Stephan's Friday Picks

• The hidden life of seeds (Washington Post)
• The U.S. corn crop is great. Farmers finances? Not so much (WSJ)
• Canada's wildfires were a top global emitter last year, study says (NYT)
• What is corn sweat and is it making the Midwest more dangerous (Vox)
• From the archives (1973): The Russian wheat deal - hindsight vs foresight (St. Louis Fed)

 Stephan's Thursday Picks

• What was up with grocery prices (Liberty Street Economics)
• Amazon aims to launch delayed AI Alexa subscription in October (Washington Post)
• Shoppers are still spending in the mall - but they are picky (WSJ)
• Lego to replace oil in its bricks with pricier renewable plastic (Reuters)
• Gloom falls over one of China's most successful e-commerce giants (WSJ)

 Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• Like it or not - more of us are bagging our own groceries (CBC)
• Small grocers feel squeezed by suppliers, and shoppers bear the pain (Washington Post)
• Kroger and Albertsons confront a skeptical F.T.C. in court (NYT)
• Little known company key to $20 billion Kroger-Albertsons deal (WSJ)
• What went wrong for Nestle CEO Mark Schneider (Reuters)

 Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• Roger Martin: The best strategy icebreaker (Medium)
• Ontario government seeks input on whether to regulate deals between insurers and pharmacies (Globe and Mail)
• How Crayola makes crayons for back to school (Bloomberg)
• How learning to adapt makes CEOs better (McKinsey)
• Red Lobster set to bring on former P.F. Chang's leader as CEO (WSJ)

 Stephan's Monday Picks

• Why 7-Eleven is a national treasure in Japan (NYT)
• How Lidl accidentally took on the big guns of cloud computing (FT)
• Dino falls victim to price war between Polish supermarket chains (Bloomberg)
• A TikTok cucumber salad trend sets of shortage in Iceland groceries (NYTNYT)
• How consumers saved money on groceries in 1982 (CBC)

 Stephan's Friday Picks

• Loblaw piloting ultra hard discount No Name grocery stores in Ontario (Globe and MailGlobe and Mail)
• Walmart dumps entire stake in JD.com (NYT)
• Discount-hungry shoppers propel gains for Target, T.J. Maxx (WSJ)
• Asda owners under pressure as chain's share of market hits new nadir (The Guardian)
• From the archives (2013): Loblaw tests new discount store as grocery rivalry heats up (Globe and Mail)

 Stephan's Thursday Picks

• How Costco hacked the American shopping psyche (NYT)
• 7-Eleven deal talk reflects allure of Japanese convenience stores (Bloomberg)
• Shein sues Temu over copyright infringement, alleges rival loses money on every sale (CNBC)
• Businesses prepare for turmoil ahead of possible Canadian rail shutdown (Globe and Mail)
• Can plastic waste be transformed into food for humans (Undark)

 Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• Food industry pushes back against Kamala Harris' 'price gouging' claim (WSJ)
• Alain Bouchard takes one more big swing to cement his Couche-Tard legacy (Globe and Mail)
• Starbucks's new boss gets an unusual perk: Remote work (WSJ)
• How Walmart became an advertising powerhouse (FT)
• SkipTheDishes and Just Eat cut about 800 jobs in Canada mid restructuring (Globe and Mail)

 Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• Roger Martin: Exceptions and rules (Medium)
• Most Pusateri's locations to shutter amid bankruptcy filings (CBC)
• Couche-Tard approaches 7-Eleven owner about takeover in potentially historic transaction (lGlobe and Mail)
• One of TikTok's favourite restaurants is totally made up (NBC)
• Harris plans to ban grocery 'price gouging'. What does the evidence say (NYT)

 Stephan's Monday Picks

• Why Canada is on the verge of an unprecedented rail labour stoppage (Globe and Mail)
• In Mars megadeal, Big Food wants to get bigger (WSJ)
• How online influencers got addicted to Swedish candy (Bloomberg)
• Berkshire Hathaway likes Ulta. Should you (WSJ)
• The future of junk food could be healthy food (Bloomberg)

 Stephan's Friday Picks

• Fueling growth through moments of delight (McKinsey)
• Walmart earnings and July retail sales show consumers aren't quitting (WSJ)
• The British have finally learned to love peanut butter (NYT)
• On target: Our food and beverage journey (Target)
• From the archives (1974): Potential implications of trends in world population, food production, and climate (CIA)

 Stephan's Thursday Picks

• Berkshire Hathaway takes Ulta Beauty stake, sending shares up (WSJ)
• 'Stress on shelves' - The battle for space in store aisles (WSJ)
• How food prices have changed over the last four years (NYT)
• Kroger and Albertson's spend more than $800 million on merger fees (Bloomberg)
  
• The end-to-end excellence playbook for retailers (McKinsey)

 Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• The cult of wellness (Toronto Life)
• Why the new Starbucks CEO is worth $20 billion (WSJ)
• How the most powerful environmental groups help greenwash Big Meat's climate impact (Vox)
• California's rice royalty is stepping down (NYT)
• Starbucks pushed its customers too far (Bloomberg)

 Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• Roger Martin: The importance of strategic tension (Medium)
• Atlantic Superstores hoping to 'educate' customers with new branding (CBC)
• Boston Pizza scales down in bid to expand into underserved markets (Globe and Mail)
• Loblaw's health care empire is growing. But can it earn the trust of Canadian patients (Globe and Mail)
• The annual disappointment of strawberry season (The New Yorker)

 Stephan's Monday Picks

• Pete Wells reviewed restaurants for 12 years. They've changed, and not for the better (NYT)
• Williams Sonoma's CEO defied the retail apocalpyse. Now a gloomy economy is forcing even her well-off customers to spend less (Fortune)
• Shopify douses investor skepticism with solid quarter, shares jump 18 per cent (Globe and Mail)
• Meet AdVon, the AI-powered content monster infecting the media industry (Futurism)
• LLM to ROI: How to generate scale Gen AI in retail (McKinsey)