Stephan's Friday Picks

• Loblaw exploring grocery home delivery partnership with Instacart (Globe and Mail)
• Nothing is too strange for cities trying to woo Amazon to build there (NYT)
• Nestle cedes ground to Loeb but won't budge on L'Oreal (WSJ)
• $15 minimum wage could cost 90K new jobs, but long-term outlook positive: TD (CBC)
• Has craft coffee finally peaked (Eater)

Stephan's Thursday Picks

• Metro in advanced talks to take over Jean Coutu for $4.5-billion (Globe and Mail)
• Amazon's future looks a lot like Sears's past (City Lab)
• Supermarkets need to get sexier in Amazon era, grocery CEO says (Bloomberg)
• Airbnb now lets you book restaurant reservations in the U.S. (The Verge)
• 99 Cents Only tells another cautionary debt tale (Bloomberg)

Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• Nestle makes billions bottling water it pays nearly nothing for (Bloomberg)
• One surprise standout for Uber: Food delivery (NYT)
• Your e-commerce brand will probably fail (Collaborative Fund)
• Target is smart to raise its minimum wage (Gadfly)
• Restoration Hardware bid on 3,200 keywords, found 98% of its PPC hits came from just 22 brand terms (eConsultancy)

Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• The grocery industry confronts a new problem: Only 10% of Americans love cooking (HBR)
• Albertsons snaps up meal kit startup Plated for $200 million (Tech Crunch)
• Walmart's holiday gift to employees: Longer hours (Washington Post)
• Amazon takes over the world (WSJ)
• Loblaw's charity steps up to tackle childhood hunger (Canadian Grocer)

Stephan's Monday Picks

• How grocery giant Aldi plans to conquer America: Limit choice (WSJ)
• Williams-Sonoma is built to win home-goods musical chairs (Gadfly)
• The rise of wellcare: A new market at the nexus of food, health, beauty (pwc)
• Amazon puts Whole Foods on fast track to conventional supermarket (WSJ)
• Walmart wants to send people into your house to stock the fridge (Financial Post)

Stephan's Friday Picks

• Amazon is a lifeline for retail workers (if they work in the right city (Bloomberg)
• Shoppers Drug Mart targets baby boomers with new Wellwise retail brand (Globe and Mail)
• Ocado sales growth edges higher in latest quarter (Reuters)
• P&G slams Peltz's record as an activist-director (FT)
• PepsiCo focusing on the healthy snacks business (Forbes)

Stephan's Thursday Picks

• When jobs become commodities (MIT SMR)
• Whole Foods shows what economists don't know (Bloomberg)
• Why Hispanic grocers are poised for explosive growth (Food Dive)
• The first autonomous drone delivery will fly above Switzerland starting next month (The Verge)
• Grocery and the need for speed (Progressive Grocer)

Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• The lonely future of buying stuff (Bloomberg)
• Post to buy Bob Evans packaged food business for $1.5 billion (WSJ)
• Toys 'R' Us files for bankruptcy in Canada, US (CBC)
• Walgreens said to tweak Rite Aid deal to win U.S. approval (Bloomberg)
• Mobile-ready pack shots boost conversion (L2)

Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• Amazon grocery threat could ramp up food M&A (Bloomberg)
• People don't buy groceries online because they prefer to pick things out in stores (Quartz)
• CFO at 29? Kraft Heinz move spotlights a pattern at 3G Capital (WSJ)
• The amazing ways Coca Cola uses AI and big data to drive success (Forbes)
• At bug eating festival, kids crunch down on the food of the future (NPR)

Stephan's Monday Picks

• How Big Business got Brazil hooked on junk food (NYT)
• How Kirkland Signature became one of Costco's biggest success stories (WSJ)
• Amazon sees snack sales surge as part of its grocery push (Bloomberg)
• Nestle targets high-end coffee by taking majority stake in Blue Bottle (NYT)
• Kroger won't beat Amazon with a restaurant (Gadfly)

Stephan's Friday Picks

• The future of retail is stores that aren't stores (The Atlantic)
• Sobeys making progress, but still has 'significant work to do' (Globe and Mail)
• Bayer and Gingko Bioworks aim to make crops produce their own nitrogen fertilizer (Forbes)
• Meet the CamperForce, Amazon's nomadic retiree army (Wired)
• Whole Foods is becoming Amazon's brick-and-mortar pricing lab (HBR)

Stephan's Thursday Picks

• Two ex-Googlers want to make bodegas and mom-and-pop stores obsolete (Fast Company)
• Amazon is hiring the most MBAs in tech, and it's not really close (Quartz)
• Coffee vs. climate change: The news is not good (Ars Technica)
• Notice less candy around CVS cash registers? You're right (Marketplace)
• Reshaping business with artificial intelligence (MIT SMR)

Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• The case for investing more in people (HBR)
• A simple way to close the door on uncertain strategy (Globe and Mail)
• Robo-harvesters gather their first crop of barley (The Times)
• Digital advertising is facing its ultimate moment of truth (AdWeek)
• Nestle's growth supplements (Gadfly)

Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• Building a strategic pricing organization (BCG)
• Nordstrom tries on a new look: Stores without merchandise (WSJ)
• The rise and fall of working from home (Bloomberg)
• As Amazon pushes forward with robots, workers find new roles (NYT)
• Target cuts prices on groceries and other consumables (Food Dive)

Stephan's Monday Picks

• This tiny country feeds the world (National Geographic)
• The secret sauce of test-tube fish (NeoLife)
• L'Oreal's problem with men (Bloomberg)
• Food stamps are finally being disrupted (Wired)
• Kraft Heinz promotes 29-year-old Goldman alum to CFO role (Bloomberg)

Stephan's Friday Picks

• The new frontier of price optimization (MIT SMR)
• Unilever, Nestle snap up organic tea and vegetarian burritos (Bloomberg)
• Trian details its case for changes at P&G in white paper (WSJ)
• Amazon plans second headquarters, opening a bidding war among cities (NYT)
• Private equity loves supermarkets, but do retailers benefit (Food Dive)

Stephan's Thursday Picks

• The high-tech vertical farm promises Whole Foods quality at Walmart prices (Bloomberg)
• Putting lifelong learning on the CEO agenda (McKinsey)
• Fancy snacks are having a moment. Venture capital wants in (Eater)
• Checkout systems are going autonomous (MIT Technology Review)
• Toys 'R' Us is said to hire advisers to help weigh bankruptcy (NYT)

Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• Behind a $13 shirt, a $6-an-hour worker (Los Angeles Times)
• When celery was king (Taste)
• Why do so many incompetent men become leaders (HBR)
• Big Food faces pressure from retailers demanding discounts (WSJ)
• An activist investor's latest tactic - playing nice (Bloomberg)

Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• The inside story of what it took to keep a Texas grocery chain running in the chaos of Hurricane Harvey (LinkedIn)
• Is Unilever the last good big company (Bloomberg)
• What does it cost to start a new farm (Fast Company)
• Juicero, the $700 juicer startup, is looking for a buyer - and shutting down in the meantime (ReCode)
• Grocery business ripe for disruption (CBC)

Stephan's Friday Picks

• Who is winning the food delivery war (Priconomics)
• Grocers, don't be blinded by Bezos (Bloomberg)
• It's not just a pickle on the side (WSJ)
• The man who sold his supermarket to Whole Foods talks about the future of grocery stores (Washington Post)
• Amazon's fight for more Whole Foods market share is going to be a long slog (Quartz)

Best of Pax Westona: August 2017

• Why the hatchet men of 3G spent $10 million on a better Oscar Mayer Weiner (Bloomberg)
• Supermarkets face a growing problem: Too much space (WSJ)
• Management is much more than a science (HBR)
• Head of America's largest grocer talks Amazon and ugly tomatoes (WSJ)
• End of the checkout line: The looming crisis for American cashiers (The Guardian)
• The incredible shrinking Sears (NYT)
• What brands are actually behind Trader Joe's snacks (Eater)
• At Walmart Academy, training better managers, but with a better future? (NYT)
• Inside the secret world of global food spies (Bloomberg)
• Amazon's new robo-picker champion is proudly inhuman (MIT Technology Review)