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☆ Why auto insurance rates are skyrocketing in the U.S.
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-23 | by ( Shawn Baldwin | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

Car insurance is getting more expensive. The average annual premium for full coverage auto insurance in the U.S. rose to $2,543 in 2024 — up 26% from the previous year, according to Bankrate. "That has led to an environment where the consumer, the insured, is out shopping for auto insurance and finding that they cannot find an insurer that has a lower premium for them." Around 215 million Americans carry auto insurance and the market is valued at roughly $353 billion, according to IBISWorld. So, what other factors are behind the spike in auto insurance rates and what impact are rising premiums having on consumers and large publicly traded companies such as Allstate, Progressive and Berkshire Hathaway's Geico ?

Persons: Stephen Crewdson, Berkshire Hathaway's Organizations: American, Casualty Insurance Association, Allstate, Progressive, Berkshire Locations: U.S, .

☆ The French have fallen in love with American fast food. Here's why
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-19 | by ( Natalie Rice | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

In France, a land of fine dining, Michelin stars and high standards for cuisine, there's a surprising favorite: American fast food. Expilly oversaw Popeyes' 2023 arrival in France while serving as COO of Popeyes France for French restaurant group Napaqaro. Burger King specifically has gone aggressively after the market "given the propensity for American quick service foods and concepts in France," Charles said. In 2024, McDonald's and Burger King hold more than 40% of the market, according to Euromonitor International, and now consider it their biggest one outside the U.S. French QSRs did take a hit in 2020, but the industry bounced back quickly, earning more profits in 2021 than before the pandemic, according to Euromonitor International.

Persons: Xavier Expilly, EXPM, Expilly, Popeyes, Burger, McDonald's, Andrew Charles, Cowen, Charles, Burger King, Joel Tissier, haven't, Tissier Organizations: Euromonitor, CNBC, Restaurant Brands, Canadian, Mac, Créteil, KFC, Euromonitor International, BK Locations: France, Europe, American, Burger, Paris, United States

☆ Insight: Italy is no country for young chefs
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-25 | by ( Antonella Cinelli | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +9 min

For the past year, the 25-year-old has cooked at Piccola Cucina, an Italian restaurant in Manhattan's glitzy SoHo district, home to designer boutiques and high-end art galleries. The current outflow of Italian chefs due to difficult conditions at home is not a new phenomenon. A peep into the kitchens of even the most traditional Italian restaurants shows the local dishes are often prepared by low-paid immigrants. Partly for this reason, young chefs in Italy take home half the salary of their peers in Britain while working longer hours, Mazzei said. British people have become knowledgeable about Italian food, even learning about regional differences, he said, so he preferred to hire Italian chefs to satisfy an increasingly demanding clientele.

Persons: Davide Sanna, Brendan McDermid, Sanna, he'd, It's, Massimo Bottura, Roberto Gentile, Paese, Gentile, Di Marzo, Julio, Francesco Mazzei, Mazzei, Giorgia Meloni's, Francesco Lollobrigida, Antonio Bassu, Bassu, Gavin Jones, Daniel Flynn Organizations: REUTERS, Rights, Star, Michelin, European, European Labour Authority, Reuters, MELONI'S, PRIDE Italian, Thomson Locations: SoHo, New York City, U.S, Sardinia, New York, Italy, Italian, glitzy SoHo, Modena, Spain, Japan, France, Europe, United States, Sicily, ITALY, Le, Toulouse, Britain, Milan, Gaeta, Rome, Naples, Roman, Emilia, Peruvian, Calabria, Italy's, London, Malta, England, Sardinian, Barcelona

☆ Italy is no country for young chefs
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-25 | by ( Antonella Cinelli | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +9 min

Italy's food is famous the world over but many talented young chefs, hoping to make a career in their country, find themselves frustrated by low pay, lack of labour protection and scant prospects. The current outflow of Italian chefs due to difficult conditions at home is not a new phenomenon. A peep into the kitchens of even the most traditional Italian restaurants shows the local dishes are often prepared by low-paid immigrants. Partly for this reason, young chefs in Italy take home half the salary of their peers in Britain while working longer hours, Mazzei said. British people have become knowledgeable about Italian food, even learning about regional differences, he said, so he preferred to hire Italian chefs to satisfy an increasingly demanding clientele.

Vacuum maker Dyson has in recent years tied up with eBay UK to sell officially refurbished products at a hefty discount to the price of new ones. Some 23% of consumers globally say they are buying more second-hand products, according to the EY Future Consumer Index, a survey of 22,000 consumers published earlier this month. "I found a waistcoat for my dad in a charity shop in Peckham the other day – I saw it and I thought I have to get it, he's going to love it," Baker said as she browsed in a Crisis charity shop in Camberwell, south-east London. In the fourth quarter of last year, sales in UK charity shops grew by 8.6% compared the previous year, according to the Charity Retail Association. Lesley Wright, a volunteer at an Oxfam shop in Brighton, England, is gearing up for her "busiest-ever" holiday season.

Persons: Eve Williams, Dyson, Lorna Fallon, Lucy Baker, Baker, Lesley Wright, Wright, Richa Naidu, Helen Reid, Matt Scuffham, Elaine Hardcastle Organizations: eBay Inc, Oxfam, Apple, eBay, Dyson, Regent, Sustainability, Charity Retail Association, Reuters, Thomson Locations: British, London, Peckham, Camberwell, Brighton , England

☆ Food-truck owners from marginalized communities are cooking up success with cloud-based POS systems and analytics software
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-26 | by ( Christine Macintyre | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +10 min

Today, these dynamic food trucks serve up gourmet delights and cater events, fueled by convenience and social media-driven connection. While the most apparent technology food-truck owners use is front-end POS systems, back-end technology is also essential. Food-truck owners face the challenge of frequent menu updates, often requiring them to recreate signage or hire someone for the task. This helps food-truck owners make informed decisions related to parking and operating hours, which significantly influences their sales performance. In fact, a 2022 study published by Elsevier found that location was a key challenge for food-truck owners, as it affected customer targeting, exposure, and financial sustainability.

Persons: —, IBISWorld, Let's Chow, Olivia, Luis Surla, Joselle's, Jordan Foley, Let's Chow Jordan Foley, Foley, Olivia Surla's, Sofiat, Abdulrazaaq, Lemaire Stewart, Kyle Miller, Goodfynd Organizations: Service, Food, Technology, Entrepreneurs, Joselle's, Pacific Islander, Goodfynd, Elsevier Locations: American, Annapolis , Maryland, San Diego, Pacific, Nigerian, Caribbean, Maryland

Sept 20 (Reuters) - Consumer goods firms like Nestle (NESN.S), Lindt (LISN.S) and Unilever (ULVR.L) may face increased pressure across Europe to cut prices after being singled out by French retailers and politicians, industry experts say. France is a crucial country for consumer goods companies, having long outstripped Germany, Italy, Spain and others as the European Union's biggest market for groceries by supermarket revenues, according to research firm IBISWorld. That means consumer groups will face pressure to rein back prices across the European Union. Because these supermarkets are in different countries and do not compete with one another, they often combine forces to negotiate with consumer goods makers. Consumer goods makers have for more than two years grappled with sky-rocketing input, supply chain and labour costs that they have either absorbed - taking a hit to margins - or passed on to retailers.

Persons: It's, Laurent Thoumine, Thoumine, Ferrero's, Pernod Ricard's Ricard, Systeme, Germany's, Switzerland's, Italy's, Philippe Michaud, Leclerc, Bruno Le Maire, Le Maire, Richard Saldanha, Lindt, Saldanha, Richa Naidu, Helen Reid, Matt Scuffham, Catherine Evans Organizations: Consumer, Nestle, Unilever, Carrefour, PepsiCo, European, Reuters, European Union, Epic Partners, French Finance, Aviva Investors, Paris, Thomson Locations: Europe, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Eurelec

Revenue from beekeeping will reach $624 billion this year in the United States alone, reports IBISWorld, a market research firm. While techniques for nurturing hives have improved, honey bees remain vulnerable animals. As of a few years ago, nearly 30 percent of commercial honey bees still did not survive the winter months, says the Environmental Protection Agency. That’s a large number and one that puts a financial strain on commercial beekeepers. There are more than 20,000 species of wild bees in the world, and many people don’t realize they exist.

Persons: Honey, Black, It’s, IBISWorld, ” Mr Organizations: Environmental Protection Agency, Food and Agriculture Organization, Nations Locations: United States, California, That’s

☆ Mattress M&A is stuffed with sweet dreams
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-10 | by ( Lauren Silva Laughlin | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Memory foam bedmaker Tempur Sealy International (TPX.N)agreed to buy rival Mattress Firm in a $4 billion cash-and-stock deal that combines manufacturing and retail. Mattress Firm filed for bankruptcy in 2018. Tempur’s superior 17% EBITDA margin, nearly double that of Mattress Firm, also helps make a deal stack up. Boosting Mattress Firm’s operating profitability from 10% to 13% could double those synergy projections. The buyer will retain slightly more than 83% of the combined company while Mattress Firm’s owners will hold the rest.

☆ The 2023 CNBC Disruptor 50: How we chose the companies
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-09 | by ( David Spiegel | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

The last Disruptor 50 company to go public was Gojek, which debuted on the Indonesia Stock Exchange more than a year ago. The last Disruptor 50 IPO in the U.S. market, Nubank , happened on December 9, 2021. Here's how we chose them:All private, independently owned startup companies founded after Jan. 1, 2008, were eligible to be nominated for the Disruptor 50 list. The 2023 list also features the first founder to have two companies make the Disruptor 50 (Rodney Williams of SoLo Funds). Imagine what that number could have been a year or two ago …Special thanks to the 2023 CNBC Disruptor 50 Advisory Council, who again offered us their time and insights.

☆ How the $8 billion parking industry is evolving to stay alive
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-06 | by ( Robert Ferris | In | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

There are between 700 million and 2 billion parking spaces in America — or put another way, between 2.5 to seven spots for every registered vehicle. The entire parking industry pulled in about $121 billion in 2022, according to Jerry Marcus, who runs a Boston-based parking consultancy called the Parking Advisory Group. The entire parking industry is projected to pull in about $144 billion in 2023. Within the larger parking industry, there's a group of companies that manage parking facilities for owners. That industry pulled in somewhere between $8 billion and just over $10 billion in revenue in 2022, according to market estimates.

☆ US government is testing avian flu vaccines for birds, but ending the historic outbreak isn’t that simple
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-05 | by ( Jen Christensen | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +9 min

Eradication and vaccinationAs of April 26, the CDC says, nearly 58.8 million poultry have been affected by avian flu since January 2022. The virus has been detected in at least 6,737 wild birds, and the number is likely to be much higher. Vaccinated birds would be protected, but with this highly infectious disease, they still could shed some virus that could infect unprotected birds. Partial protection means more birds will be spreading the virus,” Gallardo said. The US has the largest poultry industry in the world, with 294,000 poultry farms.

☆ Mark Cuban rejected this 'Shark Tank' company—and said he'd take its ideas to one of its competitors
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-10 | by ( Ashton Jackson | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

You don't often see an investor taking an entrepreneur's idea and giving it to a competitor, but that's exactly what Mark Cuban did on Friday's episode of ABC's "Shark Tank." During the episode, Justin Crowe pitched his 3-year-old cremation alternative startup Parting Stone to investors, including Cuban. Eterneva currently focuses on turning ashes into diamonds, and Cuban viewed Parting Stones' offerings as a great second product line. Lori Greiner called Parting Stones "genius," and Kevin O'Leary said the category was right up his alley. Crowe rejected them all, saying that Parting Stone had both direct-to-consumer sales and business-to-business sales through funeral homes — and he'd only pay royalties from the consumer side.

☆ As climate change intensifies extreme weather, NOAA looks to startups to help improve its forecasts
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-29 | by ( Magdalena Petrova | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

The U.S. experienced 18 separate billion-dollar weather or climate disasters in 2022, costing a total of $165 billion in damages. This information is then fed into powerful supercomputers that produce weather models that meteorologists use to come up with forecasts. As climate change intensifies extreme weather events, accurate weather forecasting is becoming more important than ever. The weather forecasting services industry in the U.S. was estimated to be worth about $17.4 billion in 2023, according to IBISWorld. CNBC spoke with two such companies, Boston-based Tomorrow.io and Alameda, California-based Saildrone, to learn how their technology can help improve weather forecasting for NOAA and others.

Egg prices rose 60% in 2022: Consumers paid $4.30 on average in December for a dozen eggs compared to $1.80 a year earlier. "Everyone tries to make money, but ... it's a very low-margin industry," said Angel Rubio, senior analyst at Urner Barry, a market research firm that specializes in the wholesale food industry. But the egg industry is volatile, too, sensitive to market changes and environmental factors. Much of the price increase of eggs over 2022 stemmed from the deadliest outbreak of bird flu in U.S. history, which killed millions of egg-laying hens. The egg industry also has its fair share of controversy.

☆ Sex workers are feeling the financial pain of an economic downturn — and adding emotional support for clients to their job descriptions
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-11 | by ( Jennifer Sor | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

From stripping to webcam modeling, sex workers are feeling the pain of a precarious economy. It's taking an emotional — in addition to financial — toll, since sex workers are often expected to lend their clients a compassionate ear. "Unfortunately, as sex workers, we do take the brunt of people's own stress of whatever is going on in our own lives," he added. Legal arenas of sex work are also showing signs of struggle as customers pull back from one of the world's oldest industries. Sex work saw a particular diaspora during the pandemic recession, Jungleib said, which saw a huge influx of people interested in online sex work.

☆ Why urgent care centers are popping up everywhere
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-28 | by ( Nathaniel Meyersohn | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

And there are questions about the quality of care at urgent care centers and whether they adequately serve low-income communities. Additionally, passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010 spurred an increase in urgent care providers as millions of newly insured Americans sought out health care. Private-equity and venture capital funds also poured billions into deals for urgent care centers, according to data from PitchBook. Equity concernsSome doctors and researchers worry that patients with primary care doctors – and those without – are substituting urgent care visits in place of a primary care provider. There are also concerns about the oversaturation of urgent care centers in higher-income areas that have more consumers with private health care and limited access in medically underserved areas.

☆ Baby Gear Rental Startup Loop Hires Former Glossier Marketing Chief as CEO
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-30 | by ( Megan Graham | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +3 min

Loop Co., a baby equipment rental company, has hired former Glossier Inc. chief marketing officer Ali Weiss to be its chief executive officer. Loop, which was founded last year, lets paying members rent baby gear such as cribs, toys and high chairs. For us at Loop, it’s member-first.”The company plans to hire a marketing leader who will report to Ms. Weiss. The company’s rentals can appeal to parents who want to reduce clutter or their environmental impact, according to Ms. Weiss. “Our vision is that we’re able to provide this service across many markets, many cities, many metro areas across the U.S.,” Ms. Weiss said.

☆ Impossible Foods Hires a Marketing Chief as It Seeks to Win Over Meat Eaters
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-08 | by ( Megan Graham | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +3 min

Alternative-meat maker Impossible Foods Inc. has hired Leslie Sims to fill the newly created post of chief marketing and creative officer ahead of a planned expansion in marketing, the company said. Ms. Sims, currently U.S. chief creative officer at Deloitte Digital, will assume her new role on Jan. 1. Founded in 2011, Impossible Foods sells products including plant-based alternatives to beef burger patties, chicken nuggets and pork. Leslie Sims will become chief marketing and creative officer at Impossible Foods in January. “We’re really going for not being the best plant-based meat—we’re going for being the best meat,” Ms. Sims said.

☆ How the $36 billion vitamin industry tricked a generation of adults into believing sugary gummies were the ticket to good health
▼ + stars: | 2020-10-07 | by ( Rachel Premack | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +21 min

But some consumer advocates and doctors worry that those supplements don't have as many benefits as people think. "Our gummy vitamins have been on fire," CEO Matt Farrell told investors in a July earnings call. He said that Hero Nutritionals, founded in 1995, created the first gummy vitamin for the American market. A Perrigo representative said it no longer manufactured gummy vitamins, and it did not respond to further inquiries.) But the doctor had something to admit: He takes a gummy vitamin every day.

Persons: Robert Shmerling's, who's, they're, It's, Shmerling, Chuck Bell, Charlene Elliot, Zers, sassily, you'll, Gummy, Kim Kardashian's Instagram, Matt Farrell, Andrew Stablein, it's, Hollis Johnson, Ingrid Sorensen, Sorensen, Libby Mindarino, Mindarino, Peter Waitzman, I'm, John Troup, Troup, Nutritionals, Jennifer Hodges, Hero, America's, Hodges, Bernd Settnik, Lil, gummies, Perrigo, Olly, SmartyPants, Dwight, University of Calgary's Elliot, Millennials, Gen Zers, Elliot, Lunchables, Courtney Nichols Gould, Kim Kardashian, Kylie Jenner, @sugarbearhair, Kylie 🤍, ike, alo, ike J ames Organizations: Harvard Medical School, Consumer, University of Calgary, Brands, Netflix, Big Tech, Walmart, Target, Business, Nutrition Business, . Church, Consumers, Bayer, Companies, New York Times, pharma, Consumer Healthcare Products Association, Sweet, Getty, Centers for Disease Control, Perrigo, Church, University of Calgary's Locations: Boston, America, gummy, Atlanta, Ireland, Dwight, Patagonia, osh

☆ From rings to cakes, Costco has what you need for a budget wedding
▼ + stars: | 2019-06-28 | by ( Shoshy Ciment | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +1 min

The bridal industry is struggling across the board. As younger people want to spend less on their weddings and engagements, the business of bridal stores is in a precarious place. We explored Costco — our favorite bulk-item superstore — and made a guide to help you plan the wedding of your dreams on a budget. IBISWorld measured that the Bridal Stores industry has grown by zero percent in the last five years. From diamond engagement rings to towering wedding cakes, here's our guide for how to plan a discount wedding from Costco.

Persons: there's, Crew, Read, Muhammad Ali Organizations: Costco, Service, Bridal Locations: Wall, Silicon

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