Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• Roger Martin: Strategy & boards of directors (Medium)
• Amazon strikes a deal with Affirm, the buy-now, pay-later firm (NYT)
• What I learned visiting two cutting-edge Amazon grocery stores (Full Stack Economics)
• The board perspective on talent and culture (McKinsey)
• The 'hedonistic altruism' of plant-based meat (NYT)

 Stephan's Monday Picks

• Food delivery apps stung by New York City commissions cap (FT)
• Online deliveries take a strange turn (The Guardian)
• Big box stores' other shoe drops (Marker)
• Amazon's department store plans are less surprising than they appear (The Economist)
• CVS wants to be your therapist, too (WSJ)

Stephan's Friday Picks

• Amazon's podcast play was an advertising move all along (Bloomberg)
• Online shoppers don't always care about faster delivery (MIT Sloan Management Review)
• The pricing response to cost volatility (McKinsey)
• We need to talk about the great mayonnaise inflation mystery (Bloomberg)
• From the archives (2019): Outdoor Voices blurs the lines between working out and everything else (The New Yorker)

 Stephan's Thursday Picks

• Shopify looks to expand reach across social media with TokTok partnership (Globe and Mail)
• Warby Parker plans to go public via direct listing (WSJ)
• It's back to that 'isolation bubble' for workers pining to go back to the office (NYT)
• How Target got cozy with the cops, turning black neighbours into suspects (Bloomberg)
• How packaging companies can catch the post-pandemic wave of new product launches (McKinsey)

 Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• A bubble tea making robot is a portent of things to come (Slate)
• Is it time to break up Big Ag (The New Yorker)
• Walmart opens local delivery service to other sellers (WSJ)
• The farmers market is moving online (The Verge)
• Fairfax sells Toys 'R' Us to Putman Investments, excluding real estate (Globe and Mail)

 Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• Roger Martin: Should we listen to customers (Medium)
• Irked by no-shows, Vancouver restaurants eye pre-paid reservations (Globe and Mail)
• Dollar stores are booming as shoppers grapple with rising prices (Washington Post)
• The sad desk salad is migrating from the office to the suburbs (Bloomberg)
• Whole milk mounts its triumphant comeback (Grub Street)

 Stephan's Monday Picks

• How TikTok made Pop Its the toy of the pandemic (WSJ)
• When larger audiences require fewer seats (NYT)
• Investors want to know how Just Eat will deliver for them (Bloomberg)
• People like malls (The Atlantic)
• Vertical farms rush to improve kale salad on the path to profitability (Bloomberg) 

 Stephan's Friday Picks

• Amazon plans to open large retail stores akin to department stores (WSJ)
• Why do chief data officers have such short tenures (HBR)
• Lululemon plans to make leggings from plants (Fast Company)
• Soaring cost of food is forcing families to scrimp at the dinner table (Bloomberg)
• From the archives (2012): Selling it with extras, or not at all (NYT)

 Stephan's Thursday Picks

• Revenue growth management: The time is now (McKinsey)
• Home Depot's sales growth flattens after year of rapid gains (WSJ)
• Restaurant prices are skyrocketing. Here's why (Grub Street)
• When Kmart moved out, churches and flea markets moved in (NYT)
• Montreal twins behind the Want retail brand try to take on the likes of Amazon with a less-is-more approach (Globe and Mail)

 Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• Tim Hortons China to go public via $1.7 billion SPAC deal (Bloomberg)
• People now spend more at Amazon than at Walmart (NYT)
• Are four drive-thru lanes better than two (Retail Wire)
• How Amazon won shopping (NYT)
• Walmart's earnings report shows sales rose as shoppers returned to stores (WSJ)

Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• Roger Martin: The proper role of a chief strategy officer (Medium)
• How digital beauty filters perpetuates colorism (MIT Technology Review)
• They ditched the office for the farm - and stayed (WSJ)
• Who wants to return to the office (538)
• Hanging by a thread (Collaborative Fund)

 Stephan's Monday Picks

• Can Instacart reconfigure America's grocery wars (The Economist)
• Diaper costs crush families (Bloomberg)
• The cutthroat world of $10 ice cream (NYT)
• Adidas strikes deal to sell Reebok (CNBC)
• A guide to the new workday lunch (WSJ)

 Stephan's Friday Picks

• Why the crocs craze may be here to stay (BoF)
• When Amazon customers leave negative reviews, some sellers hunt them down (WSJ)
• Canada's big three grocers see shifting shopping habits as COVID-19 restrictions ease (Globe and Mail)
• Doordash recently held talks to buy Instacart (The Information)
• From the archives (2017): The rise, fall, and return of hydrox cookies, the proto-Oreo (Gastro Obscura)

 Stephan's Thursday Picks

• How the pet revolution unleashed a new top dog (NPR)
• A pricing playbook for CPG companies amid inflationary pressure (BCG)
• Back-to-school displays begin popping up earlier than usual (Globe and Mail)
• The immense human cost of keeping Thailand's palm oil flowing (Eater)
• Understanding the global price-sensitive consumer (BCG)

Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• Delta variant clouds back-to-school shopping plans (WSJ)
• What Zomato's $12 billion IPO says about the tech industry (HBR)
• Why do American grocery stores still have an ethnic aisle (NYT)
• Deliveroo shares rise after rival Delivery Hero takes 5% stake (The Guardian)
• Much anew about nudging (McKinsey)

 Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• Roger Martin: Compelling communication for your strategy (Medium) 
• Gorillas: The new WeWork? (Sifted)
• Uber's do-it-all approach puts profit further out of reach (Bloomberg)
• How Shein became the Chinese apparel maker American teens love (WSJ)
• Cargill, Continental Grain, to buy chicken producer Sanderson Farms for $4.5 billion (Reuters)

 Stephan's Monday Picks

• The slow collapse of Amazon's drone delivery program (Wired)
• Why stores send you so many emails (The Atlantic)
• Target rolls out debt-free college degrees to woo retail workers (CNBC)
• Prioritizing sustainability in retail and consumer goods (McKinsey)
• Fortress sweetens offer for U.K. grocer Morrisons to $9.3 billion (Bloomberg)

 Stephan's Friday Picks

• The real problem with 'congee Karen' and food appropriation (Grub Street)
• What Amazon did to my hair (The New Yorker)
• Pandemic wave of automation may be bad news for workers (NYT)
• DoorDash in talks to invest in German grocery app Gorillas (FT)
• From the archives (2019): Aggregate confusion: The divergence of ESG ratings (MIT Sloan)

 Stephan's Thursday Picks

• PepsiCo to sell Tropicana, Naked Juice brands to private equity firm (WSJ)
• American shoppers are a nightmare (The Atlantic)
• The Inuk woman using TikTok to expose high food prices in the North (Maclean's)\
• Plant-based fish is rattling the multi-billion dollar seafood industry (Bloomberg)
• Legault Group announces the acquisition of Ren's Pets stores in Ontario and Atlantic provinces (Legault)

 Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• Roger Martin: Diversity & strategy (Medium)
• The true extent of America's food monopolies (The Guardian)
• Square agrees to buy Afterpay for $29 billion (WSJ)
• Can the mad rush to deliver your groceries in 10 minutes be profitable (Bloomberg)
• Wegmans to open first Manhattan store in 2023 (WSJ)

 Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• Is lab-grown meat really going to solve our nasty agriculture problem (The Guardian)
• Lysol. N95 masks. UPS. For some pandemic winners, the boom is over (WSJ)
• No soil. Now water. Just add water and technology (NYT)
• Starbucks is the new talent factory powering Corporate America (Bloomberg)
• Ontario grocery chains, restaurants, form alliance to challenge GFL on privatized blue-box recycling regime (Globe and Mail)