Industry News

TechCrunch  As cannabis dispensaries flourish across the country alongside the push to legalize medicinal and recreational marijuana use, demand for tools to manage the specificities of the weed retail business continues to increase. Looking to address that need, Flowhub, a cannabis retail management software vendor, has raised $23 million from a consortium of investors including e.ventures, Evolv Ventures (the Kraft Heinz-backed venture capital fund) and Poseidon. The legal cannabis market is expected to top $66 billion over the next five years, according to estimates from Grand View Research, and entrepreneurs looking to get into the highly regulated industry are flocking to Flowhub’s suite of dispensary management services. Not only does the company’s software address compliance concerns, according to chief executive officer Kyle Sherman, but it also integrates with companies like Dutchie for online ordering to facilitate in-store purchases and adds integrations with LeafBuyer and Leafly to provide more information to…

Tammy Mastroberte, Convenience Store News  NATIONAL REPORT — International convenience store companies buying locations in the United States is not new, as Alon, GPM and others have held a U.S. presence for years. However, in the last two years, the U.S. convenience channel has seen an increase in new international players competing for store acquisitions — and in many cases, winning them. These new players include Enex, a Chilean company that entered the U.S. late last year with its acquisition of the Road Ranger chain based in Rockford, Ill.; and Applegreen plc, which jumped from five U.S. sites in 2015 to more than 120 at the end of 2018, and just recently announced its purchase of another 46 stores from CrossAmerica Partners LP in the Upper Midwest.  However, one of the biggest newcomers is United Kingdom-based EG Group, which entered the U.S. in 2018 and now has more than 1,000…

The Spoon16/10/2019 “To-go or not to-go.” That used to be the question. Then food delivery became commonplace, and with 60 percent of restaurant orders now off-premises, it’s pretty much mandatory for restaurants who want to stay competitive. Now the big question is whether ghost kitchens will soon become mandatory, too. It certainly seems likely, particularly in light of news this week that DoorDash has launched its own ghost kitchen in Redwood City, CA. The facility, dubbed DoorDash Kitchens, provides kitchen space and equipment to multiple restaurants needing to fulfill off-premises orders. As I wrote this week, it’s a way for restaurants to both accommodate the increase in off-premises orders and extend their geographic reach into areas where they might not have a brick-and-mortar location. DoorDash’s own geographic reach is massive right now. The service is in all 50 states and also expanding outside of North America, and currently leads the…

·         EWIN HANNAN OCTOBER 15, 2019  The Australian A FOODWORKS SUPERMARKET OWNER HAS BEEN ORDERED TO PAY $11,800 COMPENSATION TO A 66-YEAR-OLD FEMALE WORKER HE SACKED BECAUSE HE PREFERRED TO HIRE EMPLOYEES FROM ASIAN-SPEAKING BACKGROUNDS. AFTER BEING SLAMMED LAST MONTH BY FAIR WORK FOR HIS “DISGRACEFUL” SACKING BY TEXT OF GAIL AYTON, OWNER JIANBIN “EDDIE” WANG SAID HE WOULD BE FORCED TO CLOSE THE WAGGA WAGGA STORE IF ORDERED TO PAY MORE THAN $7000 COMPENSATION. MR WANG ALSO CLAIMED HE HAD NOT INTENDED TO SACK MS AYTON, WHO HAD WORKED AT THE STORE FOR MORE THAN 20 YEARS, SAYING HIS ENGLISH CONTRIBUTED TO THE EVENTS THAT SAW HIM ADMONISHED BY COMMISSION DEPUTY PRESIDENT PETER SAMS. BUT MR SAMS FOUND THE CLAIMS WERE LITTLE MORE THAN A “POST FABRICATED INVENTION” BY MR WANG WHEN HE REALISED HE FACED A SIGNIFICANT COMPENSATION ORDER. MS AYTON HAD TOLD THE COMMISSION THAT MR WANG, WHO…

Callum Tulley BBC Victoria Derbyshire programme  Almost 40% of sellers targeted by councils in England have been caught illegally allowing children to buy e-cigarette products, a report has found. Ninety of the 227 premises tested sold vaping goods to under-age teenagers in 2018-19, data from 34 councils showed. Trading Standards – which compiled the research – has called for greater resources to enforce the law. Public Health England said vaping was 95% healthier than smoking. It is estimated 3.6 million people in the UK now use e-cigarettes. ‘Liquid in my lungs’ Georgia 17, told the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire programme she had been to shops where she had been given free e-cigarette tutorials and liquids. She has been vaping for over a year and “rarely” been asked for ID. Asked for proof of age the first time she had tried to buy vaping products, she had been allowed to complete the…

David Yaffe-Bellany Oct 15, 2019 AFR Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods, scrappy start-ups that share a penchant for superlatives and a commitment to protecting the environment, have dominated the relatively new market for vegetarian food that looks and tastes like meat. But with plant-based burgers, sausages and chicken increasingly popular and available in fast-food restaurants and grocery stores across the United States, a new group of companies has started making meatless meat: the food conglomerates and meat producers that Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods originally set out to disrupt. In recent months, big food companies like Tyson, Smithfield, Perdue, Hormel and Nestlé have rolled out their own meat alternatives, filling supermarket shelves with plant-based burgers, meatballs and chicken nuggets. Once largely the domain of vegans and vegetarians, plant-based meat is fast becoming a staple of more people’s diets, as consumers look to reduce their meat intake amid concerns about its…