Best of Pax Westona: December 2019

• A Montreal bagel war unites rival kings (NYT)
• Long-awaited Cosmic Crisp apples to hit shelves (The Spokesman Review)
• Canada's food price report (Dalhousie University)
• Free shipping isn't really free (The Atlantic)
• Every Instant Pot user should be cooking with dried beans (Eater)
• The volatile economics of natural vanilla in Madagascar (Bloomberg)
• What have we done to lunch (City Lab)
• How 'direct-to-consumer' blew up retail (BoF)
• How L.O.L dolls became the dopamine hit of a generation (NYT)
• Walmart's secret weapon to fight off Amazon: The supercenter (WSJ)

Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• The town that lost its Walmart (NYT)
• When Jacques Pepin made all the world an omelette (Taste)
• Sparkling wine sales lose fizz in UK as tastes change (FT)
• How Instagram changed the way we shop (Bloomberg)
• Consumer staples may come undone after 2019 rally (WSJ)

Stephan's Monday Picks

• Supermarkets pick fruits, vegetables for healthy growth (WSJ)
• Italy is in a hazelnut cream-filled civil war (NYT)
• The great makeup crash of 2019 (BoF)
• Cabbage will be on menus everywhere in 2020 (Eater)
• The homespun joy of Coca-Cola chicken wings (Taste)

Stephan's Friday Picks

• 'Amazon's Choice' isn't the endorsement it appears (WSJ)
• Hard times for a hot commodity, the hot chile of New Mexico (NYT)
• For Uber and Amazon, 2020 offers promising food delivery acquisitions (Bloomberg)
• HelloFresh grabs a bigger slice of shrinking meal kit business (WSJ)
• From the archives (2007): Sobeys buys Thrifty, gains foothold in B.C. (Globe and Mail)

Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• How L.O.L dolls became the dopamine hit of a generation (NYT)
• Walmart's secret weapon to fight off Amazon: The supercenter (WSJ)
• The forgotten glories of department stores (The Atlantic)
• Everything that top chefs and bartenders hated in 2019 (Bloomberg)
• Self-checkout and the ethical test of the cashier free line (CBC)

Stephan's Monday Picks

• How Amazon squeezes the businesses behind its store (NYT)
• Amazon's van-buying spree delivers a gift to auto industry (Bloomberg)
• IKEA 2.0 (The Verge)
• How Amazon changed America's malls in the 2010's (CNBC)
• Who made your clothes (NYT)

Stephan's Friday Picks

• 2019 Person of the Year: Brian Cornell (Twin Cities Business)
• How 'direct-to-consumer' blew up retail (BoF)
• Is our misguided affair with agility putting speed ahead of good work (Quartz)
• Why Illinois will rule the meatless future (Chicago Mag)
• From the archives (2012): How Dollarama turns pocket change into billions (Globe and Mail)

Stephan's Thursday Picks

• The volatile economics of natural vanilla in Madagascar (Bloomberg)
• What have we done to lunch (City Lab)
• The loyalty economy (HBR)
• Regenerating New York Harbor, one million oysters at a time (Civil Eats)
• Majority of Canadians think food prices rising faster than household income (CBC) 

Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• Cultured or cell-based. The struggle to find the name for lab-grown meat (Quartz)
• Retailers gave you free returns and you ruined it (Bloomberg)
• Amazon bans FedEx from delivering some deliveries (NYT)
• Facing a 'food desert', Oklahoma City wants dollar stores to sell more fresh food (WSJ)
• How Wayfair is poised to meet massive new demand for home goods - and home delivery (McKinsey)

Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• Olive oil makers want to go gourmet, but shoppers aren't buying (Bloomberg)
• Barbie at 60. Trivial Pursuit at 40. Toymakers navigate midlife (WSJ)
• Hey Canada, prepare for a dollar store invasion (CG)
• IFF to merge with DuPont's $26.2 billion nutrition unit (Reuters)
• Consumer backlash over plastic packages has retailers looking for solutions, but none are easy (Globe and Mail)

Stephan's Monday Picks

• Every Instant Pot user should be cooking with dried beans (Eater)
• The incredible shrinking wallet (NYT)
• Best Buy bucks the trend that's crushing other retailers (Wired)
• Safeway owner, rival grocers, bet on smaller warehouses (WSJ)
• Delivery Hero nears agreement to buy Woowa in $4 billion deal (Bloomberg)

Stephan's Friday Picks

• Free shipping isn't really free (The Atlantic)
• Lululemon leans in to menswear as segment expands (WSJ)
• Walmart has made another bet on India's e-commerce sector (Quartz)
• Nestle sells U.S. ice cream brands for $4 billion to joint venture Fronieri (Reuters)
• From the archives (2016): IKEA forever (NYT)

Stephan's Thursday Picks

• America's dairy farmers are hurting. A merger could make things worse (NYT)
• Empire wants to crack the Toronto market with Farm Boy (FP)
• Kroger, Walgreens form group purchasing organization (Supermarket News)
• Does tapping the bottom of a beer can really make it less fizzy (MIT TR)
• E-commerce made warehouses hot. Now investors are warming to cold storage (WSJ)

Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• The dark side of recycling (Worth)
• Why the conscious consumerism movement is stalling (Fast Company)
• 2019 saw a dramatic shift in the way America drinks (Vox)
• Big brands, online startups find success on store shelves (WSJ)
• Britain's Just Eat rejects raised offer from Prosus (Reuters)

Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• Tesco considers sale of Asian supermarkets in pivot to the U.K. (Bloomberg)
• Why brands steal jokes and memes (The Atlantic)
• A ban is coming on single-use shopping bags. This plastic producer is not worried (CBC)
• Puffer coats aren't going anywhere (Vanity Fair)
• What the rise of fake meat means for ADM (Chicago Tribune)

Stephan's Monday Picks

• The rise of restaurants with no diners as apps take orders (NPR)
• Unintended perk of the online mattress wars: Never-ending free returns (WSJ)
• Palettes are what every teen wants for the holidays (NYT)
• First, Burger King. Now fancy tasting menus are ditching meat (Bloomberg)
• Call it a crime of pasta (NYT)

Stephan's Friday Picks

• Supermarket survival means matching Amazon (Bloomberg)
• Now that IKEA has colonized Earth, it's going after Mars (Fast Company)
• Fake meat vs real meat (NYT)
• Beyond Meat, Impossible Foods hungry for a piece of China's meat market (WSJ)
• From the archives (2006): The true story of how Tim Hortons was founded on greed and betrayal (Macleans)

Stephan's Thursday Picks

• French fry squeeze hits North America after poor potato harvest (Bloomberg)
• Chew on this: Gum that promises to help you sleep and make you skinny (WSJ)
• Canada's food price report (Dalhousie University)
• Ontario hunger report says 1 in 10 Ontarians can't afford a basic standard of living (CBC)
• The Amazon effect is flooding a struggling recycling system with cardboard (The Verge)

Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• When department stores were theater (NYT)
• Can babies learn to love vegetables (The New Yorker)
• Smaller loaves of bread are on the rise (WSJ)
• Next-day delivery spawns Amazon warehouse fix (Bloomberg)
• Cosmic Crisp apple that can reportedly last for a year to hit U.S. stores this week (The Guardian)

Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• 'Bags for life' making plastic problem worse (The Guardian)
• How Amazon wove itself into an American city (NYT)
• Long-awaited Cosmic Crisp apples to hit shelves (The Spokesman Review)
• Retailers revamp staffing as viewer shoppers visit stores (WSJ)
• How kombucha went from seaweed tea in Japan to a hit in North America (CBC)

Stephan's Monday Picks

• A Montreal bagel war unites rival kings (NYT)
• It's getting more expensive to eat, and economists are worried (Bloomberg)
• How Target became a model retailer (LA Times)
• America's cattle ranchers are fighting back against fake meat (WSJ)
• The bonkers bristly story of how Big Toothbrush took over the world (Wired)

Best of Pax Westona: November 2019

• Inside Walmart's corporate culture clash over e-commerce (Bloomberg)
• The everything town in the middle of nowhere (The Verge)
• The grocery store where produce meets politics (The New Yorker)
• The direct-to-consumer reckoning (BoF)
• Packaging: A $1.2 trillion sector going through a re-think (Rita McGrath)
• Warby Parker wants to be the Warby Parker of contacts (Bloomberg)
• How our home delivery habit reshaped the world (The Guardian)
• The real problem with Paula Deen (Eater)
• Ruthless quotas at Amazon are maiming employees (The Atlantic)
• Big Calculator: How Texas Instruments dominated math class (Gen)

Stephan's Friday Picks

• The great, American eye-exam scam (The Atlantic)
• Shoppers are buying more generic brands (Bloomberg)
• Bernard Arnault bought Tiffany. Who is he (NYT)
• How 'calming' drinks made with adaptogens and CBD took over (Eater)
• From the archives (2004): Grocer Metro no longer le premier choix (Globe and Mail)

Stephan's Thursday Picks

• Big Calculator: How Texas Instruments dominated math class (Gen)
• Impossible Foods eyes doubling valuation with new funding (Reuters)
• Chasing Amazon, retailers are in a never-ending arms race (NYT)
• Couche-Tard makes $5.8 billion bid for Australia's Caltex (Globe and Mail)
• Meet the $50 strawberries that top NYC chefs are fawning over (Eater)

Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• Why robots should learn to build crappy IKEA furniture (Wired)
• Grocery-carrying robots are coming. Do we need them (NYT)
• Ruthless quotas at Amazon are maiming employees (The Atlantic)
• If that was the retail apocalypse then where are the refugees (WP)
• Toronto's Knix Wear raises venture capital to take on lingerie giant Victoria's Secret (Globe and Mail)

Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• Fake meat companies are racing to 3D-print steaks (Bloomberg)
• Welcome to the button wars (WSJ)
• The real problem with Paula Deen (Eater)
• The life and death of the local hardware store (NYT)
• Judge dismisses Subway's $210M lawsuit against CBC over chicken sandwich expose (CBC)

Stephan's Monday Picks

• Amazon throws spaghetti on the grocery wall (Bloomberg)
• Amazon has become America's CEO factory (WSJ)
• Rona's tragedy in three acts (Financial Post)
• Metro to increase use of self-checkout as it copes with labour crunch (Globe and Mail)
• Unilever, Henkel, and buyout funds eye bids for Coty's $7 billion beauty brands (Reuters)

Stephan's Friday Picks

• How our home delivery habit reshaped the world (The Guardian)
• Talent may be shifting away from superstar cities (CityLab)
• Kroger dials back overhaul as sales sputter (WSJ)
• The state of fashion 2020: Navigating uncertainty (McKinsey)
• From the archives (2006): Metro looking west for more acquisitions (Globe and Mail)

Stephan's Thursday Picks

• Warby Parker wants to be the Warby Parker of contacts (Bloomberg)
• Why Walmart is turning its new headquarters into a walkable town square (Curbed)
• The delicate balance of making an ecosystem strategy work (HBR)
• Better-paid, better-educated jobs face the most exposure to AI (Brookings)
• Why the 'Amazon of the East' isn't worried about big brands selling direct to customer (Fortune)

Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• The direct-to-consumer reckoning (BoF)
• Bricks and mortar is dead. Let's open a store (NYT)
• Walmart plays catchup in Amazon e-commerce battle (FT)
• AmEx is paying up to get businesses to accept its cards (WSJ)
• Packaging: A $1.2 trillion sector going through a re-think (Rita McGrath)

Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• The grocery store where produce meets politics (The New Yorker)
• Why so many CEOs don't realize they have a bad jobs problem (HBR)
• Kylie Jenner sells $600 million stake in her beauty company (WSJ)
• Chobani expands beyond the yogurt aisle with a big bet on oat milk (Fortune)
• How leading retailers and consumer brand can strategize for consumer-data privacy and personalization at scale (McKinsey)

Stephan's Monday Picks

• The everything town in the middle of nowhere (The Verge)
• To make this tofu, start by burning plastic (NYT)
• A look at artificial intelligence in the consumer packaged goods industry (Bain)
• Why certain shoppers steal at self-checkout (CBC)
• Those Amazon returns? They're killing the environment (Bloomberg)

Stephan's Friday Picks

• Inside the startling, chaotic rise of Alibaba's Singles Day (Wired)
• Here's how KKR could take Walgreens private in biggest LBO (Bloomberg)
• Why pop-up shops are suddenly everywhere (The Atlantic)
• Inside Walmart's corporate culture clash over e-commerce (Bloomberg)
• From the archives (2016): In praise of the Yukon Gold potato (Macleans)

Stephan's Thursday Picks

• Hard seltzer craze makes White Claw maker a billionaire (Bloomberg)
• The human cost of chicken farming (The Atlantic)
• You need to prioritize sleep (Wired)
• Tesco seeks to gain edge over rivals with Clubcard subscription service (FT)
• Biggest U.S. milk company Dean Foods files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy (WSJ)

Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• Second Cup to change name to Aegis Brands (Globe and Mail)
• French baguettes from a vending machine. 'What a tragedy' (NYT)
• Amazon confirms plans to launch grocery store under new brand (Bloomberg)
• Alibaba seals $38 billion Singles Day record (Bloomberg)
• How targeted ads and dynamic pricing can perpetuate bias (HBR)

Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• Truly Canadian? American-owned RONA removes sign after complaint (CBC)
• The impossible alchemy of Barney's at Saks (NYT)
• Indigo plans new merchandise to save itself - but will it be enough (The Star)
• Is Lowe's repeating Target's mistakes in Canada (Globe and Mail)
• Inside Maple Lea Foods' bold call to become carbon neutral (The Chronicle Herald)

Stephan's Monday Picks

• Should your cat be vegan (WSJ)
• The movement to streamline skincare (The Guardian)
• The USDA is turning spinach red to boost consumption (Quartz)
• Yandex is testing autonomous robot delivery in Moscow (Engadget)
• Delivery drivers for Instacart, Postmates and others say algorithms are destabilizing their pay (WP)

Stephan's Friday Picks

• Is Toronto too downmarket for Eataly (Globe and Mail)
• Mattel, PwC obscured accounting issues, former executive says (WSJ)
• How bubble tea became a complicated symbol of American-Asian identity (Eater)
• Top chefs pick their favourite pie in America (Bloomberg)
• From the archives (1968): What it's like to live in Toyland (Macleans)

Stephan's Thursday Picks

• Inside Amazon’s plan for Alexa to run your entire life (MIT TR)
• Get ready to try the Impossible Burger of ice cream (Grub Street)
• Plant-based meat get their beefy taste from flavorists (WP)
• Beauty giant Coty tries on a smaller size (WSJ)
• UPS delivers prescription medications to US homes by drone for the first time (The Verge)

Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• Walgreens has explored taking the drug store chain private (Reuters)
• Walmart appears to be gaining ground against Amazon (CNBC)
• The seedless lemon revolution has taken root in California (LA Times)
• Walmart’s strategy when wading into the culture wars: Offend few (NYT)
• Casino, Intermarche probed by EU over French supermarket probe (Bloomberg)

Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• The sun rises on Wegman's (The New Yorker)
• Amazon drops grocery delivery fee as competitors close in (Reuters)
• Finally, a great single-cup coffee brewer (Wired)
• Before food took over reality TV, there was 'The Restaurant' (Eater)
• The 2019 holiday season: Shoppers are ready to spend but retailers need to personalize (McKinsey)

Stephan's Monday Picks

• The trouble with chocolate (WP)
• Stitch Fix is diving deep into data for a more tailored experience (Fortune)
• Food delivery looks like another gig economy dead end (Bloomberg)
• The making of high-tech kosher and halal meat (Quartz)
• J.C. Penney plots a comeback (WSJ)

Best of Pax Westona: October 2019

• The market for alternative proteins (McKinsey)
• How Irish butter Kerrygold conquered America's kitchens (Bloomberg)
• Taking on the tortilla industry (NYT)
• Jeff Bezos's master plan (The Atlantic)
• Is Amazon unstoppable (The New Yorker)
• Flour power: Meet the bread heads baking a better loaf (The Guardian)
• Inside beauty brand Deciem's ambitious comeback (Vogue)
• Online advertisers tell you what to buy, advertisers wonder who's listening (WSJ)
• The great Texas whiskey boom (Texas Monthly)
• How homeopathy went from fringe medicine to the grocery aisle (Vox)

Stephan's Friday Picks

• Why do people hate vegans (The Guardian)
• Meet Maangchi, the internet's favourite Korean home cook (The Verge)
• The future of food. Meatless? (McKinsey)
• Altria cuts value of Juul stake by $4.5 billion (WSJ)
• From the archives (1994): Home Depot buys Aikenhead's in Canada (NYT)

Stephan's Thursday Picks

• Uber hopes drones can lift it to profitability (Wired)
• Amazon drops grocery delivery fee as competitors close in (Reuters)
• Walgreens to close in-store clinics, make way for new services (Bloomberg)
• Is your cashew-milk latte an ethical choice (Quartz)
• Feel like you're the only one buying your own groceries at Whole Foods? Possibly (WSJ)

Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• The truth about open offices (HBR)
• The first map of America's food supply chain is mind-boggling (Fast Company)
• H&M CEO sees 'terrible' fallout as consumer shaming spreads (Bloomberg)
• Diaper rush: Conquering a $9 billion market no one wants to talk about (Reuters)
• The story of the Entenmann family bakery fortune (Town & Country)

Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• The next wave of consumer M&A: Searching for growth (McKinsey)
• How homeopathy went from fringe medicine to the grocery aisle (Vox)
• The drones are here (WSJ)
• There are more knockoff Tommy's chili burgers in LA than genuine ones (LA Times)
• Meat theft: The strange new crime taking over Winnipeg grocery stores (Macleans)

Stephan's Monday Picks

• How Bon Appetit became a YouTube sensation (Man Repeller)
• Inside the Nordstrom dynasty (NYT)
• Amazon ready to pour billions into policing its products on its site (WSJ)
• We wouldn't have e-commerce without Amazon (Quartz)
• How Best Buy's Barry went from 'risk' to CEO (Fortune)

Stephan's Friday Picks

• The junk food that wants to have it both ways (WSJ)
• One family built Forever 21, and fueled its collapse (NYT)
• Scientists are literally spinning up lab-grown meat (Wired)
• Sorry - organic farming is actually worse for the climate change (MIT TR)
• From the archives (2008): A store and a vision (Globe and Mail)

Stephan's Thursday Picks

• The great Texas whiskey boom (Texas Monthly)
• Amazon acquires digital health startup Health Navigator (CNBC)
• Would you like fries with that? McDonald's already knows the answer (NYT)
• These $50 chicken nuggets were grown in a lab (Bloomberg)
• Ex-Stitch Fix COO raises $30 million for AI-powered shopping platform (Vogue)

Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• Online advertisers tell you what to buy, advertisers wonder who's listening (WSJ)
• HBC accepts sweetened takeover bid from Baker (Globe and Mail)
• Bidding war breaks out for food delivery service Just Eat (Bloomberg)
• The newest gene editor radically improves on CRISPR (MIT TR)
• The world can make more water from the sea, but at what cost (NYT)

Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• Eataly announces opening date for their first Toronto location (BlogTO)
• The limits of the pursuit of profit (FT)
• Revenue growth management : The next horizon (McKinsey)
• Why do Canadians buy milk in bags (Eater)
• Why Amazon returns cost millions and how Kohl's is helping (CNBC)

Stephan's Monday Picks

• Inside beauty brand Deciem's ambitious comeback (Vogue)
• Fred Smith created FedEx. Now he has to reinvent it (WSJ)
• How climate change impacts wine (NYT)
• Move over Honeycrisp: New apples hit the shelves (WP)
• Amazon is selling individual $1 items with free one-day delivery (Vox)

Stephan's Friday Picks

• Aldi, Lidl cut into U.S. grocers' turf (WSJ)
• Meet America's newest military giant: Amazon (MIT TR)
• What to expect from the new Wegmans in New York (Eater)
• How a Mexican general's exile led to chewing gum (Gastro Obscura)
• From the archives (2015): With Safeway deal complete, Sobeys demands price cuts from suppliers (Globe and Mail)

Stephan's Thursday Picks

• The new makers of plant-based meat? Big meat companies (NYT)
• Silicon Valley takes on Amazon's cashierless 'Go' stores (WSJ)
• How America lost dinner (The Atlantic)
• What great category strategies can do for procurement (BCG)
• Lego considers rental scheme as it seeks to reduce plastic waste (The Telegraph)

Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• Five reasons the diet soda myth won't die (NYT)
• The yogurt industry has been using CRISPR for a decade (The Atlantic)
• Wegmaniacs count the days to Brooklyn store opening (WSJ)
• The 'retail apocalypse' is an apparel apocalypse (Retail Dive)
• It's used 4,600 times a second but most North Americans have never heard of Maggi (CBC)

Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• Is Amazon unstoppable (The New Yorker)
• Food companies put supply chains under the microscope (WSJ)
• Flour power: Meet the bread heads baking a better loaf (The Guardian)
• Uber acquires Cornershop, a grocery delivery startup (NYT)
• It dominates everything it touches. But can Amazon compete with ... Walmart (Institutional Investor)

Stephan's Friday Picks

• How Glossier grew from millennial catnip to billion dollar juggernaut (Vanity Fair)
• Juul is the new Big Tobacco (Bloomberg)
• Jeff Bezos's master plan (The Atlantic)
• Fast food chains launch grocery store versions of menu items in competitive market (Globe and Mail)
• From the archives (1990): No Perrier? A status bubble bursts (NYT)

Stephan's Thursday Picks

• Taking on the tortilla industry (NYT)
• There's a new source for meat substitutes: Fungi (WSJ)
• Behind Amazon's sudden change in its film strategy (NYT)
• Grocers like Aldi and Trader Joe's are trying to cut down on plastic waste (Vox)
• Shiseido inks $845 million deal for skincare firm Drunk Elephant (Bloomberg)

Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• Instacart orders rebound after losing Whole Foods (Bloomberg)
• China turns to strategic pork reserve (NYT)
• Meat, milk groups seek to defend supermarket turf (WSJ)
• Dean & Deluca's Soho store closed for 'renovations' (Grub Street)
• This bus is actually a grocery store, bringing healthy food where it's needed most (CBC)

Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• Changing snack appetites leave granola bars behind (WSJ)
• What your local Costco says about you (Taste)
• What, and why, is a whisky pod (Slate)
• Why Chicago is the nation's capital of food and beverage manufacturing (Food Dive)
• Water bottles have long been the unexpected status symbol of high school (Eater)

Stephan's Monday Picks

• The pleasures of eating alone (WSJ)
• Forever 21 underestimated young women (The Atlantic)
• Fashion trade groups say Amazon facilitates counterfeits (Fast Company)
• How Dave Lewis saved Tesco from disaster (The Guardian)
• Bodega, once dubbed 'America's most hated startup', has quietly raised millions (Tech Crunch)

Stephan's Friday Picks

• The market for alternative proteins (McKinsey)
• Postmates, DoorDash want to deliver your groceries too (WSJ)
• How Irish butter Kerrygold conquered America's kitchens (Bloomberg)
• Tesco chief Dave Lewis announces surprise departure (The Guardian)
• From the archives (1985): The fall of Black's Dominion (Maclean's)

Stephan's Thursday Picks

• Amazon's grocery store plans move ahead with Los Angeles leases (WSJ)
• Suits aren't popular anymore. Here's why (Vox)
• India isn't letting a single onion leave the country (NYT)
• UPS just won FAA approval to fly as many drone deliveries as it wants (The Verge)
• RxBar founder Peter Rahal on what it's like to become an overnight millionaire (Medium)

Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• The kale craze might be ending (The Atlantic)
• How PetSmart swallowed Chewy - and proved the doubters wrong (WSJ)
• McDonald's CEO wants Big Macs to keep up with Big Tech (Bloomberg)
• Eat less red meat, scientists said. Now some believe that was bad advice (NYT)
• If you're an American who loves kiwi, jackfruit, or jicama, you have this 96-year-old woman to thank (WP)

Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• The age of bathfluence (The New Yorker)
• How to develop an appetite for insects (NYT)
• Forever 21 files for bankruptcy (Bloomberg)
• Food52 sells to the Chernin Group (Vox)
• India's holiday e-commerce sales to test severity of shopping slump (WSJ)

Best of Pax Westona: September 2019

• Service jobs should be - and can be - middle-class jobs (HBR)
• Facebook Marketplace: The wild west of e-commerce (WSJ)
• How the plastic bottle went from miracle container to hated garbage (National Geographic)
• An interview with Alibaba chairman and CEO Daniel Zhang (McKinsey)
• A shadowy industry group shapes food policy around the world (NYT)
• A new theory of obesity (Scientific American)
• Was the Gap ever cool (NYT)
• Can a burger help solve climate change (The New Yorker)
• The Uniqlo story (SCMP)
• Buying birth control online is a peek into the future of modern medicine (MIT TR)

Stephan's Monday Picks

• Walmart received outside interest in JetBlack unit (Bloomberg)
• The missing ingredient in Kraft Heinz's restructuring (HBR)
• For the McCain empire, climate change is serious business (FP)
• Supermarkets in France are opening on Sundays without workers (Bloomberg)
• Global food retailers join coalition to to slash rate of food waste (Supermarket News)

Stephan's Friday Picks

• Best Buy sees health care as the retailer's next 'big thing' (Bloomberg)
• McKinsey to start selling underwear and makeup (FT)
• McDonald's to test plant-based burgers in Canada (NYT)
• Buying birth control online is a peek into the future of modern medicine (MIT TR)
• From the archives (2000): Webvan to acquire HomeGrocer.com for $1.2 billion (NYT)

Stephan's Thursday Picks

• Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson on work, joy, and coffee (HBR)
• Bezos's big van order signals Amazon-backed Rivian is 'for real' (Bloomberg)
• Amazon's latest copycat brand: Allbirds (Quartz)
• Lululemon set to wind down Ivivva kids business (CNBC)
• McDonald's is now accepting job applications through Alexa and Google Assistant (The Verge)

Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• Kraft Heinz: Two food giants that haven't gone so well together (NYT)
• Federal prosecutors conducting criminal probe of Juul (WSJ)
• Boston Beer Truly hard seltzer drives sales, not Sam Adams (Bloomberg)
• How health food invaded the beauty aisle (Vox)
• Ocado co-founder rejects 'ludicrous' espionage claims (FT)

Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• Can a burger help solve climate change (The New Yorker)
• The Uniqlo story (SCMP)
• Is the new meat any better than the old meat (NYT)
• Sweetgreen's tech focus helps push valuation to $1.6 billion (WSJ)
• For recovering bankers, the restaurant life beckons (Bloomberg)

Stephan's Monday PIcks

• Inside the supermarket strategy to lure customers away from restaurants (FP)
• My quest for lunchbox supremacy (NYT)
• The 'smart' kitchen is very stupid (Wired)
• Japanese milk bread is coming for your lunch (Bloomberg)
• Beer is turning industrial streets into thriving neighbourhoods (Globe and Mail)

Stephan's Friday Picks

• A Montreal food diary (The Ringer)
• How Brexit could break Britain's food chain (NYT)
• Algorithms are people (The Atlantic)
• Tim Horton's pulls Beyond Meat products from Canadian locations (CBC)
• From the archives (2015): Wanted: new Morrison's CEO: Same as old one, but without all the mistakes (The Guardian)

Stephan’s Thursday Picks

• A new theory of obesity (Scientific American)
• Why consolidating brands can be a strategic mistake (HBR)
• Kraft Heinz shares fall after 3G cuts stake (3G)
• It’s time to kill free return shipping (Fast Company)
• Was the Gap ever cool (NYT)

Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• Amazon changed search algorithm in ways that boosted own products (WSJ)
• Ocado's new offer to investors: quinoa with added robotics (The Guardian)
• Aldi plans to open a new supermarket every week (BBC)
• Baking isn't hard when you've got a library card (Eater)
• AB InBev launches second Asia IPO attempt, targets up to $6.6 billion (Reuters)

Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• Eataly finally lands in Toronto (Globe and Mail)
• A shadowy industry group shapes food policy around the world (NYT)
• Slow growth takes shine off Tesco budget chain Jack's a year on (The Guardian)
• J Crew plans IPO spinoff of Madewell brand (WSJ)
• Instacart hires Amazon exec as chief revenue officer (Supermarket News)

Stephan's Monday Picks

• Amazon will let anyone answer your Alexa questions now (Fast Company)
• Walmart will take its Amazon Prime competitor nationwide (Fortune)
• Interview: Tim Richards, founder of Vue cinemas (The Sunday Times)
• Kroger's sales rise after digital investments (WSJ)
• Meat industry says China's pork, beef ban costing it $100 million (Globe and Mail)

Stephan's Friday Picks

• How grocery stores saved food from Hurricane Dorian (CBC)
• America's long history of resisting self-service (Bloomberg)
• Forever 21 plans to file for bankruptcy as early as Sunday (WSJ)
• An interview with Alibaba chairman and CEO Daniel Zhang (McKinsey)
• From the archives (1999): Anthony Bourdain: Don't eat before reading this (The New Yorker)

Stephan's Thursday Picks

• Wendy's puts breakfast on the menu again (WSJ)
• Purdue Pharma settles opioids case (NYT)
• We need more startups that don't prioritize growth above all else (HBR)
• StarKist hit with $100 million fine in tuna price fixing case (WSJ)
• Alibaba's new chairman says he has to reinvent retail before someone else does (Bloomberg)

Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• Amazon has 30,000 open jobs (NYT)
• Can India's richest man take on Amazon and Walmart (WP)
• Big Ag wants a cut of booming fake-meat business (Reuters)
• Ahold Delhaize searches for new CFO to boost sales, cut costs (WSJ)
• Toys 'R' Us Canada to update stores to cope with changing consumer tastes (Globe and Mail)

Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• The world wastes tons of food. A grocery 'happy hour' is one answer (NYT)
• Management: So much  more than a science (Rotman Management)
• The formidable challenges of rejuvenating M&S (FT)
• How the Le Creuset dutch oven rose to icon status (Eater)
• Half-bottles of wine offer value and variety. Why aren't we drinking them (VinePair)

Stephan's Monday Picks

• Founded in 1670, Hudson's Bay chases relevance (Bloomberg)
• How high tech is transforming one of the oldest jobs: Farming (NYT)
• Even at $529 a shot, Japanese whiskey is selling out fast (WSJ)
• The two most mysterious words in modern shopping (The Atlantic)
• There's a $218 billion design problem sitting in your fridge right now (Fast Company)

Stephan's Friday Picks

• How the plastic bottle went from miracle container to hated garbage (National Geographic)
• The next hot job: Pretending to be a robot (WSJ)
• The human cost of Amazon's fast, free shipping (NYT)
• The future of the middle class depends on upgrading service jobs (CityLab)
• From the archives (2001): The paradox of brands (HBR)

Stephan's Thursday Picks

• Retail in Australia: A ghost town (McKinsey)
• Facebook Marketplace: The wild west of e-commerce (WSJ)
• New ways to make vertical farming stack up (The Economist)
• Activist investor Jana pushes for sale of Bloomin Brands again (Bloomberg)
• Drone test flight successfully delivers prescription drugs in Canada for first time (CBC)

Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• How a tweet led to a shortage at Popeyes (NYT)
• The war on sugar hits the juice box (WSJ)
• Rose berries have arrived (The New Yorker)
• Meat companies aren't worried about demand amid vegan burger boom (Bloomberg)
• Retailers struggled during boom times. What happens if there's a recession (WP)

Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• India's restaurants rebel against food delivery apps (NYT)
• Walmart's robot army has arrived (Fast Company)
• Service jobs should be - and can be - middle-class jobs (HBR)
• The cost of next-day delivery (BuzzFeed)
• What the food movement misses about poverty and inequality (The Breakthrough)

Best of Pax Westona: August 2019

• Big Alcohol's pursuit to make weed beverages (The Verge)
• Auchan China's chairman on the future of grocery (McKinsey)
• Why meal delivery companies are everywhere (The Atlantic)
• The rise of the virtual restaurant (NYT)
• The Californication of American restaurants (Eater)
• How Target managed a big box turnaround (Fortune)
• The Popeyes chicken sandwich is here to save America (The New Yorker)
• LaCroix won the bubble battle, but it's losing the sparkling water war (Bloomberg)
• The inside story of the fall of Overstock's mad king (Forbes)
• Why are products for older people so ugly (MIT Technology Review)

Stephan's Friday Picks

• How Amazon's shipping empire is challenging UPS and FedEx (WSJ)
• Forever 21 is said to prepare potential bankruptcy filing (Bloomberg)
• He ran an empire of soup and mayonnaise. Now he wants to reinvent capitalism (NYT)
• Hudson's Bay selling Lord & Taylor banner amid privatization battle (Globe and Mail)
• From the archives (2005): Metro in deal to buy A&P Canada for $1.7B (CBC)

Stephan's Thursday Picks

• Why are products for older people so ugly (MIT Technology Review)
• What sandwich war? KFC sells out of plant-based chicken in Atlanta (NYT)
• Spanish delivery app targets supermarkets as consolidation looms (Bloomberg)
• Falling tobacco demand spurs Philip Morris, Altria to talk merger (WSJ)
• Why complexity sells (Collaborative Fund)

Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• Here are the crazy pictures from Costco's opening day in China (Quartz)
• J&J ordered to pay $572 million in landmark opioid trial (NYT)
• Pets can't save struggling food makers (WSJ)
• Kraft Heinz' CEO Patricio's premiumization plan will face challenges (Chicago Business)
• A war between Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods and cattle ranchers draws in veggie burgers and Tofurkey (Washington Post)

Stephan's Tuesday's Picks

• What Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop really sells to women (The Atlantic)
• A tooth-straightening startup runs into resistance (Bloomberg)
• It's not always excellent to be Jamie Oliver (NYT)
• Getting sharp on omnichannel shoppers in apparel (McKinsey)
• White Claw craze: Why the canned drink is a US summer obsession (The Guardian)

Stephan's Monday Picks

• The inside story of the fall of Overstock's mad king (Forbes)
• Amazon has ceded control of its site (WSJ)
• The collective memory of American shoppers (NYT)
• Why everyday is 'National Something Day' (The Atlantic)
• Eataly's Andrea Guerra on the company's Canadian expansion, it's split from Batali and what you should call it (Financial Post)

Stephan's Friday Picks

• LaCroix won the bubble battle, but it's losing the sparkling water war (Bloomberg)
• The Cheesecake Factory is the restaurant America wants, deserves (LA Times)
• Retail divide widens as shoppers seek value and convenience (WSJ)
• Welcome to the promoconomy (NYT)
• From the archives (2014): Our Canadian CEO of the year you've probably never heard of (Globe and Mail)

Stephan's Thursday Picks

• How Target managed a big box turnaround (Fortune)
• The hottest thing in food is made of peas, soy, and mung beans (Bloomberg)
• Cereal makers try again to jump start stale sales (WSJ)
• The Popeyes chicken sandwich is here to save America (The New Yorker)
• A Popeyes chicken sandwich and a tactic to set off a Twitter roar (NYT)

Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• Momofuku's secret sauce: A 30-year-old CEO (NYT)
• The Californication of American restaurants (Eater)
• Is sugar toxic? Here's the actual truth about the sweet substance (Inverse)
• The entire west coast goes cage-free on eggs as Oregon signs on (Bloomberg)
• Alberta beef producers say their 'ahead of the curve' as consumers look for sustainable meat (CBC)

Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• Is it time to let employees work from anywhere (HBR)
• You're either Team Pulao or Team Biryani (Taste)
• A super sad true chef story (Eater)
• High-end hot pot heats up in the U.S. (Fortune)
• Smart ovens have been turning on overnight and pre-heating to 400 degrees (The Verge)

Stephan's Monday Picks

• If strategy is so important, why don't we make time for it (HBR)
• Four Loko makes hard seltzer now (Grub Street)
• The burger recipe that changed food internet forever (Food52)
• What's fresh in fruit? Grapes that taste like cotton candy and grape soda (WSJ)
• Plastic bags are killing horses and cows across the state. What's Texas to do (Texas Tribune)

Stephan's Friday Picks

• Is Big Soda winning the soft drink wars (Politico)
• A nation awash in cardboard. But for how long (WSJ)
• America has never been so desperate for tomato season (The Atlantic)
• The rise of the virtual restaurant (NYT)
• From the archives (2013): Paul Sobeys' patient and painstaking approach to building an empire (Globe and Mail)