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As the destination for scouting the hottest toys and games, Toy Fair New York, owned and operated by the US Toy Association, is also evolving to offer more tools to navigate the latest trends in pop culture and entertainment.
Today’s kids are consuming content from more places than ever, and at an ever-increasing rate. Beyond nonlinear platforms like YouTube, Netflix, and Amazon, new social media apps, such as TikTok, and gaming and esports platforms like Twitch and Mixer are influencing every aspect of kids’ lives, including their shopping habits.
“These new avenues for kids’ content are helping resurrect classic brands, turning family content creators like Ryan’s World into toys, and helping nonlinear properties rise to the top of the pop culture food chain,” says Adrienne Appell, leading trend expert at the US Toy Association. “What this means for the toys and games community is more opportunity.”
More companies are evolving from simply toymakers to year-round kids’ content producers thanks to major acquisitions (like Hasbro’s current acquisition of eOne) and partnerships (Mattel will launch eight movies based on its IP beginning next year), and with this, Toy Fair continues to grow as a global stage for sharing their announcements.
Major entertainment companies already partner with Toy Fair to host their upfronts, summits, and other high-profile gatherings to great success. In 2019, Nickelodeon hosted an invitation-only upfront at the Javits Center during Toy Fair, which revealed its slate of new programming for the year. This included a first look at Ryan’s Mystery Playdate based on the leading kids’ content creator.
What this proves is that the growth of entertainment, no matter the platform, is only widening the net for toy companies to negotiate new deals and tap into new categories of play. Licensing continues to make up a large part of the toy business— representing about 30 percent of total US toy sales – and exhibitors can continue to utilize the global reach of Toy Fair to make more deals around new digital-first properties, among others.
MGA Entertainment announced its first-ever licensing deal with a digital-first brand, Little Baby Bum, during last year’s show, while partners for pocket.watch’s Ryan’s World, Ninja of Fortnite fame, and Pinkfong’s Baby Shark gave a first-look at the toys inspired by these brands, which are now hitting shelves for holiday 2019.
Davin Sufer, CTO at WowWee, which serves as a major toy partner for Pinkfong’s Baby Shark, reveals: “The show has become a staple for us, and there are definitely a lot more meetings we’re taking with prospective content distribution partners and with creators who'd like to see if there could be a toy line around their content.”
As digital channels move beyond the screen and become toys themselves, kids’ content creators see the value in attending the show to forge these business relationships. Toy Fair 2019 welcomed more than 100 YouTubers and bloggers, and these numbers are expected to grow in 2020 as influential Instagrammers are added to the mix.
Programming throughout Toy Fair will also present opportunities for show attendees to better understand how the evolving landscape of kids’ entertainment, social media, and pop culture fandom are impacting the overall health of the industry and the opportunities for growth that come with them.
This includes show events and educational sessions, as well as the Toy Trends Briefing session, presented on the first day of the show to highlight the must-have toys and games for the year and what’s influencing them. All these resources combine to provide the perfect roadmap to media, buyers, and other show guests on what to look for as they navigate the show floor.
“Toy Fair New York continues to evolve right alongside kids’ interests and habits and will grow in its offerings to meet the needs of all those attending,” adds Marian Bossard, executive vice president of global market events at The Toy Association.
Nearly 30,000 global toy and play professionals are expected to descend on Toy Fair New York 2020 (22-25 February) to interact with more than 1,000 exhibiting toy companies from six continents. To learn more about the latest show details, including events, registration, exhibitors, educational programming, hotel bookings, and more, visit www.ToyFairNY.com or download the free Toy Fair Mobile App.


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It’s been 10 weeks since Verizon and Netflix struck a deal in which Netflix will pay the ISP for a direct connection to its network.
Yet customers are still complaining about bad performance. The reason is that Verizon and Netflix haven’t set up enough connections to make much of a difference, and Verizon has said work may not be completed until the end of 2014.
Instead of remaining quiet while they build out the necessary infrastructure, Netflix and Verizon have taken shots at one another. The latest comes from Verizon VP David Young, who wrote a blog post today that aims to dispel what he calls “the congestion myth.”
“A few weeks ago, Verizon received an e-mail from a customer in Los Angeles asking why he was not getting a good experience watching Netflix on his 75Mbps FiOS connection,” Young wrote. “He was understandably confused by some of the misleading public accounts that inaccurately suggest widespread congestion that could affect Netflix traffic on Verizon’s network. Worse still were claims that Verizon is deliberately 'throttling' Netflix traffic. This customer wanted to know what was going on and why his performance wasn’t what he hoped. We, too, wanted to get to the bottom of the problem.”
Young went on to say that there is “no congestion anywhere within the Verizon network” but that there is congestion in the links between Netflix’s transit providers and Verizon.
Those links, of course, haven't being upgraded because transit providers such as Cogent refused to pay Verizon to build out extra infrastructure. Instead, Netflix eventually agreed to pay for a direct connection, which should eliminate the transit providers' role in bringing traffic from Netflix to Verizon.
Verizon's infrastructure squad moves slowly
Netflix also agreed to pay Comcast for a direct connection, and performance on that network improved almost immediately after the deal was announced. So why, 10 weeks after the Netflix/Verizon deal, is there still congestion at interconnection points?
As we reported last month, Comcast was able to establish the connections quickly because it spent months working with Netflix to prepare the necessary infrastructure even before the companies agreed to monetary terms. That includes a few hundred 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports spread across 10 carrier-neutral Internet exchange points.
Compared to Comcast, Verizon’s infrastructure team was unprepared for the deal. In June, a Verizon statement said, “we will be incrementally rolling it out starting next month and progressing through the fourth quarter.” At the time, Verizon and Netflix had set up a test connection in Dallas and were working on setting up peering connections in 13 cities.
The connections apparently aren't ready yet, and Young today blamed Netflix for continuing to send traffic over congested links. It’s customary for Verizon to “negotiate reasonable commercial arrangements with transit providers or content providers to ensure a level of capacity that accommodates their volume of traffic," he wrote. “Such arrangements have been common practice for content delivery networks in the Internet ecosystem for many years, and Netflix is fully capable of taking the necessary and customary steps to ensure that its connections match its traffic volumes."
That’s true as far as it goes, but the statement doesn’t mention that Netflix already capitulated to Verizon's terms more than 10 weeks ago.
We asked Verizon spokespeople today how much progress has been made setting up the connections but the company declined comment. Young’s blog post didn’t shed any light on when significant numbers of customers can start seeing improvements.
“We are working aggressively with Netflix to establish new, direct connections from Netflix to Verizon’s network,” Young wrote. “The benefit of these direct connections will be two-fold. First, Verizon customers who use Netflix will have a significantly improved experience as Netflix traffic flows over non-congested links. Early tests indicate that this is the case. The other benefit will be that the congestion that we are seeing today on those links between these middleman networks and our L.A. border router will likely go away once the huge volume of Netflix traffic is routed more efficiently. This will improve performance for any other traffic that is currently being affected over those connections.”
Netflix has tried to rally customers to its cause, telling people who experience streaming trouble that “The Verizon network is crowded right now.”
Today, the company repeated its call for rules that prevent ISPs from charging interconnection fees to content companies.
“We'd like to thank Verizon for laying out the issue so nicely,” a Netflix spokesperson said in a statement sent to Ars. “Congestion at the interconnection point is controlled by ISPs like Verizon. When Verizon fails to upgrade those interconnections, consumers get a lousy experience despite paying for more than enough bandwidth to enjoy high-quality Netflix video. That's why Netflix is calling for strong net neutrality that covers the interconnection needed for consumers to get the quality of Internet they pay for.”
Netflix did not offer any update on when the peering links with Verizon will be established.

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Seedstars To Hold Its Pitch Competition For Seed-Stage Startups In Libya For The First Time
Seedstars World is coming to Libya for the first time ever! In what will become the maiden edition of the competition in the Northern African nation, Seedstars World; one of the largest startup competitions for emerging markets will be exploring the Libyan entrepreneurial landscape in a bid to unearth some of the most promising seed-stage startups available in the country.
Startups that are eligible to be featured in what has been christened the first ever Seedstars Tripoli are expected to satisfy a number of criteria. As a prerequisite, prospective seed-stage startups are expected to be no more than a year-old, have raised less than USD 500 K in funding and own a minimum viable product that ideally has the potential to gain some traction. These requirements are in line with Seedstars’ preference for products that have both regional and global-scalability.
During the course of the event, ten selected startups will each be allocated a time interval of five minutes within which they are expected to deliver pitches in English and essentially sell their business idea to the presiding jury. The jury is billed to encompass representatives from the local startup ecosystem, as well as notable personalities from the global entrepreneurial scene.
The jury will shoulder the responsibility of adjudging which startup is best poised to deliver, and the winning startup will then be afforded the opportunity of participating in the grand finale; the Seedstars Summit, which has been scheduled for Switzerland next year. At the global summit, the winning startup will be pitted against their counterparts from more than sixty emerging markets for the grand prize of USD 1 Mn in equity investment.
“At SeedStars, we believe talent and good ideas are everywhere. We see ourselves as a platform connecting investors to the next generation of startup entrepreneurs in places where people wouldn’t normally think the startup ecosystem has any form of traction, growth or buzz. We are very excited to be in Libya for the first time, and we are here to witness the reality,” Omar Barakat, Seedstars Regional Associate for MENA, is quoted as saying. On a similar note, Seedstars appears to be furthering its reach in the MENA region as plans have also been put in place to host a maiden edition of the competition in Iraq, in the coming weeks.
Seedstars pitch competition for seed-stage startups will debut in Libya on August 6th at the Radisson Blu Hotel, Tripoli.


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It looks like 5G support wouldn’t be exclusive to flagship smartphones anymore. MediaTek has made this possible by introducing its latest SoC called the “Dimensity 720.” Furthermore, the company describes this new processor as “a new standard, delivering feature-packed 5G experiences and technology to devices that are more accessible to mass market consumers.”
MediaTek Dimensity 720 SoC
MediaTek’s Dimensity 720 processor is based off of the 7nm process technology. In addition, this SoC also features eight CPU cores, which are made up of two high-performance Cortex-A76 (2GHz) cores and six Cortex-A55 cores. When it comes to graphics, this processor is equipped with the ARM Mali-G57 GPU, which has support for 90Hz displays and HDR10+ videos.
Memory on the Dimensity 720 SoC is handled via LPDDR4X and universal fast storage (UFS) 2.2. Those aside, it’s very likely that this mobile processor is currently being mass produced for upcoming mid-tier smartphones. That said, no smartphone maker has given any announcements regarding the usage of this SoC on their upcoming smartphones—although, this will most probably not be the case in the coming months.


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According to information obtained from sources close to the South Korean company, Samsung does not believe in rollable phones, as the company has no concrete plan to invest in this direction yet.
Although Samsung has registered various patents and trademarks for slider and flip phones over the past few years, in practice, the South Koreans are said to be completely committed to their current business model, developed around the Galaxy Fold and Flip phone offerings. Nor would the fact that Samsung has already shown a few prototypes at various mobile events count for much in the overall plan, with none of those examples making it past the concept stage.
The revelation by industry analysts is based on the idea that there is not yet a market for slider or flip phones. According to them, although the new type of devices represent an evolution from the current foldable phone offering, Samsung doesn’t see enough reason to invest in them while sales of foldable phones are still going well.
“The market for foldable phones is overlapping with that for slider phones. It will be difficult for mobile phones to create their own market,” said Yi Choong-hoon, CEO and chief analyst at Seoul-based research firm UBI Research. “Samsung doesn’t seem to be interested in mobile phones and will focus its resources on foldable phones for some time.” According to The Korea Herald, the analyst spoke at a conference earlier this week.
The analyst backed up his claims by pointing out some limitations of these types of flexible displays. Sliding panels need an additional protective film made of a material called polymide that adversely affects the surface quality provided to the touch. Moreover, the extra protective layer does not allow the S Pen accessory, a highly appreciated accessory among advanced users, to work properly.
At least for the foreseeable future, Samsung seems more interested in perfecting the current foldable phone offering, leaving smaller players in the industry to struggle with the limitations of rollable phones, which seem to abound on both the hardware and software side.


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Netflix has launched plans for "bigger, fewer and better" after they announced an end to greenlighting expensive vanity projects.
The digital streaming giant changed course and confronted its new realities after April's shocking earning disclosure. Netflix has been struggling to maintain subscriber growth, they have even lost 200,000 subscribers in the latest quarter.This rising competition has stemmed from Disney's undeniable bundle which includes Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+, making it difficult for Netflix to compete. Currently, Netflix sits just above competitors with 221 million global subscribers compared to the 205 million subscribers with Disney.
Netflix executives and producers shared with The Hollywood Reporter that as they move forward from unforeseen changes, the focus will be on fewer films on a larger budget at a slower rate.
“Today, we’re releasing some of the most popular and most watched movies in the world. Just over the last few months, things like 'Don’t Look Up' and 'Red Notice' and 'Adam Project,' as examples of that.”
Do not expect a huge change; Netflix predicted the transition to be very subtle. Rather than releasing two movies, both with a budget of $10 million, one movie worth $20 million is more valuable to them.
“The goal will be to make the best version of something instead of cheapening out for the sake of quantity.”
Netflix has already made plans to remain a leading competitor after purchasing Emily Blunt’s thriller "Pain Hustlers" on a $50 million-plus deal.


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More than two million pounds of chicken products were recalled in eight states due to concerns the items may be contaminated, officials said Wednesday.
Simmons Prepared Foods took the action with poultry items produced between Oct. 21 and Nov. 4 over fears that the products have been exposed to foreign matter such as metal, according to the US Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service.
The Arkansas-based company identified the potential safety hazard involving 2,071,397 pounds of poultry during further processing, officials said.
Consumers should look out for products with the establishment number “P-1949,” “P- 486” or “P-5837” inside the USDA mark of inspection, the department said.
The recalled products were shipped to Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Georgia, Minnesota, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania.
“There have been no confirmed reports of adverse reactions due to consumption of these products,” an FSIS spokesperson said. “Anyone concerned about an injury or illness should contact a healthcare provider.”


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- Created: 16-05-17
- Last Login: 11-07-17
Description: The highlights this weekend are the Sao pc game: Director's Cut, S.According to a report from Kotaku UK, an internal source at Paypal is claiming that the online payment service issued a 'massive' chargeback on "thousands" of PSN transactions.Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor needs no introduction, but it's worth mentioning once again that the Game of the Year Edition is on sale at 80% off, a price point that ends on July 10th.It's amazing how long Fortnite has managed to hang around in development. The picture above was also included in the Sao pc game leak with further illustrations showing Switch functionality. These chargebacks have triggered the ban system, which is activated when Sword art online game pc accounts fall into debt. It's that time again! Following Steam's annual summer sale, Valve's digital distribution platform is back to the regular routine, and while this weekend's slate of sales is a bit on the slim side, there's still a couple of deals worth checking out. Sadly this is an unavoidable slip, however the PC beta is still rolling and we will be giving away more keys over the next few weeks.. Most of the 54 items are wearables, including some Goth-style spiky gloves and jackets as well as a military style hoodie and a summertime skirt. Admittedly, the label is not something that will go away. Due to an unexpected administration hiccup we are unfortunately unable to launch the Sword art online games of Fable Fortune next week and we’ve made the decision to move the launch date back to July 25th on all platforms. The dates have yet to be announced. Fable Fortune has been running a Closed Beta on PC, which has been widely successful. The week-long charity event just wrapped up a record run, bringing in $1,761,155.Other than that, Stardew Valley, H1Z1, Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2, and Shiness. Play it now! http://sao.gamesprite.me/
Publish Date: 11-07-17
Description: A new listing has appeared, on a Unigame game shop GameNatix (via NeoGaf), is suggesting that Modern Warfare Remaster is indeed getting a standalone release - but this listing calls for a June 23rd release.The second poster isn't nearly as bad but it's not great either. When I saw it this morning, I genuinely thought it was fan made and had to look around the internet to find out if it was legit. In addition to this, another German game retailer, Unigame , is listing the game for a June 23rd release.It's unclear whether or not Square Enix plans to release all of the content they've put in the survey, though all of it is likely in the making in some capacity simply for the sake of being ready. Divinity: Original Sin 2 will release in full later this year on Steam and GOG.Destiny 2 is set to release on September 8th, 2017. According to the listing, the Xbox One version of the game has a release date of July 20th and the PlayStation 4 version is set to release 30 days prior, on June 20th
Publish Date: 25-05-17
Description: While Hunter x hunter online gave their earnings call today, they revealed a few things. we'll let you come to your own conclusions on that one. Sonic Forces will feature a custom Hero Character, customized by using 'Wispons. The movie will reportedly continue to see more reshoots throughout the year. Wonder Woman will be getting her first ever theatrical solo movie on June 2nd, 2017. Reshoots are also very common as they're used to reshoot scenes that maybe weren't of the highest quality or they use them to add new scenes to the movie (a la Rogue One: A Star Wars Story).
Publish Date: 17-05-17


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Tech Hangover: PewDiePie is taking a “break” from YouTube and apparently this is news
I seriously hate everything.
We get it, you have a life. There’s no way you can read all of the day’s news in one single shot, let alone visit every web page, which is why we’re here to help. Well, sort of.
There’s a ton of tech news we weren’t able to cover throughout the day (hey, give us a break, we’re a small independent outfit), so to help you stay up to speed with everything we didn’t get to, we rounded up some of the biggest stories, which should help you keep up to date. Hence the tech hangover.
Here’s some tech news you probably missed out on today (and when we say you, we mean us, but also…you).
Honestly, we’re all tired of reading headlines about PewDiePie. He’s just a YouTuber we’ll forget about in 10 years.
Controversial vlogger PewDiePie, who became one of YouTube’s biggest stars before seeing his career dogged by allegations of racism and anti-Semitism, has said he is “feeling very tired” and will take a break from the video-sharing platform. – CNN
Man, this has to be a tough gig. It’s so bad that these moderators are experiencing PTSD. Not good!
Google and YouTube approach content moderation the same way all of the other tech giants do: paying a handful of other companies to do most of the work. One of those companies, Accenture, operates Google’s largest content moderation site in the United States: an office in Austin, Texas, where content moderators work around the clock cleaning up YouTube. – The Verge
This is a good thing.
ICANN is reviewing the pending sale of the .org domain manager from a nonprofit to a private equity firm and says it could try to block the transfer. – ArsTechnica
Apparently it’s cheaper for companies to just trash returns instead of checking to see if they can be resold. I swear, humans do not deserve this planet.
Do you order different sizes of clothing online, knowing you can return the one that doesn’t fit? Did you know the ones you return are sometimes sent straight to landfill? Online shopping has created a boom in perfectly good products ending up in dumpsters and landfills, according to Adria Vasil, an environmental journalist and managing editor of Corporate Knights magazine. – CBC
FBI breaks up 2 illegal streaming sites – including iStreamItAll, with more content than Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hulu
Running pirated streaming sites is big money these days. These programmers were raking in a cool million a year in profit.
Two programmers in Las Vegas recently admitted to running two of the largest illegal television and movie streaming services in the country, according to federal officials. One of the platforms reportedly had more content than Netflix, Hulu and other popular licensed streaming platforms. – USA Today
And in just case you missed some of our stuff earlier, here’s what you may have missed:
- Ring security cams are getting hacked left and right – here’s how to protect yours
- The best selling PS4 games of 2019
- Amazon is blowing out a ton of networking and memory gear in a huge one day sale
- Google’s top searches of 2019 include memes and Disney
- The best games that defined the decade
- PSA: Visa is warning folks about hackers stealing credit card details from gas pumps
- Buy everyone on your holiday shopping list a Ninja Pressure Cooker, Steamer and Air Fryer
- Can you use AirPods on in-flight TVs?
- These AirPod-like earbuds are water-resistant and only $62 right now
- You can now get a yearly subscription to Apple Arcade for just $50
- Instagram to now flag potentially offensive captions, in addition to comments
- Twitch sued for £2.1bn over Premier League games
- Amazon Learns a New Skill: Making Money From Alexa


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New York, NY, Sept. 30, 2014 — Consumer confidence fell sharply in September, according to the Conference Board.
The board’s index of consumer confidence fell to 86 from 93.4 in August. The August reading was the highest since October 2007.
“Consumer confidence retreated in September after four consecutive months of improvement,” said Lynn Franco, director of economic indicators at the Conference Board.
“A less positive assessment of the current job market, most likely due to the recent softening in growth, was the sole reason for the decline in consumers’ assessment of present-day conditions. Looking ahead, consumers were less confident about the short-term outlook for the economy and labor market, and somewhat mixed regarding their future earnings potential. All told, consumers expect economic growth to ease in the months ahead.”


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Sydney startup ingogo has raised an impressive $9.1 million in a pre-IPO funding round, including $1.2 million via a crowdfunding platform.
The Australian mobile payment platform and taxi app received $1.2 million from almost 50 pre-approved investors on VentureCrowd, the first deal for the equity-based crowdfunding platform powered by Artesian Venture Partners.
“I’m pretty blow away,” Hamish Petrie, founder and Managing Director of ingogo, tells Dynamic Business. “Artesian did a great job. They raised a million [of the $1.2 million] in three days, which is pretty much the first time that’s been done in Australia.”
Ingogo began as a taxi booking and in-app payments model in 2013, and Petrie believes the company’s run so far has provided investors with confidence.
“We’ve been making really good progress in the taxi space that we started in and investors have been surveying and talking to taxi drivers and getting really good feedback,” says Petrie. “They saw that we were getting better and better results with the application. But more broadly, we announced the partnership with Xero and investors could see the lead that we have with mobile payments.”
Ingogo’s new partnership with software company Xero will see the service further its reach to SMEs, allowing them to process payments from customers with an app connected to a portable payment terminal via Bluetooth.
The service will offer businesses next day payments every day of the year and will allow them to streamline their workflow by processing micro transactions with automatic invoices.
“Payment systems are often complex and expensive,” says investor Craig Winkler. “By proving their system in one of the hardest environments around (in taxis), ingogo now have a great offering to make life easier for small-medium business owners.”
Ingogo’s success comes at a period of possible change for Australian crowdfunding regulations, with Tony Abbott expected to touch on the issue in a National Industry Investment and Competitiveness Agenda in the coming weeks.
The Corporations and Markets Advisory Committee have recommended that companies be limited to raising a maximum of $2 million from crowdfunding per year and that individuals only be allowed to invest $10,000 in crowdfunding endeavours. They also suggest that individual investments be spread across four companies. Treasury consultations are currently underway and are expected to go on until the end of the year.
“Australia needs more risk-taking and more innovation,” says Petrie. “To go and put blocks in the way of entrepreneurs is ludicrous. We’re competing globally and if politicians aren’t thinking globally the country’s going to fall behind.”


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A few retailers have already opened for business or will have before next Tuesday's official opening for the Shops at Canton Crossing, the new 325,000-square-foot retail center on Boston Street.
Red Robin opened on Monday. This is the 15th Maryland location for the Greenwood Village, Colo.-based hamburger franchise.
Next up is Mission BBQ, the Glen Burnie-based patriotic-themed restaurant, where the National Anthem is played every day at noon. The Mission BBQ in Canton is already in preview mode, hosting invitation-only charity nights for police and fire departments.
On Friday, the restaurant will host a public preview, from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m., which will benefit the Wounded Warriors Project. Mission BBQ's official opening, complete with the singing of the National Anthem, is on Monday at noon.
Founded by Bill Kraus, a former Under Armour executive, and Steve Newton, a former regional vice president with Outback Steakhouse, the first Mission BBQ opened in Glen Burnie in 2011. Additional Maryland locations have since opened in Perry Hall and the St. Mary's County town of California.
The new Mission BBQ is at 3701 Boston St. at the Shops at Canton Crossing. For information call 443-955-6807 or go to mission-bbq.com.
Also opening at Canton Crossing: An outlet of Yogi Castle is scheduled to open on Oct. 8, and a second location for the Greektown favorite Samos will open soon thereafter.


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Workers check the newly assembled BYD e-car in the company's factory in Shenzhen. (Mao Siqian / Xinhua)
The global demand for e-vehicles has grown to 2.1 million in 2018, a study published by the German Center of Automotive Management (CAM) on Thursday showed.
For the current year 2019, CAM predicts a "moderate upturn in demand for electric vehicles", increasing by around 40 percent to 2.7 million units. According to CAM, the global market share of e-vehicles is set to further increase from 2.4 to around 3.1 percent.
"Electromobility is already gaining momentum in many countries. The dynamics are driven above all by financial incentives or regulatory framework conditions and attractive model offers of some manufacturers," said study author and CAM director Stefan Bratzel.
In 2018, China has been the biggest growth driver in electric mobility, according to the study. Sales of e-vehicles in China, including commercial vehicles, increased by 62 percent to a record of 1.255 million.
The passenger car sector in China even grew by 82 percent to 1.05 million vehicles, increasing the market share of electric vehicles from 2.7 to 4.5 percent.
In the United states, the second biggest market after China, total sales of e-vehicles in 2018 increased by 86 percent to 361,000.
In Norway, Europe's biggest single market for electric vehicles, new registrations went up by 18 percent to 73,000 units. With 49.1 percent in 2018, almost every second car in Norway is powered electrically, "maintaining its exceptional position in the market share of e-vehicles", the study noted.
In Germany, the number of new registrations only increased moderately to around 68,000 electric cars, an increase of 24 percent. The market share increased from 1.6 percent to 2.0 percent.
"Germany only underperforms in international comparison," CAM announced.
In the other European countries, the United Kingdom grew by 24 percent to 60,000 electric vehicles, while France recorded a total of 46,000 new passenger cars.
By 2025, Bratzel expects growth of "around 25 percent or 23 million newly registered electric cars" in an optimistic scenario and "around 12 percent or around 11 million electric vehicles" in a conservative forecast.


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We are excited to partner with Poverty and the Arts, a local nonprofit organization that provides art supplies and resources to people who have been impacted by homelessness.
Melanie Block, Tory Fitzgibbon, and Jessie Rosenblum, Artclectic 2021 Chairs
Excitement for Artclectic is building, especially since we are commemorating the 25th year of this beloved fundraiser. This year we are excited to partner with Poverty and the Arts, a local nonprofit organization that provides art supplies and resources to people who have been impacted by homelessness. Through this organization, members are able to create, market, and sell their artwork to improve their living situation.
We are happy to announce that POVA will curate a space at Artclectic, and its artists’ works will be available to all of our Artclectic patrons. We will be sponsoring a schoolwide art supplies drive, also. Students and families are invited to donate art supplies and workshop items from this wishlist in support of POVA and their artists.
In anticipation of World Homeless Day on Monday, Oct. 11, the Artclectic Community Project Committee will host a webinar to provide more information about this worthy organization, its mission to end homelessness, and the stigma associated with being unsheltered. The webinar will be available to all families and a link will be published in the next newsletter and on the Artclectic website.
The student-led affinity group hosts a toy drive through Friday, December 10. For ideas on what to purchase, find popular requested toys on the wishlist here. Deliveries from Amazon can be made directly to the school under Office of Diversity & Community Life Director Roderick White.


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CHINA: Rungis operator Semmaris poised for China entry
Semmaris, the operator of the Paris Rungis wholesale fresh produce market, is poised to make its entry into the Chinese market.
President and CEO Marc Spielrein has confirmed that Semmaris has signed a draft agreement with the Shenzen Agricultural Company for the setting up of joint ventures for the management of three wholesale markets in China.
The Shenzen Agricultural Company, which is quoted on the Shenzhen stock exchange, already operates around 15 wholesale markets in China.
The three wholesale markets covered by the draft agreement are located in Shenzhen, near Hong Kong, Shenyang (north-east China) and Nanning (south of the country).
Shenzhen's new wholesale market, which is being built on a 33-hectare site to the north-east of the city, is scheduled to open its doors in 2009.
Semmaris, which had a 2006 turnover of EUR77.2m, is expected to hold a 25% stake in the capital of the joint-ventures with the the possibility of swiftly obtaining a blocking minority, Spielrein added.
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Government announces major overhaul of UK competition policy
The UK Government has opened two consultations on reforms which would radically overhaul the UK’s approach to competition and consumer policy post Brexit.
Both consultations are open until 1 October 2021.
A new pro-competition regime for digital markets
The proposed new regime would put into statute the UK’s Digital Market’s Unit, granting it powers to support a pro-competitive environment in digital markets which the Government views as having distinct requirements over those traditionally regulated by the Competition Markets Authority (CMA).
This consultation is the latest step towards the establishment of a new regulatory regime for digital markets building on recommendations by the Digital Competition Expert Panel, otherwise known as the Furman review as well as advice from the Digital Markets Taskforce.
The Government’s proposals centre around the creation of a targeted Digital Markets Unit which will aim to oversee the competitive environment within digital markets. This will be through a specific focus on firms which are deemed to have strategic market status, those with substantial and entrenched market power as well as holding a strategic position in the market.
The Government proposes that such status will be assigned based on the dominance of specific companies’ product(s) in a specific digital market (for example the social media, e-commerce, search engine or other markets) rather than just based on a particular company’s size or revenue. Whether strategic market status is assigned will be up to an assessment by the DMU based on. This decision will be able to be appealed.
In the consultation the Government is seeking feedback on:
- the criteria and mechanisms that will identify which firms fall within scope of the regime
- the objectives for the Digital Markets Unit and how it will work with other regulators
- our approach to a new code of conduct to promote open choices, fair trading and trust and transparency
- our approach to ‘pro-competition interventions’ that will address the root causes of market power
- the powers that the Digital Markets Unit will need to ensure the regime is effective
- the changes being considered for a distinct merger regime for firms within scope of the regime
The documents for the consultation can be found here.
Reforming competition and consumer policy consultatio
BEIS has also published a second consultation on Reforming competition and consumer policy.
This takes a much broader focus on competition and consumer policy with three key areas where the Government is seeking input.
- Competition Policy, such as the competition legislation, the operation of the CMA itself and the speed of market enquires.
- Consumer rights, updates in consumer rights law for example focusing on issues such as fake reviews and delays in refunds to customers.
- Consumer law enforcement, for example trading standards and ensuring international trade is supportive of consumer rights.
The documents for the consultation can be found here.
What opportunities do these proposals present?
The consultations set out by the Government into the UK’s competition framework are well informed and particularly when it comes to digital markets build on a strong evidence base accumulated over the past few years from the Furman review through to a number research pieces and market studies carried out by the CMA, BEIS and DCMS.
The depth of research, detail in the consultation and the length of time to respond should be considered an example of best practice for future policy making.
If got right there is an opportunity here to create an agile, targeted and informed unit aimed at ensuring the UK maintains its highly competitive digital markets, with benefits both for consumers and the industry as whole. While the wider reforms to competition and consumer policy proposed could see the UK take a more efficient approach to market enquires and enforcement action as well as updating key elements of consumer rights for the modern economy.
However, while the consultation on the DMU is focused and well informed there are a number of possible outcomes that could see the unit lose its focus particularly when it comes to its guiding principles and relationship with other regulators. The merger rules being proposed also need to be clarified particularly where these relate to the UK’s National Security and Investment Act 2021, a major piece of legislation that places strict obligations around companies when it comes to mergers and acquisitions. techUK also wants to see how these plans developed in line with the principles set out in the Govermment’s Plan for Digital Regulation.
However overall, the two proposals represent a focused well informed and targeted approach to updating competition policy in the UK post Brexit and compare favourably to similar proposed regimes in the EU and the US.
techUK looks forward to engaging with the Government over the coming months to ensure the new proposals support a highly competitive environment for technology companies in the UK.
For more details please contact techUK’s Head of Policy Neil Ross.
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16 October 2000 00:00 [Source: ICB Americas]By Pamela Sauer
Following a tumultuous 1998, patchouli oil prices have fallen dramatically over the past two years, a trend that is continuing this year. Current prices are now in line with traditional selling prices, and, barring any significant weather changes or political turmoil, pricing is expected to remain at current levels or slightly decline.
Two years ago, patchouli oil prices rose to historical highs of between $55 and $60 per kilogram, well above traditional selling prices of between $18 and $22 per kilogram. A shortage caused by poor weather conditions, and political strife in Indonesia, where 70 percent of production is in North Sumatra on Nias Island, led to decreased production. The reduced supply relative to demand led to inflationary pressures.
However, the higher prices caused a downward shift in demand, which is continuing this year. Patchouli oil, a perfume oil, is used in a wide variety of applications from fragrances to household cleaners, and the higher prices caused formulators to create new formulations using reduced levels of patchouli oil. Although pathchouli oil production levels returned to more normalized levels in 1999 and so far this year, US demand for the essential oil has fallen, and prices have declined.
Patchouli oil prices continue to decrease as US imports for the product decline. US imports of patchouli oil declined 29 percent in the first six months of 2000, compared to the same period a year ago. Indonesia accounts for roughly 80 percent of US patchouli oil imports, and in the first half of this year, 138,639 kilograms of patchouli oil were imported to the US from Indonesia, down from 213,279 kilograms for the same period last year. The price has dropped roughly 13 percent during this period. The average price of Indonesian oil was $19.89 per kilogram in the first half of this year, down from an average price of $22.97 for the same period last year, according to data from the US Department of Agriculture.
Patchouli oil is produced by steam distillation of the dried leaves of pogostemon cablin, a small plant originating in Indonesia, where the bulk of patchouli oil is produced. The plant is cultivated for the production of essential oil in Sumatra, Malaya, the Seychelle Islands, Madagascar, Hainan and the adjoining China coast, and on a smaller scale in Japan, Brazil, Mauritius and Tanganyika. Indonesian patchouli leaves are distilled in Europe and the US in modern distilleries, but the oil produced is substantially different from the locally distilled patchouli oil.
Outside of Indonesia, the US imports patchouli oil from Spain, Singapore, France, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Netherlands and Ireland, where the product is largely reprocessed formulations from Indonesian and Chinese exports, according to industry sources. While demand for Chinese patchouli oil is limited, the price averages $115 per kilogram.
Spain accounts for almost 11 percent of US imports. US imports of Spanish pa-tchouli oil remained relatively flat in the first half of the year at 28,400 kilograms. Average selling prices for Spanish patchou-li oil were $51.89 in the first half, down 42 percent year-over-year from $89.38. Singapore accounted for 4.3 percent of US imports or 10,000 kilograms, down almost 11 percent year-over-year. The price of Singapore patchouli oil averaged $16.88 in the first half of the year, down 16.1 percent year-over-year.
Industry sources project that prices will continue to decline slightly. Domestic demand will increase only through the use of new formulations requiring increased use of patchouli oil, which industry sources say would take two to three years to develop. Barring any significant weather changes or political turmoil, the market is expected to remain fairly stable.
CST--The October 1 price of crude sulfate turpentine (CST) has settled at 50 cents per gallon, unchanged from last quarter. CST prices peaked at $1.75 per gallon in April 1998, but as demand fell off and inventories roses, its price fell to a low of roughly 50 cents per gallon last October. CST prices remained at 50 cents in the first three quarters of this year.
FRAGRANCE FOUNDATION will offer on November 28 in New York its semi-annual report on the trends and forecast for the spring/summer 2001.
GIVAUDAN reports a 7 percent increase in sales through September, although in local currencies, sales remained flat. For the first nine months of the year, Givaudan reported sales of SFr 1,789, up from SFr 1,673 a year ago. Flavor sales increased 10 percent from SFr 848 to SFr 933, but increased only 1 percent in local currencies. Fragrance sales increased 4 percent from SFr 825 million to SFr 856 million, but declined 1 percent in local currencies.
Asia-Pacific and Europe were the main growth drivers in both divisions, although the market in the Americas was more difficult. In flavors, Asia-Pacific reported double-digit increases in the first half, with the beverage, dairy and savory segments posting double-digit growth as a result of new product introductions and growth in the Chinese market. Combined sales in the Americas were flat despite double-digit growth in the Mexican market and improvement in the Brazilian market. The flavors division saw continued difficult economic situations in other Latin American countries, coupled with slow market growth in North America.
In the fragrance division, Givaudan reported difficult market conditions for its customers and price pressure in the consumer products segment from a downturn in the market, particularly in the Americas. The fine fragrance business rebounded from a year ago and showed double-digit growth.
Givaudan has launched a fragrance ingredients website. The new site is aimed at the entire fragrance-creation market, including perfumers and purchasing managers. An expanded range of additional services and client-specific information will soon be available, says the company.
INTERNATIONAL FLAVORS & Fragrances Inc. has launched its friendly $970 million tender offer for all the shares of Bush Boake Allen for $48.50 per share in cash. The tender offer will expire at midnight on November 3. International Paper Company, which owns 68 percent of the outstanding common stock of BBA, has agreed with IFF to tender its shares in the tender offer. BBA has recommended that stockholders tender their shares. Morgan Stanley Dean Witter served as manager for the tender offer.
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Asian Chemical Connections


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Pandemic causing appliance shortages, service backlogs
CLAYTON, NC (WNCN) – Toilet paper, lumber, and coins are among the shortages caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Appliances is the last affected group of items.
A Clayton man said his refrigerator stopped working on August 11th. A service technician was called, but could not come until August 21 because of a backlog of calls. When he got there, he found that the refrigerator needed an item that had to be ordered.
The part arrived on September 11th, but the owner couldn’t make an earlier appointment until September 25th, more than a month after the refrigerator first failed.
“We’re seeing longer wait times for factory-ordered parts and some take months to get on board,” said Clint Mitchell, senior service tech at Cary Discount and Capital Appliance Repair.
“Before the pandemic, people cooked 3-4 meals a week. Now they cook three meals a day, so the equipment is put under a lot more stress because people are more at home. “
When equipment fails, the service technicians are so busy that people have to wait days to call for a service call. This repair backlog and lack of equipment occurs nationwide. It first affected freezers and has spread to other devices.
On average, traders said the wait when:
- 3-6 months for a freezer
- 4 months for washing machines
- 3 months for dishwasher
Randy Pleasant, co-owner of Garner Appliances, said his showroom was missing many products from the showroom due to the shortage. He said they don’t usually sell floor models, but he doesn’t use them to fill emergency orders because factories don’t ship products.
“We try to tell customers at the point of sale to be patient because we see this,” he said. “We’re looking at some waiting times: 5-6 months for a refrigerator or dishwasher.”
Air conditioners also fail more frequently due to constant use. If you need replacement parts instead of on-site repairs, you’ll have to wait. Mitchell said parts from China take a lot longer to arrive than usual.
All dealers and service technicians said there was no clear end in sight.
More headlines from CBS17.com:


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Our goal is to seat all customers immediately upon entry. In the event that there is a wait for a table, guests will be encouraged to social distance.
Guests in Chicago and Los Angeles are no longer required to show proof of vaccination or wear a mask in our restaurants. The city of Chicago and the City of Los Angeles has announced there is no longer a mask and proof of vaccination requirement for restaurants and bars.
In New York City, we are reinstating mask-wearing guidelines for all staff members and guests in the restaurants regardless of vaccination status in response to the updated guidance from the CDC and the latest advisory from City of New York. Guests in New York are also required to show proof of vaccination.


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Now in the fifth year running, dog food brand Pedigree has launched its annual adoption drive. The Pedigree Adoption Drive continues to raise awareness of animal welfare and encourages Irish dog lovers to adopt a dog from their local shelter or welfare organisation. For every pack of Pedigree dog food bought, during the Pedigree Adoption Drive, a donation from Pedigree will be given to help Irish dogs. In Ireland, averages of 44 dogs are abandoned every single day.
In addition, dog lovers around Ireland will be able to help show their support by simply becoming a fan of the Pedigree Adoption Drive Ireland Facebook page, www.facebook.com/pedigreeadoptiondrive, Pedigree has agreed to donate a bowl of dog food to rehoming centres across Ireland for every new fan of the page
The Pedigree Adoption Drive campaign will also raise awareness of the wonderful work these centres do, encourage dog lovers to support their local centre, and let people know about the thousands of abandoned dogs who are simply looking for a loving home
If you have been considering adopting a dog then this is the best time to do it. If you are not in a position to do so you can still help. By going to your local Petworld store and buying an item in the Pedigree range, you too could help Pedigree raise funds for abandoned dogs.


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The search for “Christmas” yields results for around 500 applications on Facbook. A general search for “holidays” gets around 120 app results. “Hanukkah” or “Chanukah”, yields ten results, which is nine more than Kwanzaa’s one. Meanwhile, “Festivus”, the fictional holiday from “Seinfeld” has four apps dedicated to telling everyone just how badly they’ve let you down this year.
But games are even more popular than the holidays, according to AppData. On our list of the 20 applications that gained the most monthly active users this past week, we first have Zynga’s PetVille, which has grown by 9.31 million monthly active users this past week to reach 10.3 million since launching at the beginning of the month. RockYou’s Birthday Cards is at number two, growing by 7.33 million monthly actives to reach nearly 25 million. However, this number appears to also include a version of the company’s Zoo World game, as it has interestingly built Birthday Cards to include a version of the virtual zoo inside of it.
|18.||O Christmas Tree||3,349,695||+1,070,131||+31.95|
Note that this list looks at which apps gained the most monthly active users in the last week, while our Wednesday list covers the apps that gained the most daily active users in the past week. The MAU number shows the long-term trajectory of an app’s popularity, while DAU shows how many people love it so much that they come back every day; because users tend to pay for virtual goods within apps they come back to every day, the latter number is a better measure of monetization. Also, our Friday list looks the apps that grew by the most monthly active users each week to end with a total of between 100,000 and 1 million — by looking at this lower range, we can sometimes spot smaller apps on their way to becoming hits.
Christmas Cards! is the highest ranked holiday-themed app in the short history of Facebook applications. Launched in November 2008, it ranks 33rd with a total or 8.27 million monthly active users; it’s actually yet another gifting app made with LOLapps’ popular white-label Gift Creator app. While Christmas Cards may only be useful for one month of the year, but in that one month has a larger user base than the amount of people who bought Modern Warefare 2 in the first month a game taunted with the largest entertainment release of all time.
This year shows that people are using apps to branch out and Christmas is a great trial time for app developers who may or may not commit to further seasons. Of the top 20 for monthly active users last week, six were Christmas themed apps, while another four marched their way up on the back end of the top 40.
Christmas Cheer is the stand out of holiday apps released in 2009. Originally put out in October, the app has seen a rapid rise in the last few weeks, finishing 4th for gaining monthly users and a total of 6 million people using the app in the past month.
Meanwhile, while Christmas apps have a high change of trading positions in the top 20 as Christmas time approaches, things are a little tougher for the other holidays. No other holidays, even a general holidays app, appears on any top 20 lists for December thus far. The best chance is for Happy Hanukkah!, which should up in our up and coming list last week, and went up 95 percent for monthly active users this week. Now about 275,000 people are using the service. Plus, with Hanukkah having a whole week dedicated to itself, there is a good chance for this app to see sudden, maybe staggering, growth in the next two weeks.


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Honda Vehicle Vulnerability Allows Remote Unlocking And Starting
The researchers who discovered the exploit, known as RollingPWN, say it might affect all Honda vehicles from 2012 through the latest 2022 models. However, Honda currently denies a vulnerability exists.
As the fifth-largest auto manufacturer in the world, Honda's vehicles are a common sight on essentially every road. Many of those vehicles could have a major vulnerability that an attacker can use to unlock and start the car. The researchers who discovered the exploit, known as RollingPWN, say it might affect all Honda vehicles from 2012 through the latest 2022 models. However, Honda currently denies a vulnerability exists. The issue stems from Honda's keyless entry fob, which uses a "rolling code" system to authenticate the remote. Each time you press a button on the remote, the rolling code clicks ahead to prevent so-called "replay attacks" in which someone captures and retransmits your remote code. Security researchers Kevin2600 and Wesley Li from Star-V Lab discovered that Honda's rolling code implementation has a flaw that allows these old codes to be reused under certain circumstances. According to a statement from the researchers, Honda has implemented a sliding window of codes to avoid accidental key presses. So, it's possible to send codes in sequence to the vehicle until the counter resynchronizes. Once that happens, codes from the previous cycle start working again, so replay attacks become possible. The RollingPWN code and proof of concept(Opens in a new window) were released last week -- it's unclear if Honda was alerted first, which is a key component of responsible disclosure. Regardless, the exploit is in the wild, and several car enthusiasts and journalists have confirmed it works. Without the key fob in-hand, it's possible to unlock the doors and remotely start the affected cars. Yet, Honda has yet to admit the bug exists. In a statement to Vice(Opens in a new window), Honda claims its rolling code system prevents replay attacks.
The researchers tested ten models of cars, including a 2020 CR-V, a 2022 Civic, and a 2012 Civic. All of them were vulnerable to the attack, and therefore, it's possible all Honda vehicles back to 2012 are the same. This might be a big headache for Honda owners. While some of its newer vehicles can receive OTA updates, most cannot. Not only would Honda have to develop new software for dozens of models, it would have to coax owners to bring their vehicles to a dealership or Honda service center to upgrade the software. Kevin2600 and Li believe the same exploit could affect other car manufacturers. The pair promises more details in the future. So, things may get worse before they get better.Now Read:


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Several readers have been asking what Tony Sagami’s “Superfood” pitch is all about — this ad started running on Friday, I believe, and it’s a pitch for the Yield Shark newsletter, edited by Sagami and published by Mauldin Economics.
And it is blissfully brief in comparison to the many “presentations” we suffer through each day… so I’m happy to turn the hinting into some answers for you.
What’s the company that Sagami says he just “vetted” for his subscribers?
Here are some hints for you:
“In 1957 [its founder] purchased a used truck and delivered feed in rural areas around Mississippi’s capitol city, Jackson—the first step toward starting an enterprise that is today the largest of its kind in America….
“The company sells its animal-based superfood in about 29 states, mostly in the eastern half of the United States, and its brands are household names.”
And he breaks down his “four reasons” why you should buy this stock… naturally, those “reasons” give us a few more clues, here are some excerpts that we’ll feed into the Thinkolator:
“Reason #1: Profits. In 2015, the company had a 23% market share… grown revenues over the last five years at an amazing 11.6% CAGR….
“Reason #2: Healthy Food…. a major American health organization spread the word that consuming this food was detrimental to your health. However, in 2000, they changed their tune and admitted that in contrast to their former statements, this animal-based delicacy is actually not unhealthy at all.
“Reason #3: Stock at a Discount…. the Wall Street crowd is wary about the cause of its 2015 profits and expects a downhill slide for this year.
“But it’s ignoring a major contributing factor that, I believe, will make the company look just as good in 2016 as it did last year.
“Reason #4: Decent Dividend. One thing I should tell you: This company lives by the principle, ‘No profits, no dividend.’
“Normally, that would be a red flag for me, but I discovered that the founder and his family own one-third of the outstanding shares—a virtual guarantee that their interests are aligned with ours.
“Right now, the company pays a decent 3.2% dividend per year.”
OK, so we can narrow this down with some actual brainpan work… the “healthy food” bit is clearly about eggs, which we were told were horrible in the 1980s and 90s but then given the green light to eat in 2000 and to perhaps eat more of in 2010 as guidelines changed, particularly as the link between dietary cholesterol that you eat (egg yolks are almost entirely cholesterol) and cholesterol in your bloodstream became much more tenuous.
And lately we’ve been told that pastured chickens who eat more than just grain are especially good egg-makers, since then you’re likely to get those lovely omega-3 fats in there as well (as with grass-fed beef). So that gets us a bit further away from the “cheap superfood” label, since batteries of factory farmed-chickens make far cheaper eggs, but I guess that’s the way of all things.
Those same guidelines have recently also been telling us that it’s safe to drink more coffee, and that we should maybe even drink a little more… which is more exciting for me than eggs. But we’ll leave that aside for the moment.
It’s the stock you’re interested in though, yes? So who is it? This is, sez the Thinkolator, Cal-Maine Foods (CALM)… and it is indeed a colossus in the egg world. I don’t think I would ever imagine that you’d have a $2.5 billion egg farmer, but that’s essentially what Cal-Maine is… they sold about 12 billion eggs last year (or a billion dozen, since they think and report in dozens) and are by far the largest company with (according to them) 23% of the shelled egg market. The top ten egg producers produced 47% of the eggs in the US, so that would mean CALM is as big as the next nine producers put together… and they say they’re looking for more acquisitions as the industry continues to consolidate. They are strongest in the South, Midwest, and MidAtlantic, and they sell through most of the huge retail stores in those states under both brands they own (like Farmhouse and 4-Grain) and cooperative brands of which they are a part (like Land-O-Lakes and Egg-Lands Best).
I don’t know if there’s much brand loyalty in eggs, but there is a growing interest in “specialty” eggs — about 20% of CALM’s eggs are higher-end eggs, including cage-free, brown eggs, omega-3 eggs and the like — and pricing for those is both higher and firmer, and less likely to fluctuate with local supply and demand (so last year 20% of their eggs were in those “specialty” areas, but that accounted for more than 27% of sales… I don’t know how the input costs differ, or what the margin might be, but they seem encouraged by the growth of specialty eggs).
And yes, the company was started by a small farmer in 1957 — that was Fred Adams, who within five or six years of starting an egg business had built the world’s largest egg farm in Edwards, MS. His company was called Adams Foods at the time, but took on the Cal-Maine name when it merged with Dairy Fresh Products Company of California and Maine Egg Farms of Lewiston in 1969 and became a nearly nationwide producer. They went public in 1996, and have made lots of acquisitions over the past couple decades.
Fundamental performance for the past decade has been pretty strong — volume and sales have risen pretty steadily (with a slight plateau in 2008), though the average feed costs have about doubled during that time and the price of eggs has sometimes been volatile. Right now, they’re recovering from losing more than 10% of their flock in the Avian Flu outbreak last Summer in the midwest, an event which also helped to drive up egg prices while feed prices have been falling and improving profits, so perhaps the “one time” nature of that has something to do with the earnings pessimism — and there is indeed pessimism among the analyst cohort.
And there’s also the regulatory disruption of the new (as of last year) California egg rules, which require much more space for chickens and have led to a national bidding war for “California Approved” eggs — all eggs sold in California are now required to come from chickens who have approximately twice as much space available to them as in the past, which immediately had the effect of reducing egg production in the state but which is also causing more investment into “California compliant” facilities, including by Cal-Maine.
CALM is currently expected to earn $7.37 a share in their current fiscal year (which ends in May), which is down from the prior estimate of $9+ for this year but way, way higher than the previous year’s $3.33, and those same analysts are expecting earnings to drop to $4.99 in the next fiscal year. That’s a LOT of earnings volatility…. but it’s also a much higher earnings number than CALM investors saw in the recent past, the earnings per share for the previous five years averaged about $2. So from that perspective, $4.99 is still pretty fantastic long-term growth, and a price of $52 means you’re paying not much more than 10 times earnings to own the company. That’s not bad, as long as they don’t flop back down to earning $2 a share in a few years. Based on trailing earnings, the PE is right around 7 — that’s fairly close to where CALM has bottomed out in the past a few times, though it has occasionally dipped below that to hit a PE of 5 or so. The balance sheet doesn’t look like a concern, they’re investing in expansion and could make an acquisition at any time, but as of now they have a net cash position.
When it comes to the “regular” commodity egg market, growth is pretty slow — CALM says they sold about 0.5% more eggs last year than in the year before — but growth in organic and cage-free eggs is substantial, in the 20%+ neighborhood, so that’s where a lot of the investment is going and where they expect to see earnings growth, including from some new large joint venture facilities they’re building with other large producers. The big surge in earnings over the past year was fueled by dramatic revenue growth, with sales rising by 30% — and the expectation is that sales will drop by 10% next year, presumably because the impact of Avian flu is waning (egg prices are already significantly below where they were a few months ago), which is presumably why analysts expect that earnings will be so much weaker than they were in the past couple of peak quarters.
The stock does indeed pay a decent dividend right now — the trailing payout is $2.40 a share, so that’s approaching a 5% yield… but, as Sagami notes, there’s no consistency or growth expected — the dividend policy is that they will pay a dividend that equals one third of net income per quarter, so if the estimate about next year is right the dividend would be in the $1.65 range, which is indeed a yield of about 3.2% at today’s share price. The family does own more than 30% of the shares (another 10% is owned by other insiders and the employee stock ownership plan, so the freely trading float is pretty small… and the short position is huge, with more than half of the float sold short.
That huge short position might well make the stock quite volatile — it would take about about 25 days of average trading to buy back those shorts, so if the shorts have to cover in a hurry because of strong price performance the stock could pop up dramatically. Or, of course, the shorts could be right and the shares could fall further — either way, the next big “news” point is Monday the 28th (a week from today), when they’re releasing their third quarter results. The average estimate for that earnings number is $1.05, but the range of guesses is quite wide — perhaps some of the pessimism comes from the fact that they’ve “missed” on their quarterly earnings for four quarters in a row.
In a case like this, with a dividend, large insider ownership, and a huge short position, I’d be more inclined to bet on the long side than the short side — particularly because there’s some organic volume growth aside from the impact of rising or falling egg prices. I’m not going to buy the stock, but that’s where my sentiment sits at the moment — if there was insider buying, that might be enough to push me over the edge (but there ain’t, of course). Because I don’t really know much about the fluctuations of the egg market other than the few updates I read today, I would probably wait until earnings to see how things are trending, and to see what the company says about the coming year… though you do, of course, take some risk that you’ll miss a big “short squeeze” pop if they have a surprisingly great quarter.
If analysts are right about CALM earning about $5 a share next year, then the downside risk is probably a drop of about 50% to $25 or so if it trades down to about 5X earnings — that’s around where the valuation has bottomed out a few times (most recently in 2008/2009). There aren’t really any comparable “pure play” egg companies — the other big US egg producers are family owned — so if you want to “bet on eggs” in the stock market, either up or down, Cal-Maine will always be the name you hear… which means that potential egg-impacting events like dietary guideline changes, demand for organic products, avian flu, or regulatory changes for laying hens will often play out in CALM’s share price as traders try to game the impact.
Sagami says his report is being published tomorrow — I don’t imagine his readership is large enough to have a big impact on a $2.5 billion stock that trades ~$50 million worth of shares a day, but you never know.
That’s all I’ve got for you — if you’ve an opinion about the incredible, edible egg, or thoughts on Cal-Maine, feel free to crack ’em open with a comment below. Thanks for reading!


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Squeezed by more agile online newcomers and the fast-growing skincare market, drugstore beauty brands are being forced to reformat their businesses.
Drugstores themselves, like Boots and Walgreens, are coming up with customer-facing initiatives to drive sales in the category.
Adopting influencer tactics and moving at a faster speed will help protect drugstore brands from getting swallowed up by the competition.
When French cosmetics brand Bourjois announced in December 2019 that it would be pulling out of the UK market, longtime fans of the brand’s cult Healthy Mix foundation and Little Round Pot blusher were devastated. Insiders, however, were less surprised.
It’s a tough time for high street cosmetics brands. Independents like Hard Candy, Jemma Kidd and Ruby & Millie have gone under in recent years. Bourjois’s parent company Coty, which also owns Rimmel, CoverGirl and Max Factor, took a $3 billion write-down last June after acquiring Procter & Gamble’s drugstore-based beauty business. L’Oréal posted a 2.2 per cent loss in North America in 2019 (overall sales increased by 8 per cent), citing makeup as the reason for the region’s poor performance. US chain Ulta Beauty, which stocks drugstores staples including Nyx and Makeup Revolution, saw its stock value fall 22 per cent in the second quarter of 2019.
Drugstore cosmetics are being squeezed by two driving forces. Agile online brands, many backed by celebrities and influencers, are capturing consumer attention. And overall, consumers are investing more heavily in skincare over cosmetics. The global skincare market is projected to be worth $183 billion by 2025, a 4.4 per cent compound annual growth rate, according to a report by Grand View Research. Global cosmetics will grow at a 4.3 per cent CAGR in the same period. Amid a wellness-era boom that promotes natural beauty, brands like Bourjois and the drugstores that carry them are forced to reformat their business models or risk going out of business.
Brands that were once staples in the makeup bags of teenagers and working women globally are being challenged by influencer-backed brands like Huda Beauty, Anastasia Beverley Hills, Jeffree Star, Kylie Cosmetics and Fenty. In 2019, Coty bought a 51 per cent stake in Kylie Cosmetics for $600 million; Forbes has valued Fenty at $3 billion. The indie beauty market is also booming, with brands including Lime Crime, Milk Makeup and Tarte Cosmetics showing strong growth. Glossier, which has gained popularity selling direct-to-consumer online, was valued at $1.2 billion in 2019.
Influencers Ellie Jarrett and Sydney May Crouch for Revolution at a Superdrug event.
“As online beauty brands continue to flourish amid consumers’ growing appetite for indie brands, drugstore brands are taking the biggest hit,” says Gabriella Beckwith of market research provider Euromonitor International. She explains that online-only brands have the advantage of being smaller and more responsive to new product trends than the drugstore giants, and hence better placed to meet consumer demand.
In addition to the popularity of indie and influencer-backed cosmetics brands, consumers are showing increasing interest in high-performance, ingredients-driven skincare. A recent Euromonitor Beauty survey found that when asked for their definition of beauty, consumers most commonly said that they wanted to “look healthy”, demonstrating a shift towards a more natural look. “Consumers are taking better care of their skin,” says Beckwith. “Many are adopting the ‘skin first, makeup later’ approach, whereby having a good skincare routine can alleviate the need for makeup in the first place.”
Ingredients-driven skincare brands such as The Ordinary, Drunk Elephant, Tatcha and Sunday Riley have capitalised on the wellness trend by using consumer-centric social media strategies to achieve rapid growth. Some prestige skincare brands, meanwhile, won’t retail at drugstores for fear of cheapening the brand. In the UK, for example, Drunk Elephant is only available in-store at Space NK, while celebrity favourite Augustinus Bader is only available at upscale department stores Neiman Marcus, Harrods and Harvey Nichols.
The Fenty beauty counter in the Boots store in Hull, UK.
“Ingredients-led skincare is becoming much more popular,” says Joanna Rogers, trading director and vice president of beauty at Boots UK, explaining that online searches for products containing Vitamin C increased by 387 per cent, alongside other top-searched ingredients including retinol and salicylic acid. To boost its offering, Boots recently acquired the UK rights to The Ordinary and The Inkey List. They also launched Boots Ingredients, their own brand of ingredient-driven skincare. Its star product: a £5 hyaluronic acid serum.
British drugstore chain Superdrug, which noted a 21 per cent sales growth in facial skincare from 2016 to 2019, is also investing more in its skincare category. The store launched its own Korean beauty brand in 2018, featuring sheet masks and buffing pads, which is now available in 400 stores. Next up is a Japanese-inspired brand, which will roll out later this year, according to Superdrug commercial director Simon Comins.
By August, Walgreens will expand its brand portfolio to feature high-performance French pharmacy brands La Roche-Posay, Avène and Vichy. “Customers are much more interested in what’s in the product,” says Walgreens’ head of beauty, Lauren Brindley. Premium skincare products will be in one-third of Walgreens’ 9,000 stores by the end of this year.
Despite the overall decline in drugstore colour cosmetics, not all brands are feeling the pinch. Superdrug concedes it has been a “challenging” time for beauty sales in general, but their Revolution brand has seen sales increase 200 per cent since 2017, with teenagers drawn to its highly pigmented eyeshadows in green, yellow and orange. Comins points out that MUA, which like Revolution is exclusively licensed in Superdrug in the UK, has been particularly popular with teen audiences because it is vegan.
For drugstores hopeful that the colour-cosmetics slump will level out, keeping in-house brands afloat might mean expanding their offerings in the way companies like Fenty, who cornered the market with its inclusive range, have. Superdrug has doubled the shade count for the majority of its foundations. As of May 2019, Boots now retails Fenty in-store and plans to launch Huda Beauty in some stores by the end of February.
Stores have also redesigned their layouts, removing beauty counters so that it’s easier for shoppers to sample testers on their own. Walgreens, which has similarly introduced product testers in 3,000 stores, also rethought its layout and lighting. “The majority of our customers want to come in and try a product before purchasing it,” says Brindley. “It’s not just about having a functional experience on the internet. That’s why the beauty business will continue to do well in bricks and mortar. People will always want an experience to discover beauty.”
Ultimately, though, integrated social media campaigns will be key for drugstore brands seeking to reverse the colour-cosmetics slump. Both MUA and Revolution primarily use influencers as their main marketing channels. Superdrug launched on TikTok in 2019; Boots launched a beauty loyalty club to share relevant content with internet-savvy obsessives via their rewards-card app. “Social media has reshaped the beauty industry,” Beckwith says. “The success of influencer-backed brands over drugstore brands derives from [their] being able to directly communicate and convey authentic messages to their audience.” She points to the success of Glossier’s army of online micro-influencers, who help the brand increase content visibility and reach while remaining credible.
If drugstore brands want to survive, they’ll have to lure in the influencers. Euromonitor’s Lifestyle survey found that almost half of the top marketing influences were digital or social-media led. “[Influencer-backed] brands are able to build a sense of community and belonging that drugstore brands can’t achieve,” says Beckwith, “whereby for many consumers, feeling some sort of personal connection with the influencer or brand is often more important than identifying with the product itself.”
Whether drugstore colour cosmetics brands can survive the onslaught of the indies depends on how well placed they are to adapt to today’s rapidly changing, social media-driven consumer model. Coty’s purchase of Kylie Cosmetics indicates a determination to survive in this new beauty ecosystem. Drugstore brands will have to move quickly to capture market share in response to new consumer trends: Beckwith points to clean and sustainable beauty as a key growth area for drugstore brands wanting to hold off the indies in 2020.
“It’s likely that legacy drugstore brands will continue to struggle in coming years,” she says. She expects more brands to pull out of individual country markets, similar to Bourjois’s withdrawal from the UK. However, it’s not all doom and gloom. “On a global scale, legacy drugstore brands are likely to remain with us,” Beckwith says. “Maybelline and L’Oréal Paris are the first and second-ranked colour cosmetics brands globally. They would have to have an exceptionally long way to go before going out of business.”
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Oil refiner Caltex Australia plans to raise $300 million through capital markets to help fund changes to its operations.
Caltex on Tuesday said it would issue subordinated notes, priced at $100 each, to retail and institutional investors to raise the funds.
"The notes represent Caltex's first retail targeted capital markets transaction since listing on the ASX, and provides investors with a new investment opportunity in Caltex," chief financial officer Simon Hepworth said in a statement.
The funds raised will be used to pay down existing debts, which would increase the company's funding flexibility as it implements changes to its supply chain and marketing operations, Caltex said.
The company last week announced it would close its Kurnell refinery in Sydney in the second half of 2014 as part of a supply chain restructure.
Hundreds of jobs are to go from the Kurnell operation over the next two years.


text: The Employment Ministry yesterday asked cooler maker Frigoglass to halt plans to cut 120 jobs at its Greek factory. «At this difficult period in the global economic crisis, employers, workers and the state must all work together,» Deputy Employment and Social Security Minister Sophia Kalantzakou said after a meeting with representatives of the company, workers and the ministry. The world’s largest maker of drinks refrigeration equipment said last week it would reduce its work force at its Kato Achaia plant, in the Peloponnese, by 120 employees, out of a total of 210, via a voluntary redundancy scheme. Frigoglass, whose shares are listed on the Athens bourse, also said last week it expects 2008 profits to have dropped more sharply than expected due to the global economic downturn. Companies around the world are cutting back on workers and closing plants as consumer spending crumbles.


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Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are on survival mode right now, especially those located in COVID-19 hot spots. Because of the enforced community quarantine to mitigate the spread of the virus, customers are forced to stay home while employees find difficulty in finding transportation. Sales have plunged or reduced to a trickle.
For Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI), while the challenges continue, there is no better time to prepare for business recovery than now.
BPI Business Banking Head Eric Luchangco said the bank has taken steps to equip SMEs with the services and tools they will need for a more digitally enhanced way of doing business.
“In the spirit of bayanihan, we have rolled out special programs to help our SME clients sustain their operations during these challenging times,” he said.
The e-commerce marketplace has become the new battleground for businesses as Filipinos spend more time on online shopping due to quarantine restrictions.
BPI is enabling traditional SMEs adapt to the shifting consumer behavior by encouraging the use of digital payment. Through BPI Online and the BPI Mobile app, sole proprietors can conveniently access electronic statements, transfer funds, pay bills, and even pay cash through Cebuana and Palawan Express by just using their devices anytime, anywhere.
SME clients may also leverage the digital opportunity to manage their cash and payments through BPI Bizlink. Bizlink enables business clients to download bank statements, transfer funds between accounts, pay utility bills, pay government services, and make check disbursements using their phones—reducing any potential risk on cash handling.
Just as in the early part of the quarantine, BPI has continued to ensure the availability of its 3,000 ATMs and CAMs (cash accept machines) in major locations nationwide.
BPI also launched BizTalk Online, a free webinar series, designed to help SMEs adjust to the demands of the changing business environment.
BizTalk Online highlights economic and industry analysis from BPI’s own in-house economists and subject matter experts. They also demonstrate the benefits and various ways of using technology in boosting efficiency as well as the best practices that can enhance business operations.
“We make sure that we offer value-added service to our clients—well-thought solutions that they need during these challenging times,” said Mr. Luchangco.
BPI has partnered with bancassurance subsidiary, BPI-Philam, to provide free COVID-19 life insurance coverage worth P200,000 for its clients and their employees for 90 days.
BPI is also offering interest rate discounts on certain pre-selected loans for some of our smallest and most vulnerable business clients from July to December 2020. Earlier, BPI extended loan payment deferrals of qualified clients for 90 days.
“These are all part of our commitment to the Filipino people, our commitment to the nation’s future. We continue to listen to our clients so we can innovate and adapt to this pandemic or to any situation we may find ourselves in,” Luchangco said.


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The European Union agreed on Monday to slap Russia with a fresh round of sanctions that includes the long-awaited ban on diamonds, a valuable revenue stream for the Kremlin that has until now remained untouched.
Starting on 1 January, the bloc’s 27 member states will no longer be allowed to buy natural and synthetic diamonds, as well as diamond jewellery, that come directly from Russia, unless these are meant for industrial purposes.
As of 1 March, the import ban will begin to cover Russian-origin diamonds and jewellerythat have been cut and polished in other countries. This indirect prohibition will be phased in gradually until 1 September, when a traceability system is supposed to be in place at the international level.
The raft of sanctions – the 12th since February 2022 – also aims to close the loopholes that have pierced through the price cap on Russian oil, which the G7 had set at $60 per barrel. Moscow has in recent months sold its product well above the cap thanks to a fleet of “shadow tankers” and the services of little-known trading firms, easily bypassing the commercial constraints the West thought to have under control.
The penalties do not alter the $60-per-barrell limit but introduce new measures, like an information-sharing system for ship-to-ship transfers and stronger transparency rules on the sale of tankers, to ensure the global sales of Urals oil stay within the price cap.
Moreover, the package blacklists 29 companies, including non-Russian ones that are suspected of helping the Kremlin get a hold of EU-made advanced goods. The names of these companies were not immediately available.
In a new attempt to crack down on the persistent problem of circumvention, European producers of sensitive technology will have to comply with a contractual clause that explicitly prohibits their merchandise from being re-exported to Russia.
“We continue to stand with Ukraine, through thick and thin,” said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, celebrating the deal.
The announcement made on Monday was only possible after Austria lifted its reservations. Initially, Vienna had blocked the deal over the addition of Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI) to Ukraine’s list of “international sponsors of war.” The list has no legal repercussions but entails considerable reputational damage.
Ukraine’s anti-corruption agency had targeted RBI, the largest Western bank in Russia, for allegedly providing services to “oligarchs close to the Kremlin.” Vienna took exception to this reasoning and pushed for the firm’s name to be removed.
The designation was suspended last week, paving the way for a resolution.
The news comes at a critical moment for Kyiv, which is pleading with Western allies to urgently step up their military and financial assistance to help the war-battered nation resist the advancing Russian troops.
During last week’s dramatic summit in Brussels, EU leaders agreed to start accession negotiations with Ukraine, a sought-after goal by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. But hours later, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán wielded his veto power to prevent the approval of a €50-billion special fund in long-term support for Ukraine.
Notably, Hungary did not veto the latest round of sanctions.
A phased-in ban
The ban on diamonds has been at the very top of Kyiv’s demands for more than a year.
Russia is the world’s largest producer of rough diamonds by volume, with more than 90% of its business dominated by a single company, Alrosa. In 2021, the year before the war was launched, Russia exported around $4 billion (€3.77 billion) worth of diamonds, an amount that fell only slightly in 2022 as the international community refrained from imposing any sort of penalty.
The secretive nature of the diamond industry has been credited as the main reason for the delayed action. Diamonds pass through multiple hands until they reach the final customer. For example: Russian rough diamonds are usually cut and polished in India and then traded in Antwerp, Belgium, from where they are shipped to other markets around the world like the United States, Hong Kong, and the United Arab Emirates.
This means that a retailer will most likely be unable to pinpoint the exact origin of a particular diamond, making it hard to separate Russian from non-Russian goods.
Fearing that a poorly designed ban would quickly fall victim to the underground market, the EU and the G7 have been developing an international traceability system to track down diamonds across the entire supply chain, from the mines to the shops.
Earlier this month, the G7 announced a roadmap in three gradual steps:
• By 1 January, impose restrictions on the imports of diamonds that are mined, processed or produced in Russia, excluding industrial purposes.
• By 1 March, impose restrictions on the imports of Russian diamonds that are processed in other countries.
• By 1 September, establish a “robust traceability-based verification and certification mechanism” for rough diamonds. The system should be in place in Western countries that are “major importers” of rough diamonds, like Belgium.
The G7 opened the door for cooperation with nations that fall outside the group but have a major stake in the diamond industry, such as India and the United Arab Emirates.
“We will continue consultations among G7 members and with other partners including producing countries as well as manufacturing countries for comprehensive controls for diamonds produced and processed in third countries,” the joint statement said.
The EU sanctions approved on Monday build upon this scheme and provide the legal basis for making the import ban a reality.
The bloc’s plan will replicate the timetable set by the G7.
Besides diamonds, the latest penalties restrict imports of Russian-origin pig iron, copper wires, aluminium wires, foil, tubes and pipes, which altogether represent a value of €2,2 billion per year. Purchases of Russian liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), a type of fuel used for heating, cooking and transport, will be banned over a transition period of 12 months.
Meanwhile, European companies will be prohibited from providing Russian firms with software for enterprise management and for industrial design and manufacture.
This article has been updated with more information about the sanctions.
Read the full article here


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Splatoon is getting tons of new content, including better matchmaking and a higher level cap.
Nintendo is partnering up with social media giant Facebook to celebrate the upcoming launch of Super Mario Maker!
The best Super Smash Bros. for Wii U player in the world adds another trophy to his ever-growing collection.
Save big on fourteen great Wii U eShop titles starting today!
The third edition of Disney’s toys-to-life adventure launches next month.
The electronics retailer confirmed the upcoming amiibo’s exclusivity and details how you’ll be able to (maybe) find it.
Get ready for a new multiplayer mode in Splatoon. Tower Control is another Ranked Battle, which has both teams rushing a tower that moves around the map.
Series creator announces both 3DS games are coming to Wii U in HD.
Super Smash Bros. director confirms characters were already planned for release. Also, fan service ahead!
Let’s take a look at screenshots comparing the sequel/remake to the original N64 classic.
Donkey Kong and Bowser are coming to the newest version of Skylanders, and they even have their own vehicle. We were able to get our hands on at E3 2015.
E3 2015 is over, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still enjoy everything that was shown by Nintendo! Here’s the 3rd and final day of Nintendo Treehouse Live @ E3 2015 in its entirety. Enjoy!


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TORONTO, Ont. – The TransCore Link Logistics Canadian Freight Index was flat in June though truck capacity broadened past previous year’s levels.
In addition, equipment capacity was up for the month with noticeable increases for available trucks going in and out of Canada as well as within Canada. Trucks posted in June went up 8% month-over-month and 36% year-over-year, while the equipment-to-load ratio was at its highest for 2015, going to 2.53 from 2.39 in May.
The second quarter load volumes for the year saw decreases – 6% from the first quarter and 20% compared to last year’s second quarter. Year-over-year volumes declined 21%. Cross-border loads leaving Canada went down 15%, and loads coming into Canada fell 23% year-over-year.
Intra-Canada load volumes represented 23% of the total volumes and were down 18% year-over-year, and 3% compared to last month.
The high point for load volumes year-to-date was set in March.
TransCore’s Canadian Freight Index accurately measures trends from roughly 5,000 of Canada’s trucking companies and freight brokers, and includes all domestic, cross-border and interstate data submitted by Loadlink’s customers.


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‘This is monumental’
Hundreds line up to purchase legal pot at NSLC in New Minas
A lineup of nearly 200 people wrapped around three walls inside the New Minas NSLC store Oct. 17 as people waited to make their first legal purchase of cannabis.
The store opened early — the first in the province, at 9:30 a.m., according to NSLC spokesperson Beverley Ware — and still could barely accommodate the lineup of customers, which grew to extend out into the County Fair Mall.
New Minas resident Keegan Penney was among the first to buy cannabis and was all smiles as he exited the store with his milestone purchase. He first arrived at the store at midnight, ready to camp out, but decided to return at 7 a.m.
“All it comes down to is that when there’s such an opportunity as this, it’s hard to pass up. This is monumental, and I didn’t want to miss out,” he said while holding his purchase inside a large, brown paper bag.
Ashley Zinck and Keegan Penney smile as they hold their first purchase of legal cannabis from the NSLC in New Minas.


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Tony Vela sent this in:
Shelly Martinez, former WWE/TNA Diva/Knockout, has two amazing event-worn items up for auction.
Amazingly hot Nurse’s outfit worn from a recent photo shoot and autograph signing!
Also, a RARE piece of clothing worn on the reality show “Search for the Next Elvira”.
Both items come autographed and with a COA direct from Shelly herself!


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Flu is a serious and highly contagious virus that impacts the health and wellbeing of many Tasmanians annually. Nationwide this year there have been over 250,000 confirmed cases of the flu. The impact is far reaching, with some people ending up in hospital with more serious complications.
Even less severe cases of the flu can take weeks to recover from and can also have an impact on your business operations. Providing your employees with the option to have a yearly flu vaccination makes good business sense. The Pharmacy Guild of Australia, through its member network of community pharmacies, has recently launched its Guild Corporate Health Programs – starting with a program to assist the business community to provide flu vaccinations for their employees. The national expansion of the program builds on the success and experience of the initial roll-out in Queensland.
In 2020, Tasmanian businesses will be able to utilise their local and trusted participating pharmacies to easily provide flu vaccination services to their employees, through an online booking portal. Employees will be able to choose a convenient time to receive their flu shot by a trained pharmacist, in a quality accredited pharmacy approved by Tasmanian State regulators. In Tasmania, pharmacists have been able to vaccinate against the flu since 2016 for those over 18 years old. Over recent years the popularity of these services in pharmacy has grown due to convenience and accessibility.
Most recently our Government allowed pharmacies to vaccinate children from ten years, further providing access to flu vaccination services for busy families. All vaccinations received in pharmacies are recorded to the Australian Immunisation Register so in the unlikely event of an adverse reaction the vaccination batch can be tracked, for added safety.
Guild Corporate flu vaccination offers businesses the ability to provide their staff with a flexible and convenient flu vaccination service, offered over an extended time period to ensure maximum coverage and protection.
Staff are able to access vaccination providers at a time and a place that’s convenient to them and the Guild provides simple, monthly reporting to businesses to assist with managing absenteeism trends. Invoicing is taken care of; where there may be services administered across multiple pharmacies, we simply pay our members directly and then we invoice you.
We are able to work across businesses with multiple departments or units to ensure that costs are invoiced and reported to the correct entity.
Immunisation services commence from April 2020, in line with advice from the Australian Department of Health’s Chief Medical Officer as to the best time to receive protection from the flu. The Guild is running a national advertising campaign to support the launch including ads in the Qantas magazine in September, October and January next year.
For more information have a look at Guild Corporate Health – www.guildcorporatehealth.com.au
Our local Tasmanian Guild Branch representatives can be contacted to present our solution to your business.
Branch Director: Monique Mackrill: 0407 147 256
Business Development Manager: Brad McArthur: 0438 481 233
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