Best of Pax Westona: June 2019

• Making billions at the dollar store (Fortune)
• How a cosmetics giant reaches consumers (McKinsey)
• CVS wants to make your drugstore your doctor (Fortune)
• More Americans are living solo, and companies want their business (WSJ)
• When California went to war over eggs (The Smithsonian Mag)
• The future of retail: Winning models for a new era (Bain)
• Wish, the viral online shopping app, explained (Vox)
• The boutique fitness boom (NYT)
• What happens after Amazon's domination is complete? Its bookstore offers clues (NYT)
• The financial case for good retail jobs (HBR)

Stephan's Friday Picks

• Tesco working on cashierless stores as competition with Amazon heats up (Bloomberg)
• The financial case for good retail jobs (HBR)
• What is New England beach pizza (Eater)
• La Croix fights sales drop as rivals bubble up (WSJ)
• From the archives (2012): Walmart hushed up a vast Mexican bribery case (NYT)

Stephan's Thursday Picks

• Why chicken producers are under investigation for price-fixing (NYT)
• Muji competitor MINISO to plan $1 billion IPO (Bloomberg)
• China halts meat imports from Canada (Globe and Mail)
• Abbvie strikes deal to acquire Allergan for $63 billion (WSJ)
• Bow-tie pasta. It's a Jewish thing? (Taste)

Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• How e-commerce sites manipulate us into buying things you may not want (NYT)
• Beauty retailers fall as Amazon opens store for professionals (Reuters)
• What's the next chapter for Barnes & Noble (Knowledge@Wharton)
• Avocado prices keep rising, surging 7% on Wednesday (Bloomberg)
• When Victoria's Secret left the swimsuit business, direct-to-consumer brands began to thrive (CNBC)

Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• What happens after Amazon's domination is complete? Its bookstore offers clues (NYT)
• Carrefour sells control of its China business at a discount (Bloomberg)
• Walmart and Amazon want to see inside your home? Should you let them (LA Times)
• FedEx slashes prices to fill its planes (WSJ)
• Pretty cool popsicles pack very big flavour (Bloomberg)

Stephan's Monday Picks

• Walmart pleads guilty after a decade of bribes (NYT)
• Are your tinned tomatoes picked by slave labour (The Guardian)
• Confronting overconfidence in talent strategy (McKinsey)
• Forget the mall, shoppers are buying Gucci at airports (WSJ)
• Toys 'R' Us, back from the dead, will open U.S. stores in 2019 (Bloomberg)

Stephan's Friday Picks

• The oral history of serious eats (Grub Street)
• Canopy CEO Bruce Linton is your friendly Canadian weed guy (Bloomberg)
• Forever 21 seeks restructuring advice to avoid bankruptcy (WSJ)
• Shopify to launch warehouse network for merchant clients (Globe and Mail)
• From the archives (2011): The In-N-Out secret menu guide (Serious Eats)

Stephan's Thursday Picks

• The one thing you need to know about managing functions (HBR)
• Tesco considering launching 'Finest' stores (FT)
• The boutique fitness boom (NYT)
• Amazon rents more jets to expand next-day delivery (WSJ)
• Humanity's eternal quest for a better way of peeling garlic (The New Yorker)

Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• The future of retail: Winning models for a new era (Bain)
• Wish, the viral online shopping app, explained (Vox)
• Nuro will deliver Domino's pizza with its robots in Houston (Quartz)
• Hey Alexa, why is voice shopping so bad (Wired)
• Meatless future or vegan delusions. The Beyond Meat valuation (Musings on Markets)

Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• 'Tajin is a lifestyle': An appreciation of the Mexican seasoning mix (NYT)
• Big Dairy wants you to know that 'vegan butter' isn't actually butter (Bloomberg)
• How Amazon cloned a neighbourhood to test its robots (Wired)
• Inside the black (cherry) market of vintage Kool-Aid packet collectors (The Takeout)
• Walmart Grocery is now offering a $98 per year 'Delivery Unlimited' subscription (Tech Crunch)

Stephan's Monday Picks

• Store's bid to shame customers over plastic bags backfires (NYT)
• A buyout won't solve Hudson's Bay's real issue: Department stores are dying (WSJ) 
• Amazon-Whole Foods is two years old. And? (Bloomberg)
• How almonds went from deadly to delicious (NPR)
• How will cultured meat and meat alternatives disrupt the agricultural and food industry (AT Kearney)

Stephan's Friday Picks

• Lego struggles to find a plant-based plastic that clicks (WSJ)
• When California went to war over eggs (The Smithsonian Mag)
• U.S. pet doctors steel themselves for online pharmacy challenge (Reuters)
• Uber wants your next Big Mac to be delivered by drone (Bloomberg)
• From the archives (1998): Cola Wars II: The bottler battle (NYT)

Stephan's Thursday Picks

• Beauty's future is personalized products (The Atlantic)
• Beyond Meat's new improved burger hits grocery shelves (Vox)
• The Impossible Burger is hot. Pity the veggie burger (WSJ)
• Mattel rejects renewed merger bid from rival MGA Entertainment (Reuters)
• Mary Meeker's most important trends on the internet (Recode)

Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• Target takes on Sephora with a revamped beauty section (BoF)
• Trudeau government to ban single-use plastics as early as 2021 (CBC)
• Processed foods is a much bigger problem than we thought (Vox)
• Amazon ends restaurant delivery in face of fierce competition (WSJ)
• Owning nothing is now a luxury, thanks to a number of subscription startups (NYT)

Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• Barnes & Noble is sold to hedge fund after tumultuous year (NYT)
• A short rant about yogurt (Taste)
• Fitness clubs spawn urban clusters of juice bars, spas (WSJ)
• Save our food. Free the seed (NYT)
• Alcohol companies pander to millennials with focus on wellness (Eater)

Stephan's Monday Picks

• Disruption starts with unhappy customers, not technology (HBR)
• Germany's Aldi enters tough China market (FT)
• Walmart employees will soon deliver groceries directly into your fridge (The Verge)
• Hot trend: Spicy sauces are on fire (WSJ)
• As Walmart turns to robots, it's the human workers that feel like machines (Washington Post)

Stephan's Friday Picks

• New seafood substitute tastes as fishy as it sounds (WSJ)
• The plant-based burger has finally been perfected. What's next (Globe and Mail)
• Amazon to begin delivering packages by drone 'within months' (FT)
• Lowville had lots of water. Then string cheese came along (WSJ)
• From the archives (1998): Fickle finger of fat: Nabisco gives in as consumers shun Snackwell's, demanding taste (NYT)

Stephan's Thursday Picks

• More Americans are living solo, and companies want their business (WSJ)
• Fears grow over 'food swamps' as drugstores outsell major grocers (The Guardian)
• Carrefour says blockchain tracking boosting sales of some products (Reuters)
• Everyone loves pizza, including VCs (Crunchbase)
• Fast food embraces meatless burgers, but there aren't enough to go around (WSJ)

Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• CVS wants to make your drugstore your doctor (Fortune)
• Amazon's plan to move in to your next house before you do (WSJ)
• Malaysia aims to cash in on China's durian craze (NPR)
• The high price of cheap coffees (Sydney Morning Herald)
• Virgil Abloh's new Nike store is a peek at the future of retail (Fast Company)

Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• How analytics are creating a steak renaissance (Bloomberg)
• The big 'Forgotten Coast' oyster crawl (The Bitter Southerner)
• Amazon didn't cripple Bed Bath & Beyond. Its own leaders did (WSJ)
• Catering to China's diverse appetites (McKinsey)
• Banned bread: Why does the US allow additives that Europe says are unsafe (The Guardian)

Stephan's Monday Picks

• Making billions at the dollar store (Fortune)
• How a cosmetics giant reaches consumers (McKinsey)
• How our addiction to big beef is ruining our planet (Wired)
• Godfather of French retail bets on Casino pulling through (FT)
• Where to find the best rotisserie chicken in Tampa Bay. An ode to the most adaptable food item (Tampa Bay Times)