bain)
• ·         Customer loyalty is overrated (Harvard Business Review)
• ·         Millennials are fine without fabric softener. P&G looks to change that (Wall Street Journal)
• ·         The age of analytics: Competing in a data-driven world (McKinsey)
• ·         A blueprint for the future of food (New York Times)
• ·         Inside Costco: The magic in the warehouse (Fortune)
• ·         How humans became consumers: A history (The Atlantic)
• ·         Building a better customer insight capability (BCG)
• ·         The sales practices of Europe’s leading consumer-goods companies (McKinsey)

Best of Pax Westona: November 2016

• ·         Are consumers turned off by too many choices? Not yet (Stanford GSB Insights)
• ·         The hidden war over grocery shelf space (Vox)
• ·         Sustainable sources of competitive advantage (The Collaborative Fund)
• ·         These professors make more than a thousand bucks a year peddling mega-mergers (Propublica)
• ·         How two trailblazing psychologists turned the world of decision science upside down (Vanity Fair)
• ·         No laptop, no phone, no desk: UBS reinvents the work space (New York Times)
• ·         How retailers can improve price perception, profitably (McKinsey)
• ·         M&S’s chequered history of global expansion (The Guardian)
• ·         The lost art of thinking in large organizations (MIT Sloan Management Review)
• ·         Why executives don’t trust their own data and analytics insights (Fast Company)

Best of Pax Westona: October 2016

• ·         When Sobeys met Safeway (The Globe and Mail)
• ·         Doubts about the perceived bounty of genetically modified crops (New York Times)
• ·         Managing the bots that are managing the business (MIT Sloan Management Review)
• ·         The weird economics of Ikea (FiveThirtyEight)
• ·         The many challenges of CPG and retail startups (The Collaborative Fund)
• ·         Make it easier for happy customers to buy more (Harvard Business Review)
• ·         The quest for quality in fresh-food retailing (McKinsey)
• ·         How did Walmart get cleaner stores and higher sales? It paid its workers more (New York Times)
• ·         Creating good jobs at a Texas grocery chain (MIT)
• ·         The dizzying grandeur of 21^st century agriculture (New York Times)

Stephan's Friday Picks

• A detailed look at Blue Apron's challenging unit economics (LinkedIn)
• Autonomous grocery vehicles are making deliveries in London (MIT Technology Review)
• Walgreen's compromise gives it a chance to be bold (Gadfly)
• Why your bananas might soon cost more in the afternoon (BBC)
• Tesco needs to get a grip (Gadfly)

Stephan's Thursday Picks

• How Nestle expanded beyond the kitchen (NYT)
• Quebec expects to save millions with overhaul of generic drug purchasing process (Globe and Mail)
• The price war over American groceries is getting bloody (Bloomberg)
• Amazon's strategy is to beat a cyclical trap known as the wheel of retailing (Quartz)
• 150 Iconic Canadian Brands (Interbrand)

Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• Chokepoints and vulnerabilities in global food trade (The Guardian)
• In Unilever's radical hiring experiment, resumes are out, algorithms are in (WSJ)
• How a 36-year-old Wall Street prodigy saved Burger King (Business Insider)
• Amazon robots poised to revamp how Whole Foods runs warehouses (Bloomberg)
• Infarm wants to put a farm in every grocery store (Tech Crunch)

Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• Carrefour faces crossroads as new CEO faces same old problems (FT)
• Yoplait learns to manufacture authenticity to go with its yogurt (NYT)
• Leadership: How to keep your company competitive (Fortune)
• Meet the woman funding the valley's hottest shopping startups (Fortune)
• Nestle targeted by Dan Loeb's Third Point in activist's biggest-ever bet (Bloomberg)

Stephan's Monday Picks

• A street fight among grocers to deliver your milk, eggs, bananas (NYT)
• Unilever shows innovation still intact with 'once-in-a-decade' laundry soap (Reuters)
• Nestle CEO sees transparency as path to regaining status (Reuters)
• To survive Amazon, retailers need to get to know you (Bloomberg)
• How analytics has changed in the last 10 years (HBR)

Stephan's Friday Picks

• Amazon's grocery push playing catch-up with Chinese e-commerce giants (Reuters)
• Blue Apron promised to bring disruption to the food business. Then it got disrupted (Washington Post)
• Amazon-Whole Foods deal puts spotlight on Carrefour (Bloomberg)
• Alibaba considers Detroit for distribution center (Crain's)
• What happens when organic farms are forced to spray conventional pesticides (Civil Eats)

Stephan's Thursday Picks

• Amazon will let customers try on clothes before buying (NYT)
• How fake meat finally made it to the beef aisle (Quartz)
• Sycamore Partners close to deal to acquire Staples (NYT)
• Walmart to vendors: Get off Amazon's cloud (WSJ)
• Sears Canada shares plunge as report says retailer will seek bankruptcy protection (CBC)

Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• The future of brands (Andy Dunn)
• Amazon's Ocado-free future (Gadfly)
• South African supermarket giants in fine food fight (Reuters)
• Would carrots by any other name taste as sweet (NYT)
• Ethiopia's coffee is the latest victim of climate change (The Verge)

Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• The Amazon-Walmart showdown that explains the modern economy (NYT)
• Canadian business 'on cusp' of using more robotics (CBC)
• Activist investor urges Hudson's Bay to go private (Financial Post)
• Ocado bosses to face activist shareholder (The Telegraph)
• Whole Foods shares keep rising in bidding war speculation (Reuters)

Stephan's Monday Picks

• Amazon to acquire Whole Foods Market (Amazon)
• Amazon puts restaurant industry on notice (Bloomberg)
• Here's what Amazon's acquisition means for Instacart (Recode)
• From the A&P to Amazon: The rise of the modern grocery store (Washington Post)
• Amazon's antitrust paradox (Yale Law Journal)
• The stores eating Whole Foods lunch and other tales of transient advantage in the grocery business (Rita McGrath)
• Amazon's move signals end of line for many cashiers (NYT) 
• Corporations in the age of inequality (HBR)

Stephan's Friday Picks

• The shelf life of Whole Foods CEO John Mackey (Texas Monthly)
• The benefits of thinking like an activist investor (McKinsey)
• Kroger slide sends tremors through U.S. grocery retailers (FT)
• Nestle looks to sell U.S. candy business (NYT)
• 16.4 million American adults believe chocolate milk comes from brown cows (Washington Post)

Stephan's Thursday Picks

• The grocery store of the future is mobile, self-driving, and run by AI (Fast Company)
• Low prices, few choices: Discounters remake grocery shopping (Washington Post)
• Sears Canada's future is in doubt. How did it come to this (CBC)
• Walmart just created a designer cantaloupe (Bloomberg)
• Pound for pound, elite produce can cost more than wagyu beef (Bloomberg)

Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• What makes a flash sale successful? (Kellogg Insight)
• Inside Peapod's ambitious plan to defeat its online rivals (Food Dive)
• The future of grocery - in-store and online (McKinsey)
• Using scenario planning to reshape strategy (MIT SMR)
• One of the world's best cheeses might be going extinct (Bloomberg)

Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• Lidl's threat to incumbent grocers is real (Oliver Wyman)
• A data-driven approach to identifying future leaders (MIT SMR)
• Amazon's homegrown products are moving beyond batteries and baby wipes (Mashable)
• Shipping giants are looking to self-piloting boats to shift cargo (MIT Technology Review)
• Tesco adds frozen berries to "Perfectly Imperfect" range (Fruitnet)

Stephan's Monday Picks

• Aldi plans to invest $3.4B and add 900 stores by 2022 (Reuters)
• Getting ready to battle grocery's hard discounters (Bain)
• The French face of the Amazon fightback (Gadfly)
• Alibaba says it can be the 5th largest economy by 2036 (South China Morning Post)
• H-E-B tops trust ratings for 3rd consecutive year (Progressive Grocer)

Stephan's Friday Picks

• Hudson's Bay Company cutting 2,000 jobs amid reorganization (CBC)
• The latest battleground between Coke and Pepsi is coconut water (Quartz)
• How Ocado is redefining grocery fulfillment (Retail Week)
• Tech has taken the work out of couponing (Washington Post)
• Pirate Joe's closes in Vancouver rather than fight U.S. grocer Trader Joe's (Globe and Mail)

Stephan's Thursday Picks

• Walmart is famous for destroying small towns. Here's the amazing one it built (Quartz)
• If your company isn't good at analytics, it's not ready for AI (HBR)
• It's not just retail that's changing. It's us (Bloomberg View)
• The real lessons from Kodak's decline (MIT SMR)
• The rise and fall of J.Crew (Quartz)

Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• Digital insurgents, emerging models, and the disruption of CPG and retail (BCG)
• Why retailers should worry less about free shipping (K@W)
• Customers' need to touch and feel ensures Ikea's online surge doesn't hurt store traffic (Financial Post)
• No one is drinking orange juice anymore (Quartz)
• Blue Apron's messy shelves (Bloomberg)

Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• Surge pricing comes to the supermarket (The Guardian)
• Why companies should measure 'share of growth', not just market share (HBR)
• The struggle to replace Target (Globe and Mail)
• Online grocer Ocado finally lands overseas deal (NYT)
• Walmart touts investment in people, technology as advantages (NYT)

Stephan's Monday Picks

• Walmart is accused of punishing workers for sick days (NYT)
• There's no such thing as big data in HR (HBR)
• Walmart's big new problem isn't Amazon (Gadfly)
• Don't give up on corporate culture (MIT SMR)
• Conagra shouldn't reach for Pinnacle (Gadfly)

Stephan's Friday Picks

• Blue Apron files for an IPO (NYT)
• Walmart begins testing associate delivery (Walmart)
• Sears and the demise of an American retail icon (Washington Post)
• Sugar as a slow poison (Miles Kimball)
• One of Crispr's creators faces her fears (Bloomberg)

Stephan's Thursday Picks

• Mary Meeker's 2017 internet trends report (Tech Crunch)
• Lidl announces locations of first 9 store locations (Food Dive)
• Scientists discover a sixth sense on the tongue - for water (Science)
• Is that a farm on your roof? Agriculture is thriving in some unlikely places (World Economic Forum)
• Whole Foods represents the failures of 'conscious capitalism' (The Guardian)