The heat of summer keeps burning on here. Several different type of topics this time… from tracking heads of steer to the race to the bottom of pricing that is driving small grocers out of business in rural America.
 
 
With everything in the news these days on the new trade tariffs, I wonder when they will hit the consumers? Some tariffs are starting to affect consumer products. Back to school time is here and people are starting to think ahead and are buy more now to stock up before prices go up, and shoppers are paying more attention to where products come from.
(link to NPR Business: What’s In Your Shopping Cart? A Battleground For Global Trade)
 
 
HEB is closing an underperforming store in Houston and turning it into an ecommerce warehouse hub for delivery and pickup orders. A good use of space, especially if they are tied up to the space.
(link to Houston Chron: H-E-B to shutter Memorial-area store)
 
 
Putting cattle on the blockchain.. for $5 a head, ranchers are able to track everything a cow eats, their vaccines, health records, etc. Being able to track the data all the way to your grocery basket should make that beef more valuable.
(link to NPR the salt: Where’s The Beef? Wyoming Ranchers Bet On Blockchain To Track It)
 
 
This has me remembering “coffee shops” in Amsterdam – Canada has approved recreational cannabis and next year Ontario could be getting brick and mortar retail lounges. A coffee chain is looking to take advantage of having many retail locations established already.
(link to blogTO: Second Cup might convert Toronto cafes to cannabis stores)
 
 
Kroger is testing driver-less grocery delivery at a Frys location in Scottsdale.
(link to PR Newswire: Kroger and Nuro Announce Pilot Market)
 
 
Recently someone told me that they were looking to move to a rural town when they retired. I asked, “but where is the closest market?” I did a little research myself and found people from that area saying that the closest “real” grocery store was about 50mi away and that the local long time food market had recently changed owners and all the prices were way up ($5 for a can of Spam was an example). The only other place to buy food was Dollar General or the gas station mini mart. This article talks about how Dollar General is going to rural areas that Walmart isn’t or has left from. And how they have driven small local grocery markets out of business. I did not know there were more Dollar General stores than McDonalds(!!) locations.
(link to The Guardian: Where even Walmart won’t go: how Dollar General took over rural America)