Grassland Dairy Products is a 113-year-old company that has been selling butter since it was hand-churned, and currently produces more than a million tons of the stuff each year. There’s a good chance you’ve eaten Grassland Dairy products, even if you didn’t realize it. [More]
Publix Recalls Meat Loaf Mislabeled As Pot Roast
By 10.6.17
It would be a little bit confusing to open a microwaveable pot roast and find a microwaveable meatloaf instead. However, it could be seriously problematic for people with food allergies, since while meatloaf has bread crumbs and soybean oil, pot roast doesn’t. That’s why the incognito meatloaf has been recalled. [More]
More Retailers Are Actually Surviving Bankruptcy, Saving Jobs And Stores
By 10.6.17
This year, there have been a record number of retail bankruptcies, but there’s also been a change in the industry. While some of the largest recent retail bankruptcies were preludes to liquidation, lenders and landlords are now working to keep as many stores open as possible after bankruptcy. [More]
Owner Of Legoland, Madame Tussaud’s Interested In Buying Parts Of SeaWorld That Aren’t SeaWorld
By 10.5.17 — Updated: 10.11.17
Merlin Entertainments may not be a household name, but you would probably recognize some of the destinations that it owns around the world, which include the London Eye and many global outposts of Legoland and Madame Tussaud’s. The British company is reportedly interested in buying SeaWorld, but may only want to buy the parks that don’t feature cetacean-based entertainment. UPDATE: Merlin Entertainment now says that it is not in talks with Sea World to buy the whole company or any of its parts. [More]
Costco Has Actually Been Selling Survivalist Food Packs For Years
By 10.5.17
With natural disasters across North America in the news lately, it’s understandable that you might be thinking about ways to prepare your family for a disaster in your area. A great place to start turns out to be Costco, which sells a surprising variety of dehydrated food kits that can keep four people fed for a year, or 192 people for a week. [More]
Company Fined $1.9M For Continued Sale Of Recalled Coffee Carafes
By 10.5.17
A company that made coffee machines for the Black & Decker brand now faces a $1.9 million penalty for allegedly failing to notify safety regulators of a known defect, then continuing to allow the sale of carafes that the company knew was dangerous. [More]
Sonic Confirms Payment System Attack, Offers Pointless Credit Monitoring
By 10.4.17
As we learned last week based on information from people in the banking industry, payment cards used at Sonic Drive-In locations have been linked to suspicious transactions. Sonic confirmed today that its payment systems were indeed breached in a malware attack, potentially by crooks seeking payment card numbers. [More]
Amazon Acquires 3D Body Modeling Company That Could Be Useful For Fashion, Gaming
By 10.4.17
Wouldn’t it be useful to have a three-dimensional avatar that’s shaped like you that you could use for online clothes shopping or for video games? We don’t know what Amazon had in mind when it acquired a company that creates 3D models of human bodies for a variety of applications, but it probably involves the mega-retailer’s fashion ambitions. [More]
Pepsi Admits It Spent Too Much Pushing Healthier Beverages
By 10.4.17
Americans are slowly losing our taste for fizzy sugar water, but PepsiCo may have overestimated how quickly that’s happening. The company admits that it spent the third quarter stuffing shelves with more “healthy” products than the public was ready for. [More]
Snap Has Sold Around 150K Pairs Of Video-Taking Sunglasses
By 10.4.17 — Updated: 10.23.17
Last year, Snap, parent company of the app Snapchat, introduced a whimsical single-purpose product. Its Spectacles, originally available only from vending machines in a few major cities, cost $130 and record 10-second video clips to be posted on Snapchat. That’s it. Somehow, the company claims to have sold 150,000 of these devices. [More]
Whole Foods Poaching New Customers From Trader Joe’s, Costco, Walmart
By 10.3.17
We know that more people visited upscale grocery chain Whole Foods in the weeks after it became part of Amazon’s growing online and offline retail empire, but where did those people come from? Customer data shows that new visitors to Whole Foods stores were likely to be the wealthiest customers from competitors like Walmart, Costco, and Trader Joe’s. [More]
Ground Turkey That May Contain Metal Shards Recalled From Publix, Weis, And Aldi
By 10.3.17
You can add bread crumbs, eggs, and spices to a lump of ground turkey to make a tasty meatloaf or meatballs, but one thing that definitely doesn’t belong in the mixture is pieces of metal. Ground turkey sold under store brand labels at grocery chains Publix, Weis, and Aldi has been recalled because it may have “metal shavings” in it. [More]
Get Ready For More Sketchy Seasonal Stores As Retail Vacancies Rise
By 10.3.17
If you’re a fan of those stores that come out of nowhere to sell a lot of Halloween costumes and Christmas ornaments only to be gone without a trace once a holiday passes, we’ve got great news for you! A decade-high level of retail bankruptcies and store closures means there’s still plenty of spaces at your local shopping centers for all manner of seasonal pop-up stores. [More]
ATM Fees Hit New Highs Because Fewer People Are Using ATMs
By 10.3.17
Between the rise of e-commerce, credit/debit card use, and mobile payment platforms, the days of “running to the ATM” for enough cash to get through the day are gone for many people. That’s one of the reasons why, according to a new survey of banks, out-of-network ATM fees and overdraft charges are hitting new highs. [More]
Why It’s A Problem For Chipotle That No One Wants Its Queso
By 9.27.17
Negative social media reactions don’t always hurt a product’s sales, but in the case of Chipotle’s new queso dip, it appears that no one is rushing out to try the menu addition — and those who do purchase the queso may be taking away from sales of other items on the Chipotle menu [More]
Apple Promises To Fix Weird Crackling Noise On iPhone 8 And 8 Plus
By 9.27.17
A new smartphone fresh out of the box shouldn’t make crackling noises during your phone calls, but that’s what users of the new iPhone 8 and 8 Plus report, and they’re customers of different mobile carriers. Apple has acknowledged the problem, and promises that a fix for it is on the way. [More]
Child Makes Adorable Case In Favor Of Toys ‘R’ Us
By 9.27.17
The filings in bankruptcy cases, especially large and complex ones, tend to be long and not terribly exciting reading. You can find important bits of information like store closing lists and gift card policies, but what one doesn’t expect to find among thousands of pages of legal forms is a handwritten letter from a child defending a chain retailer with 866 stores. [More]
The Echo Show Is The Site Of A Google-Amazon Showdown
By 9.27.17
Earlier this year, Amazon launched the Echo Show, which is exactly what it sounds like: a version of its Echo smart speaker that includes a seven-inch color screen so it can show users photos, videos, and messages. One of the device’s selling points is that users can watch YouTube videos on it… or they could before Google removed their access. [More]
