Solving the supermarket: why Coles just hired US defence contractor Palantir
What Palantir sells is fundamentally a way of seeing. Its dashboards promise a God’s eye view that can stretch across an entire organisation or zoom in to granular detail to locate that “needle in the haystack” insight. The claim is that this data-driven view is a shortcut to total knowledge, a way to map every operation, reveal every important element, and identify every inefficiency.
When is a supermarket special not a special? Here are the top industry tricks
Consumer group CHOICE says it has found countless examples of “dodgy” and “confusing” specials at Australia’s two major supermarkets, Coles and Woolworths.
The secret sauce of Coles’ and Woolworths’ profits: high-tech surveillance and control
As the largest private-sector employers and providers of essential household goods, the supermarkets play an outsized role in public life. Indeed, they are such familiar places that technological developments there may fly under the radar of public attention. Coles and Woolworths are both implementing technologies that treat the supermarket as a “problem space” in which workers are controlled, customers are tracked and profits boosted.
‘These people are stealing for a day job’: Professional shoplifters target supermarket meat
Neal Morgan, who operates five IGA supermarkets in Melbourne, said theft has hit the highest level in the stores’ 50-year history. Some people were stealing for themselves and others were stealing to sell or trade, he said, and shoplifters were becoming more brazen. “It’s almost like they think they’re entitled to just walk in and help themselves to anything on the shelf,” he said. Meat has become a major target, he said, with some thieves taking entire shelves worth of stock minutes after it had been placed.
We’re in a food price crisis. What is the government doing to ease the pressure?
An affordable daily diet has edged too far away for many Australians. Food prices have risen sharply since 2021, fuelling cost of living pressures and food insecurity. Some 3.7 million Australian households experienced food insecurity in 2023 – 10% more than in 2022.
Food prices have always been a challenge for many Australians. This is especially true for people on low incomes, refugees, people living in rural areas, single mothers, and people with disability. A basic healthy diet can cost city-dwelling families who are doing it toughest roughly one-third of their income.
A ‘war on red meat’? No, changes to Australian dietary guidelines are just a sensible response to Earth’s environmental woes
Official dietary advice in Australia is set to warn of the climate impact of certain foods. The move has raised the ire of farmers, meat producers and others who branded it “green ideology” and a “war on meat”. Critics say the The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), which is behind the change, is overreaching and should not expand its remit beyond providing nutritional advice. We strongly disagree. Having explored the scientific evidence about the harm food can cause to both the planet and human health, we firmly believe environmental information about food choices should be prominent in dietary guidelines.
Run out of butter or eggs? Here’s the science behind substitute ingredients
It’s an all too common situation – you’re busy cooking or baking to a recipe when you open the cupboard and suddenly realise you are missing an ingredient. Unless you can immediately run to the shops, this can leave you scrambling for a substitute that can perform a similar function. Thankfully, such substitutes can be more successful than you’d expect. There are a few reasons why certain ingredient substitutions work so well. This is usually to do with the chemistry and the physical features having enough similarity to the original ingredient to still do the job appropriately.
This 1,700 Year Old Egg Never Broke—And Now It’s Further Stunning Scientists
A team of researchers from the United Kingdom believe the Romans originally used to extract water for brewing ale, and later transformed the well into a place of ritual. However, in addition to the many objects uncovered from the depths, one item has baffled scientists today: a 1,700-year-old egg that is completely intact. The egg was found some years ago, but more recently, scientists made another discovery about it. A Micro CT scan showed that this ancient egg is still full of liquid. “Organic materials and liquids do not normally survive the depths of time unless in special circumstances,” said conservator Dana Goodburn-Brown. “Anaerobic conditions at the site preserved the eggs in situ.”
No more BMI, diets or ‘bad’ foods: why changing how we teach kids about weight and nutrition is long overdue
How many of us recall having to calculate our body-mass index (BMI) as children at school, prompting comparisons of our weight with that of our peers? Or perhaps we remember references to calories and diets in the classroom. Now, the Australian curriculum is changing how children and young people are educated about their bodies and what they eat, in a bid to prevent eating disorders.
Canned rabbit, once a dinnertime delicacy, now consigned to the burrows of history
Exploded cans of rotting rabbit meat blanketing a scarred jetty is where the tale of the canned cottontail cuisine culminated for the port of Kingston in South Australia. But despite the local industry’s grizzly end, tinned rabbit was once in demand on the dinner plates of London’s diners.
