Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• The age of AI (Globe and Mail)
• How doodles have become a billion dollar businsess (Bloomberg)
• Nicotine is hot. Beer is not. What vice stocks say about America's guilty pleasures (WSJ)
• Why the minibar vanished. How hotels maximize profit from your stay (WSJ)
• Where new India tariffs could hit. Your kitchen cabinet (NYT)

 Stephan's Thursday Picks

• A punchy $50 billion sales goal gets J. Martins mulling over M&A (Bloomberg)
• The quest to build a perfect protein bar (The New Yorker)
• Ikea kitchens coming to Best Buy as chains aim to revive sales (Bloomberg)
• Greg Ramier to replace retiring Pet Valu CEO Richard Malsbarger (Globe and Mail)
• End of de minimis alarms e-commerce sellers, consumers (WSJ)

 Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• Roger Martin: Thinking more strategically about where to play (Medium)
• Building a destination for pet parents (McKinsey)
• Meet the pastry chef known as the 'Scone Master' (Globe and Mail)
• Life's ancient bottleneck (Quillette)
• Snack maker sues Aldi grocery chain over look-alike product packaging (NYT)

 Stephan's Monday Picks

• Couche-Tard says ready to boost bid if Seven & i engages (Bloomberg)
• The fall of Hudson's Bay Co, a Canadian retail icon (Globe and Mail)
• Pet owners are changing. How will the industry respond (BCG)
• PepsiCo is near $1.5 billion-plus deal for soda brand Poppi (Bloomberg)
• Supply management is the trade barrier Canadian politicians are reticent to tear down (Globe and Mail)

 Stephan's Friday Picks

• The trade war is running hot in the Costco frozen food section (Globe and Mail)
• Why Amazon is betting on 'automated reasoning' to reduce AI's hallucinations (WSJ)
• The world's first lab grown meat for pets goes on sale (The Verge)
• How Canadian restaurants are remaking their menus with a focus on fare grown at home (Globe and Mail)
• From the archives (2007): Kroger moves into the sights of private equity shops (WSJ)

 Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• Think your grocery bill is high? Try eating gluten-free (CBC)
• Amazon's Prime Day is a 'major cause of injuries' for workers, Senate probe finds (WSJ)
• Pete Wells is stepping down as New York Times food critic (Food and Wine)
• Hugo Boss joins Burberry in warning about luxury spending (WSJ)
• Britain approves lab-grown meat for pet food (NYT)

 Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• Roger Martin: How management can most effectively use boards (Medium)
• How pets became big business (NYT)
• The crazy economics of the world's most coveted handbag (WSJ)
• What it takes to rewire a CPG company to outcompete in digital and AI (McKinsey)
• Amazon mulls monthly fee as part of revamp of unprofitable Alexa service to include generative AI (Globe and Mail)

 Stephan's Friday Picks

• How Pet Value monetizes our fur baby love (Globe and Mail)
• Wayfair's new strategy looks built to last (WSJ)
• The future of New York City's pizza is electric (NYT)
• Loblaw's facade of benevolence has fully cracked (Globe and Mail)
• From the archives (1999): The inner Jeff Bezos (Wired)

 Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• House of Commons committee tells Loblaw and Walmart to sign grocery code or risk legislation (CBC)
• Young shoppers keep cosmetics hot despite inflation (Globe and Mail)
• The twilight of the American sommelier (NYT)
• The secrets of the pet industry (The Guardian)
• What happens when TikTok is your marketing department (NYT)

 Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• Roger Martin: Strategy & leadership #4 (Medium)
• Modern marketing: Six capabilities for multidisciplinary teams (McKinsey)
• The dog-eat-dog world of kosher pet food at Passover (WSJ)
• People started buying Crocs during the pandemic. They can't stop (NYT)
• Experience-led growth: A new way to create value (McKinsey)

 Stephan's Monday Picks

• The first lab-grown seafood will be fancy (Vox)
• Shopify scraps big Toronto move, dealing blow to office market (Globe and Mail)
• Amazon signs deals with Games Workshop for Warhammer 40k films (Bloomberg)
• Malls welcomed dogs. The results have been ruff (WSJ)
• Empire takes $25-million hit as cyber attack disturbs operations (Globe and Mail)

 Stephan's Monday Picks

• The Great Resignation has arrived in Canada (Globe and Mail)
• Why aren't more Canadians switching jobs (Globe and Mail)
• Purina's Fancy Feast opens NYC restaurant for humans (Grub Street)
• How Costco invented Kirkland Signature (CNN)
• Why 'box fatigue' may be hitting the apparel industry (CNBC)

 Stephan's Friday Picks

• Toronto wants to kill the smart city forever (MIT Technology Review)
• Some consumers are giving inflation the bird, with a whole chicken (WSJ)
• JAB's bet on pets (FT)
• The Great Attrition is making hiring harder. Are you searching in the right pools (McKinsey)
• From the archives (2014): America is eating a lot more berries. Here's why (NYT)

 Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• Warren Buffet's 2021 Letter to Shareholders (Berkshire Hathaway)
• Roger Martin: How to get buy-in for your strategy (Medium)
• A little noticed reason workers quit: Too little work (WSJ)
• Pet Valu announces acquisition of Chico, Quebec's largest pet specialty retailer (Newswire)
• Target is raising its minimum wage to $24 in some markets (WSJ)

 Stephan's Thursday Picks

• Macy's opts against separation of e-commerce business (WSJ)
• Why is it so hard to find a good floor lamp (The Atlantic)
• Frito-Lay stops shipments to Loblaw stores over pricing dispute (Globe and Mail)
• Why business must heed customer reviews (McKinsey)
• The diet worked for them. Now their pets are on it (NYT)

 Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• Kellogg workers ratify a revised contract after being on strike since October (NYT)
• The pet food shortage is real, and owners are scrambling (WSJ)
• Return-to-office chaos is the best thing to happen to consultants since Y2K (Bloomberg)
• Self storage is the pandemic's hot property (WSJ)
• Canadian retailers have 'turned over every stone' for talent to cope with seasonal rush amid labour shortage (Globe and Mail)

 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

• Jeff Bezos to step down as Amazon CEO, to be replaced by AWS chief Andy Jassy (NYT)
• Pets may soon be fed laboratory-grown meat (The Economist)
• Superstar cities are in trouble (The Atlantic)
• Chipotle drive-throughs open a window of opportunity (Bloomberg)
• Canada's Flexiti, a buy-now-pay-later lender, sold to US firm for $155 million (Globe and Mail)

 Stephan's Monday Picks

• An oral history of the world's biggest coupon (NYT)
• How a real-life monopoly made Monopoly the world's biggest board game (The Hustle)
• How Pez evolved from an anti-smoking to a beloved collector's item (Smithsonian Mag)
• Demystifying consumer choice (BCG)
• The year of the dog: In 2020 furry friends were just what we needed to make it through the pandemic (Globe and Mail)

 Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• The rise of Japan's loyalty point influencers (Rest of World)
• Chewy to expand pet products, explores monetizing telehealth services (WSJ)
• Uber and DoorDash to add surcharges to cover worker benefits (FT)
• Here's why it might be too late to order your holiday gifts online (CNBC)
• On the glory days of the great American trade paperback (Literary Hub)