Best of Pax Westona: January 2018

• What is it about Costco (Buzzfeed)
• Inside Amazon Go, a store of the future (NYT)
• From cellophane to QR codes: Supermarket technology through the years (Food Dive)
• Mr. Amazon steps out (NYT)
• Diet Coke's moment of panic (The Atlantic)
• The competitive effect of Lidl's entry in the US grocery market (Katrijn Gielens)
• Outfoxed by small-batch upstarts, Unilever decides to imitate them (WSJ)
• Rotisserie chickens: The '90s gift to supermarkets that keeps on giving (WSJ)
• What happened in consumer in 2017 (Collaborative Fund)
• How America fell in love with vodka (Atlas Obscura)

Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• How America fell in love with vodka (Atlas Obscura)
• How did Tim Hortons become synonymous with Canada (National Post)
• Kroger needs Boxed like Walmart needed Jet.com (Gadfly)
• Amazon, Berkshire, JP Morgan link up to form health-care company (Bloomberg)
• Personalization is a priority for retailers, but can online vendors deliver (Ad Week)

Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• Keurig to take control of Dr. Pepper Snapple in $18.7 billion drink deal (Bloomberg)
• How Toyota helped create a thriving Japanese food culture in Kentucky (NPR)
• This is the best lettuce to buy at the grocery store (Bon Appetit)
• What is it about Costco (Buzzfeed)
• South Korea firms to ramp up e-grocery business with $940 million from private equity (Reuters)

Stephan's Monday Picks

• Ingvar Kamprad, founder of IKEA and creator of a global empire, dies at 91 (NYT)
• How Amazon's ad business could threaten Facebook and Google (WSJ)
• Albertson's launches targeted marketing service (Supermarket News)
• French shoppers brawl over cut-price Nutella (The Guardian)
• Walmart and Rakuten partner on grocery delivery in Japan, Kobo e-books and audiobooks in U.S. (Tech Crunch)

Stephan's Friday Picks

• The Prozac of the Middle Ages (The Atlantic)
• Tencent to back Carrefour in challenge to Alibaba in retail (Bloomberg)
• Will millennials kill Costco (Washington Post)
• Why digital strategies fail (McKinsey)
• From the archives (2000): Loblaw picks quiet Lederer as new president (Globe and Mail)

Stephan's Thursday Picks

• Daniel Loeb's Third Point calls for more change at Nestle (WSJ)
• Ando, David Chang's meal-delivery business, ends service (NYT)
• Bacardi buys Patron, valuing tequila maker at $5.1 billion (Bloomberg)
• Why retailers don't mind bigger wage bills (WSJ)
• Yes, you can now buy bananacoins, a cryptocurrency digital linked to banana prices (Grub Street)

Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• How leaving stores closed for years helps grocery stores and hurts communities (Civil Eats)
• Ferrero spreads its chocolate empire (FT)
• ADM-Bunge deal would create Cargill-sized agribusiness giant (Bloomberg)
• What's actually inside a Tide pod (Wired)
• Albertsons, your friendly neighbourhood grocery, is losing hundreds of millions of dollars (Idaho Statesman)

Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• Canada's meal-box service a $150M industry, but profitability on the slow cooker (CBC)
• The humble ascent of oat milk (NYT)
• Advertising's 'mad men' bristle at the digital revolution (WSJ)
• Can a water called 'liquid death' beat the energy drinks at their own game (Ad Week)
• Retrofitting suburbia: Old malls can be saved by their parking lots (CBC)

Stephan's Monday Picks

• Ocado announces international partnership with Sobeys (Ocado)
• Inside Amazon Go, a store of the future (NYT)
• P&G grapples with how to stop a Tide pods meme (WSJ)
• Can these robot-run warehouses change the landscape of grocery delivery (Fast Company)
• Amazon has a plan to become profitable. It's called advertising (Bloomberg)

Stephan's Friday Picks

• Loblaws in $400M tax fight with CRA over claims it set up bogus offshore bank (CBC)
• Amazon chooses 20 finalists for second headquarters (NYT)
• Why Whole Foods is banking on rotisserie chicken (Eater)
• From cellophane to QR codes: Supermarket technology through the years (Food Dive)
• From the archives (2015): FreshCo, Old Navy, Rexall: Joe Jackman helps retailers get their mojo back (Globe and Mail)

Stephan's Thursday Picks

• 2018 Consumer Products Industry Outlook (Deloitte)
• Instacart acquires Toronto-based startup Unata for $65 million (Globe and Mail)
• Study: Trader Joe's, Costco, Amazon lead consumer preference study (Supermarket News)
• Microdrones that cooperate to transport objects could be the future of warehouse automation (IEEE Spectrum)
• Kroger is rolling out a new technology to nearly 200 stores that could transform grocery shopping as we know it (Business Insider)

Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• Six ways that new technologies will revolutionize shopping (Wired)
• Amazon's grocery sales increased after it devoured Whole Foods (WSJ)
• Alexa, we're still trying to figure out what to do with you (NYT)
• The tiny IKEA of the future, without meatballs or mazes (Bloomberg)
• Nutella maker to pay $2.8 billion for Nestle U.S. candy unit (Bloomberg)

Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• Walmart opens new front in growing battle over e-commerce (Globe and Mail)
• Loyal Sam's Club members lament the loss of a trusted friend (NYT)
• Please do not assault the towering robot that roams Walmart (Wired)
• Do soda taxes work? Only if retailers raise prices (HBR)
• Final Sears Canada stores shuttered for good (CBC)

Stephan's Monday Picks

• Diet Coke's moment of panic (The Atlantic)
• Mr. Amazon steps out (NYT)
• D.E. Shaw builds activist stake in Lowe's (Bloomberg)
• Kroger and rivals in talks to buy wholesale startup Boxed for up to $600 million (Forbes)
• Please visit our collection of stores under one roof, which totally isn't a mall (WSJ)

Stephan's Friday Picks

• The competitive effect of Lidl's entry in the US grocery market (Katrijn Gielens)
• The genius of Loblaw's $25 gift card campaign (CBC)
• Can traditional retailers counter the online threat (BCG)
• Grocery giant's boss hands Christmas present to his enemies (Gadfly)
• From the archives (2009): Joe Mimran: Fresh idea helps turn fortunes (Globe and Mail)

Stephan's Thursday Picks

• As Amazon and Walmart duke it out, niche retail can thrive (Fast Company)
• Target's plan to pump $8 billion into stores really paid off over the holidays (Fortune)
• Fashion in 2018 - AI gets real (BoF)
• Amazon Prime customers can now order delivery from Whole Foods (Eater)
• New trending: A new take on Asian flavours (Fast Casual)

Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• When there are no more fish (Eater)
• To end a food desert, these community members opened their own grocery (Fast Company)
• Rhone Capital battles Ferrero and Hershey for Nestle's US candy business (FT)
• Will cosmetics get an Amazon makeover (Bloomberg)
• If you think grocery stores are playing tricks on you, they really are (Washington Post)

Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• Outfoxed by small-batch upstarts, Unilever decides to imitate them (WSJ)
• The Germans are escalating America's grocery price war (Bloomberg)
• Whole Foods places new limits on suppliers, upsetting some small vendors (Washington Post)
• The world's largest clothing maker isn't betting on automation replacing cheap human labour (Quartz)
• Once-hungry investors pass on meal-kit startups (WSJ)

Stephan's Monday Picks

• Rotisserie chickens: The '90s gift to supermarkets that keeps on giving (WSJ)
• Six artifacts from the future of food (Fast Company)
• Germany's largest chicken producer wants to bring clean meat to market (Quartz)
• In ice-cream war, upstarts grab freezer space from Ben & Jerry's (Bloomberg)
• Even before the latest minimum-wage meltdown, Tim Hortons was a brand in crisis (Toronto Star)

Stephan's Friday Picks

• Navigating the uncanny world of food (Wired)
• What the big mergers of 2017 tell us about 2018 (HBR)
• Activists' guide to 2018: The best defense is a good offense (NYT)
• The food revolution may have just needed a cup of Blue Bottle (Tech Crunch)
• From the archives (2006): Once infallible - what happened at Loblaw (Globe and Mail) 

Stephan's Thursday Picks

• Amazon Alexa is opening up to more sponsored product ads (CNBC)
• In 2018, Amazon will turn to private label goods (Digiday)
• Houston's not eating that well. Can a new mobile grocery help (Houston Chronicle)
• Aldi racks up more than 200 private label awards (Food Dive)
• Dairies are awash in organic milk as consumers jump to alternatives (WSJ)

Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• Heinz's decades-long attempt to convince Australians that ketchup is awesome (Atlas Obscura)
• Sears stopped buying national TV ads in critical holiday season (WSJ)
• Consumers getting hot for smart thermostats (Bloomberg)
• 5 brands using Facebook Messenger to drive engagement (CMO)
• Oil's dream to grow in plastics dims as Coke turns to plants (Bloomberg)

Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• What happened in consumer in 2017 (Collaborative Fund)
• Bargain-hunters view retail employees as less human: study (CBC)
• Unfiltered fervor: The rush to get off the water grid (NYT)
• The limits of Amazon (WSJ)
• Somewhere between a food truck and a food tent, you'll find a cubert (NYT)