Stephan's Thursday Picks

• Ocado unveils tie-up with France's Groupe Casino (FT)
• Ocado found a grocery deal, not the second coming (Gadfly)
• Retail jobs don't need to be bad. Here's proof (NYT)
• Produce or else: Walmart and Kroger get tough with suppliers on delays (WSJ)
• How chefs go from restaurant kitchen to grocery store brand (Eater)

Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• This robot picks up groceries its never seen before using its little suction cup (MIT Technology Review)
• Tesco's CEO is ready for his Unilever closeup (Bloomberg)
• Unilever delays choice of UK or Netherlands as sole HQ (FT)
• Predicting success in consumer startup brands (Tech Crunch)
• How closing grocery stores perpetuate food deserts long after they're gone (Fast Company)

Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• Food banks' massive plan to shift from canned goods to fresh produce (Fast Company)
• Amazon, in hunt for lower prices, recruits Indian merchants (NYT)
• Coca-Cola embraces a digital future as consumers move online (Food Dive)
• Unilever acquires U.S. personal care company Sundial Brands (Bloomberg)
• How the sandwich consumed Britain (The Guardian)

Stephan's Monday Picks

• The future of retail in the age of Amazon (Fast Company)
• Why stand in line on Black Friday? The psychology explained (NYT)
• How La Croix's growth surprise Coca-Cola and PepsiCo (Brand Channel)
• Sobeys to lay off 800 workers across Canada (CBC)
• Conquering the food challenge through Agriculture 3.0 (Bain)

Stephan's Friday Picks

• CEOs should stop thinking that execution is somebody else's job. It's theirs (HBR)
• Alibaba's latest jab at JD.com (L2)
• Why Maryland's blue crab industry might be in trouble (Eater)
• Young and in love ... with lipstick and eyeliner (NYT)
• The future of shopping at Nordstrom and Walmart is home delivery (Bloomberg)

Stephan's Thursday Picks

• Sugar industry long downplayed potential harms (NYT)
• Loblaw releases second annual Canadian food trends list (Loblaw)
• Nestle's baby food diet (Bloomberg)
• Walmart is inventing foods in a secret lab in Arkansas (Food and Wine)
• Auchan/Alibaba deal turns up the heat on Carrefour in China (Reuters)

Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• Tofurky: A brief, semi-accidental history of Thanksgiving's fake meat (The New Yorker)
• The rise of dynamic and personalized pricing (The Guardian)
• Grocers need to look to new forecasting methods to stock the digital shelf (Food Dive)
• P&G just bought this venture-backed deodorant startup for $100 million (Tech Crunch)
• Becoming (and remaining) a farmer is hard (Civil Eats)

Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• Loblaw pitches upgraded loyalty program for $9.99 a month for premium perks (CBC)
• Loblaw the latest to experience the 'Amazon effect' (Globe and Mail)
• The cause and consequences of the retail apocalypse (The New Republic)
• Where is all the good, quality furniture (Curbed)
• Bank of Canada: More than half of all sales still done in cash (CBC)

Stephan's Monday Picks

• Loblaw orders 25 electric Tesla semi trucks (Tech Crunch)
• A Leeds polygot expanding Bezos' empire (London Evening Standard)
• Alibaba bets $2.9 billion on China's top hypermarket player (Bloomberg)
• Would you eat 'clean meat' (Quartz)
• It's  been a year since California banned single-use plastic bags. The world didn't end (LA Times)

Stephan's Friday Picks

• Fight breaks out over fresh fruit-and-vegetable packaging (Bloomberg)
• Tesco's £3.7bn takeover of Booker gets the green light (The Guardian)
• Postmates launches delivery service, scheduled deliveries, and a revamped app (Tech Crunch)
• Amazon's cashier-less stores are almost ready for prime time (Bloomberg)
• Whole Foods basks in glow of Amazon's halo (Gadfly)

Stephan's Thursday Picks

• Loblaw plans to close 22 unprofitable stores and launch home delivery (CBC)
• The moves mainstream grocers must make now (BCG)
• The cult of Crystal hot sauce (Eater)
• NotCo created an algorithm to make mayo (The Ringer)
• Instacart adds Kroger in retail push after Amazon-Whole Foods deal (Forbes)

Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• Four logics of corporate strategy (MIT SMR)
• Self-driving trucks may be closer than they appear (NYT)
• Budweiser's ex-marketing chief sees weed as new craft beer (Bloomberg)
• Morrisons becomes first of Big Four to integrate Alexa into online grocery (The Grocer)
• Amazon or Walmart? Some retailers are choosing alliances (Financial Post)

Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• The rise of the highly skilled retail worker (Time)
• Alibaba's AI fashion consultant helps achieve record-setting sales (MIT Technology Review)
• Where retail has one edge on tech: Mobile payments (Gadfly)
• Private equity can still get rich from a struggling supermarket (Bloomberg)
• How Coca-Cola, Netflix, and Amazon learn from failure (HBR)

Stephan's Monday Picks

• Canadian retailers dogged by aggressive U.S. rivals' online offerings (Reuters)
• Someone figured out how to put tomatoes on a blockchain (Bloomberg)
• A dozen lessons from Waffle House (25iq)
• The gospel according to Michael Porter (Institutional Investor)
• Are Honey Nut Cheerios healthy (NYT)

Stephan's Friday Picks

• Uniform pricing in US retail chains (PDF)
• Can Costco convince the French to buy brie in bulk (Bloomberg)
• What Dollar Shave Club says about the future of subscription services (Retail Dive)
• Panera Bread buys Au Bon Pain, adding to JAB's breakfast empire (NYT)
• Blue Apron plummets to record low after CEO's conference comments (Bloomberg)

Stephan's Thursday Picks

• Should CPG manufacturers go direct-to-consumer, and if so how (McKinsey)
• Don't fear. Amazon hasn't figured out groceries (Bloomberg)
• As wild salmon decline, Norway pressures its giant fish farms (NYT)
• French retail firm Auchan to open checkout-free shops in China (Xinhua)
• Montreal Canadiens and Loblaw found in Paradise Papers (CBC)

Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• Loblaw to merge Shoppers Optimum and PC Plus programs in February (FP)
• Whole Foods reveals top food trends for 2018 (Whole Foods)
• Coca-Cola's next big bet may be spiffing up your cocktail mixers (Bloomberg)
• Toys R Us collapse reveals fragility of supply chain finance (FT)
• Loblaw commits to overhauling truck fleet, unveils its first fully electric big rig (Canadian Manufacturing)

Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• Murray Koffler, founder of Shoppers Drug Mart, dead at 93 (CBC)
• Ready of not, recreational marijuana is coming to Canada (NYT)
• How many robots does it take to fill a grocery order (Bloomberg)
• Amazon adds an AR shopping feature to its iOS app (Tech Crunch)
• Amazon wants to leave packages in your home, Walmart will put groceries in your fridge (CBC)

Stephan's Monday Picks

• The future of online retailing is bright (The Economist)
• Loblaw could be stoking a new supplier showdown (Financial Post)
• Kroger wants shoppers to add clothes to their shopping list (WSJ)
• Alibaba's latest earnings suggest it can handle the pricey push into groceries and supermarkets (Quartz)
• There's a global butter boom, but supply management has Canada on the sidelines (Financial Post)

Stephan's Friday Picks

• Why Americans have stopped eating leftovers (Washington Post)
• In rare feat, Kellogg and Mondelez achieve actual growth (Bloomberg)
• Global oversupply of grains puts a squeeze on giant processors (WSJ)
• Treehouse announces resignation of president and search for new CEO (Food Dive)
• GMO apples head to the Midwest (Bloomberg)

Stephan's Thursday Picks

• Aldi and Lidl grow despite ignoring the internet (The Economist)
• Small group scoops international effort to sequence huge wheat genome (Nature)
• The sticky, untold story of Cinnabon (Seattle Met)
• How Miniso might just be a Dollarama disruptor in Canada (Macleans)
• Omnichannel trend reflected in executive moves (Supermarket News)

Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• Watchdog raids offices of grocery retailers in price-fixing probe (CBC)
• What shoppers really want from personalized marketing (McKinsey)
• France, land of croissants, finds butter vanishing from its shelves (NYT)
• Alcohol industry targets pot with Constellation-Canopy deal (Bloomberg)
• Walmart testing shelf-scanning robots in 50 stores (Food Dive)