Stephan's Monday Picks

• A supermarket trip may soon look different, thanks to electronic shelf labels (NPR)
• Target tests an AI tool to help its works aid shoppers (NYT)
• Americans have lost the plot on cooking oil (The Atlantic)
• How to avoid scams and shoddy wares on Amazon (Wired)
• How PBMs are driving up prescription drug costs (NYT)

 Stephan's Thursday Picks

• Food for thought: Canada's plan to better inform people what they're buying at the grocery store (Globe and Mail)
• Novo Nordisk smashes past $500 billion value on Wegovy frenzy (Bloomberg)
• Minister Champagne says he's working phones to court new players for Canadian grocery market (Globe and Mail)
• Amazon is now charging Prime  members extra for ad-free streaming (WSJ)
• Rogers Sugar reaches tentative deal with Vancouver refinery deals (Globe and Mail)

 Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• An innovation wake-up call for CPG companies (BCG)
• The woman shaking up the $50 billion instant ramen industry (WSJ)
• California is solving its water problems by flooding its best farmland (Wired)
• Walmart abandons plan to open fulfillment centre in Quebec (CBC)
• FDA to issue first approval for mass drug imports to states from Canada (NYT)

 Stephan's Thursday Picks

• Australia's leading grocers to face Senate inquiry into pricing (Bloomberg)
• The unstoppable ascent of tequila (FT)
• The executives who could be Johnson & Johnson's next CEO (WSJ)
• Overheated food prices have Canadians buying less meat (CBC)
• Plush toy makers play hardball in a competition for the squishiest creatures (WSJ)

 Stephan's Friday Picks

• AI comes to the drive-thru (WSJ)
• Telus Health 2023 Drug Trends Report (Telus)
• Lack of female CEOs shows diversity problem in UK retail (Bloomberg)
• Vertical product location effect on sales: A field experiment in convenience stores (SSRN)
• From the archives (2002): Pepsi adds a blue-hued beverage to the spectrum of coloured sodas (WSJ)

 Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• Weight-loss drugs are a golden ticket for health-linked stocks (Bloomberg)
• As Liberals' grocery rebate bill becomes law, one-time payments will land this summer (CBC)
• What has gone wrong with Waitrose - and can they survive (The Guardian)
• Is this the end of hustle culture (BBC)
• Why are UK food prices still rocketing and when will it stop (The Guardian)

 Stephan's Thursday Picks

• Workers are happier than they've been in decades (WSJ)
• Growth rules: Which matter most (McKinsey)
• Wendy's, Google train next generation order taker: An AI chatbot (WSJ)
• The mysterious middlemen being blamed for America's sky-high drug prices (Vox)
• The remote work revolution that never took off (Globe and Mail)

Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• The truth about those dollar stores (Consumer Reports)
• How the wellness industry turned its back on Covid science (The Guardian)
• The myth of the high-growth fashion startup (Fast Company)
• Johnson & Johnson to split consumer, pharmaceutical businesses, creating two companies (WSJ)
• The pantry's rise to most fashionable space in the kitchen (Globe and Mail)

Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• The economy is experiencing an epic collapse in demand (NYT)
• Ikea can't open stores fast enough after flubbing online (WSJ)
• The end of minimalism (The Atlantic)
• AstraZeneca eyes Gilead in Big Pharma's move beyond Covid (Bloomberg)
• Artizia weathers the COVID-19 storm with increase in e-commerce orders (Globe and Mail)

Stephan's Friday Picks

• Big pharmacy chains also fed the opioid epidemic (NYT)
• Americans it turns out, would rather buy from a store than online (Bloomberg)
• Old-fashioned milkman makes the rounds as U.S. shoppers stay home (Reuters)
• Amazon misses a shopping opportunity (NYT)
• From the archives (1994): The fall and rise of strategic planning (HBR)

Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• The future of work in CPG (McKinsey)
• They changed the way you buy the basics (NYT)
• Food delivery services feeling pressure to finally turn a profit (Fortune)
• The pharmacist is out: Supermarkets closing pharmacy counters (WSJ)
• Get ready for a direct-to-consumer shakeout in 2020 (Venture Beat)

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 Tuesday Picks

• The rise and fall of French cuisine (The Guardian)
• Amazon warns customers: Those supplements might be fake (Wired)
• Court filings say corporations fed opioid epidemic (NYT)
• A prescription for pain at the American drugstore chain (WSJ)
• Muji's minimalist aesthetic is too easy to knock off (Bloomberg)

Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• The business of the body (The Economist)
• Amazon Prime Day brings sales, and risks for retailers (NYT)
• IKEA to close its only US factory (WSJ)
• AI drug hunters could give Big Pharma a run for its money (Bloomberg)
• Why companies like Ocado produce gobbledegook (FT)

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 Wednesday Picks

• Nearly all Americans fail to eat enough of this superfood (Vox)
• Amazon to Whole Foods online delivery customers: we're out of celery, how's kale (WSJ)
• Some Shoppers Drug Mart staff say they're fed up with pushing self-checkout (CBC)
• Big Pharma's defense of higher drug prices doesn't add up (The Atlantic)
• Rent the Runway joins Glossier in the elite club of female-founded unicorns (Fortune)

Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• Dollar store customers unconvinced by proposed change to pricing (FT)
• The prescription drugs that rich people buy (NYT)
• Sainsbury's-Asda merger faces crunch decision (BBC)
• Can lettuce survive climate change (Wired)
• The debates over startups and tipping could be just heating up (Bloomberg)

Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• Inside Chipotle's plan to make you love it again (Time)
• In 2019, hot DTC brands face pressures to prove profitability (Digiday)
• These chickens lay designer eggs for Big Pharma (Wired)
• We'll always eat meat. But more of it will be 'meat' (Bloomberg)
• Pricing needs to reflect who people want to be, not just what they want (HBR)

Stephan's Thursday Picks

• The real cost of cheap groceries (Fortune)
• Colgate Total toothpaste to relaunch without controversial chemical (Bloomberg)
• Walmart could leave CVS Caremark pharmacy networks amid dispute (WSJ)
• The Alibaba effect (Nikkei Asian Review)
• Sears won't close yet as its chariman, Edward Lampert, fends off creditors (NYT)

Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• Meet the new payment champions, same as the old ones (WSJ)
• Big Pharma faces the curse of the billion dollar blockbuster (Bloomberg)
• Three questions with Target's new President of Food & Beverage (Target)
• Unilever's new weapon in the ice cream wars is a swole treat (Bloomberg)
• Succeeding in the US retail industry in an era of unprecedented disruption (McKinsey)