March 5, 2021
For a brief period in the 1980s, Reebok was the biggest sneaker brand in the US.
The decade saw Reebok surge ahead of its competitors on a wave of demand for fitness and aerobics products. Reebok’s Freestyle sneaker, released in 1982 as the first fitness shoe designed specifically for women, became the hottest seller in the business. Workout guru Jane Fonda adopted them, and actress Cybill Shepherd wore a pair on the red carpet at the 1985 Emmy awards. By 1987, Reebok had surpassed Nike in the US.
But by 2005, when Adidas bought Reebok, the company was far from the force it used to be. It was still a formidable presence in the sneaker world, however, and the purchase had the potential to reshape the industry. The $3.8 billion buyout allowed Adidas, based in Germany, to roughly double its US sales and combine its strengths with Massachusetts-based Reebok. In theory, the deal gave the united companies the might to take on Nike in the valuable US market.
March 4, 2021
Dairy farmers across Canada have been asked to stop feeding cattle palm oil in response to complaints from consumers who complained about the hardness of their butter.
The situation, dubbed buttergate by the Canadian media, exposed a complicated quota system in Canada that protects dairy producers from price fluctuations but also incentivized and prioritized the industry’s production over consumer preferences.
As the pandemic kept Canadians indoors, they started baking. A lot. Demand for butter and margarine rose 26% for the 12-month period ending on Jan. 31, according to NielsenIQ, a consumer intelligence firm. But to increase supply, instead of adding cattle to the nation’s production population, which totals about 977,800 cows, dairy farmers are suspected of adding more palmitic acids fats which may come from palm oil or by-products of palm oil processing to their cows’ feed. This specific livestock feed supplement, which is federally approved for us
March 3, 2021
Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Alphabet, Google’s parent company, was paid $280 million in 2019. That is 1,085 times the compensation of the average Alphabet employee (about $258,000) and according to an analysis published on Feb. 24 by As you Sow, a shareholder advocacy organization way too much.
Pichai, whom As You Sow claims was overpaid by nearly $268 million, topped the group’s annual list of the most overpaid CEOs of companies in the S&P 500. As You Sow, based in Berkeley, California, hopes to leverage the power of shareholders to direct companies toward corporate social responsibility and environmentally sustainable actions.
As You Sow assesses CEO pay based on a series of parameters, including the ratio between CEO compensation and the median worker’s, the percentage of shareholders that voted in favor or against the CEO compensation package, and whether proxy advisors (companies that advise institutional shareholders on how to vote) were in favor of the c