Best of Pax Westona: December 2018

• Meet the saviour of Sobeys (The Globe and Mail)
• San Marzano tomatoes: The fake Rolex of canned foods (Taste)
• Reviving the grocery industry: Six imperatives (McKinsey)
• What's really happening to retail (The Atlantic)
• Your apps know where you were last night, and they're not keeping it a secret (NYT)
• Why does Texas love H-E-B so much (Eater)
• Gillette used to rule razors. Then came Harry's and Dollar Shave Club (Vox)
• J&J knew for years that asbestos lurked in its baby powder (Reuters)
• The dollar store backlash has begun (City Lab)
• The future of retail: Asia's ecosystems (Bain)

Stephan's Monday Picks

• Department store of the future: Selling art off the wall and car insurance at checkout (WSJ)
• Will Amazon finally kill New York (Longreads)
• Blue Apron links with dieters in comeback effort (WSJ)
• India curbs power of Amazon and Walmart and Walmart to sell products online (NYT)
• Literally every single food trend predicted to take over in 2019 (Eater)

Stephan's Friday Picks

• The future of retail: Asia's ecosystems (Bain)
• Hot mess in home goods has lessons for retailers (Bloomberg)
• Hudson's Bay CEO working hard and fast on fixing the fundamentals (Globe and Mail)
• Lab grown meat is coming, whether you like it or not (Wired)
• From the archives (2009): Applying design thinking to your business (HBR)

Stephan's Thursday Picks

• Last minute shoppers increasingly trust only Amazon to deliver (NYT)
• Forget drones, Amazon needs lots of delivery humans (Bloomberg)
• Even pharmacies need physical locations (L2)
• Aldi Nord occurs loss for the first time in Germany (Retail Detail)
• Why it's hard to escape Amazon's long reach (Wired)

Stephan's Monday Picks

• The dollar store backlash has begun (City Lab)
• Dirty dealing in the $175 billion Amazon marketplace (The Verge)
• Juul closes deal with tobacco giant Altria (NYT)
• Cigna closes $54 billion purchase of Express Scripts (Reuters)
• Amazon's grocery push keeps stumbling after Whole Foods purchase (Bloomberg)

Stephan's Friday Picks

• With a pinch of innovation, food makers raise prices (WSJ)
• Amazon flexes its muscle on private label (Bloomberg)
• Amazon Prime 2-day shipping doesn't ship for Christmas (Fast Company)
• Altria is nearing a deal to take a 35% stake in Juul (WSJ)
• From the archives (2011): Weston supremacy (FT)

Stephan's Thursday Picks

• The high price of efficiency (HBR)
• The rise of anxiety baking (The Atlantic)
• The Amazon HQ2 document we weren't supposed to see (NYT)
• Kroger-owned grocery store begins fully driverless deliveries (Ars Technica)
• Pfizer, Glaxo to create an over-the-counter drug giant (WSJ)

Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• J&J knew for years that asbestos lurked in its baby powder (Reuters)
• A toaster on wheels to deliver groceries? Self-driving tech tests practical uses (NYT)
• America can't move its cheese (WSJ)
• Going head-to-head in beauty retailing (Coresight Research)
• Tilray, Novartis deal to distribute medical marijuana globally (Bloomberg)

Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• Starbucks to offer coffee delivery across U.S. (WSJ)
• Delivery robot spontaneously bursts into flames in California (The Verge)
• Top 10 restaurants in digital (L2)
• US retail REITs review (Coresight Research)
• Amazon targets unprofitable items, with a sharper focus on the bottom line (WSJ)

Stephan's Monday Picks

• From grass-fed to lab-grown: How meat is evolving (WSJ)
• Instacart is breaking up with Whole Foods (Fast Company)
• Using AI to improve electronic health records (HBR)
• Amazon is rewriting the rules for loyalty cards (FT)
• How CBD and THC became health foods instead of illicit substances (GQ)

Stephan's Friday Picks

• Plastic water bottles, which enabled a drinks boom, now threaten a crisis (WSJ)
• When the makers of Marlboro and Corona get into marijuana (NYT)
• Gillette used to rule razors. Then came Harry's and Dollar Shave Club (Vox)
• Procter & Gamble acquires Walker & Co. (Tech Crunch)
• From the archives (2017): How Amanda Chantal Bacon perfected the celebrity wellness business (NYT)

Stephan's Thursday Picks

• Why does Texas love H-E-B so much (Eater)
• Here's how Nike, Alibaba, and Amazon or reinventing retail (Wired)
• Farmstead takes a tech-first approach to online grocery (Grocery Dive)
• Costco's 100 million chickens will change the face of Nebraska (Civil Eats)
• Value Village thrift stores in $30M tax fight with CRA over 2012 restructuring (Financial Post)

Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• Your apps know where you were last night, and they're not keeping it a secret (NYT)
• Why dollar stores are bad business for the communities they open in (Fast Company)
• The cloud as catalyst for retail (McKinsey)
• Glossier hits $100 million in sales and takes aim at Big Beauty (Bloomberg)
• Dad's solution to buying presents. Hire someone else to do it (WSJ)

Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• Why kombucha may never make it really big (Bloomberg)
• Pioneering perspectives from online grocery (Winsight Grocery Business)
• The business value of design (McKinsey)
• The big lies of strategy (Rotman Management)
• Altria makes big controversial bets in search of growth (WSJ)

Stephan's Monday Picks

• Why trendy cauliflower will dominate the entire grocery store (Fast Company)
• UPS is testing tricycle deliveries in traffic-choked Seattle (Wired)
• Amazon targets airports for checkout-free expansion (Reuters)
• Admit it Britain. You love your German grocers (Bloomberg)
• Walmart acquires Art.com to boost online home decor business (Reuters)

Stephan's Friday Picks

• The inside story of how Deciem, the Abnormal Beauty Company, lived up to its name (Financial Post)
• Retailers are testing Facebook-style shopper profiles to battle Amazon (Bloomberg)
• What big consumer brands can do to compete in a digital economy (HBR)
• The AI that knows exactly what you want to eat (The Atlantic)
• From the archives (2016): How Americans pretend to love 'ethnic food' (Washington Post)

Stephan's Thursday Picks

• What's really happening to retail (The Atlantic)
• Alibaba takes on Amazon in European cloud (WSJ)
• Sleep-tracking ring Oura surpasses $20 million in funding (Tech Crunch)
• Grocery stores are bars now (Vox)
• Eddie Lampert shattered Sears, sullied his reputation, and lost billions of dollars. Or did he (Institutional Investor)

Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• Reviving the grocery industry: Six imperatives (McKinsey)
• The cookware startups that could topple the All-Clad establishment (Eater)
• The bizarre world of beauty advent calendars (The Guardian)
• Deriving value from conversations about your brand (MIT SMR)
• How subscription businesses are taking over (Fast Company)

Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• How restaurants got so loud (The Atlantic)
• Why many Canadians don't love self-checkout (CBC)
• San Marzano tomatoes: The fake Rolex of canned foods (Taste)
• The trouble with tuna (WSJ)
• Sears bankruptcy 2018: Workers fight for severance pay (Vox)

Stephan's Monday Picks

• Meet the saviour of Sobeys (The Globe and Mail)
• How wellness influencers made Indian food a trend (Bon Appetit)
• Slowly but surely, the Amazon Prime backlash is coming (Vox)
• Inside the hedge fund war at Sears (Bloomberg)
• Marriott hacking exposes data of up to 500 million guests (NYT)