In a reversal of the famous slogan, Nestlé’s shareholders are telling the company to take a break from the KitKats. 

Driving the news: Nestlé is facing demands from its shareholders to sell more nutritious foods. The coalition is led by a responsible investing charity that has criticized the world’s biggest food maker for relying too “heavily on sales of less healthy foods.”

As ‘athleisure’ and ‘quiet luxury’ continue to dominate fashion trends, one Canadian menswear store that made its name with formalwear is trying to keep up with the times.

What happened: The historic Canadian men’s clothier Harry Rosen is launching a five-year, $50 million plan to overhaul its stores across Canada, including making stores better suited (lol) for online pick-ups, condensing display spaces, and showcasing newer, trendier labels.

As the situation worsens in Haiti, some Canadian diplomats are getting out. 

What happened: Canada evacuated most of its embassy staff in Haiti, leaving only essential employees in the Caribbean nation, including Ambassador André François Giroux. Meanwhile, the ~3,000 Canadian citizens in Haiti have received shelter-in-place orders. 

If you thought the security line was bad at Toronto’s Pearson Airport, wait until you see the queue of customers just trying to leave your local Loblaws. 

Driving the news: Loblaw-owned grocery stores, including Superstore and Zehrs, are now testing receipt scanning systems at four locations in Ontario, part of the company’s efforts to beef up security as thefts at grocery stores and retailers rise across Canada. 

While Alberta formally ended its “Alberta is Calling” advertising campaign last year meant to attract workers to the province, the province is still singing a siren’s song.

What happened: Alberta has introduced a program to offer skilled tradespeople from outside the province a $5,000 tax credit if they pack up shop and move to Alberta. The province will shift $10 million in its budget to pay for it, making up to 2,000 workers eligible. 

Canadian-Indian relations have been, shall we say, testy lately. But you wouldn’t know it from looking at the investments Canadian pension funds are making. 

What happened: The Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (OTPP) will invest ~$107 million in Indian B2B fintech company Perfios, unlocking unicorn status. It’s the latest investment OTPP has made into an Indian startup since launching an Indian investment drive in 2022. 

Getting users and creators to lobby on its behalf didn’t help TikTok’s parent company make new friends in Washington.

Most online arguments are pretty easy to ignore, but sometimes the arguments are about how to spend billions of dollars on a world-changing technology.

In 2021, when MIT researchers proved that nuclear fusion — how stars combine atoms to generate energy — could be replicated to provide power here on Earth, there was a caveat: The superconducting magnets needed were so large and costly that the process was light-years away from being practical. 

Some new ground rules from our southern neighbour are putting Canadian cattle at risk of losing their honourary dual citizenship. 

What happened: This week, the U.S. issued new, more restrictive guidelines for when “Product of USA” labels can be used on meat, poultry, and eggs. The move is meant to help U.S. farmers, but experts expect it to hit Canada’s agriculture sector hard in the process. 

Telegram, it’s not just for your journo friends anymore. 

Driving the news: Encrypted messaging app Telegram is mulling a U.S.-listed IPO, its owner Pavel Durov told the Financial Times, after surpassing 900 million monthly active users and projecting it will hit profitability within the next year thanks to newfound ad dollars. 

Arts and culture festivals could sadly be following the woolly mammoth trajectory — once prominent across Canada, but slowly on their way to extinction. 

Driving the news: The shockingly sudden cancellation of this year’s Just for Laughs comedy festivals in Montréal and Toronto has brought to light the dire state of the business of festivals in Canada. Everything from music fests to theatre fests are struggling.

A new type of retreat is going after a demographic that needs more R&R than perhaps any other: new parents. 

Driving the news: Last month, Alma Care — a retreat for mothers who have just given birth — officially opened in Toronto. Per the owner, it’s the first facility of its kind in Canada, offering new moms cozy rooms, doula consultations, masseuses, and a staffed nursery. 

Niagara Falls, the CN Tower, and even the world’s largest coffee pot aren’t enough to lure Chinese tourists back to Canada.

Driving the news: Last year, only 225,100 Chinese visitors came to Canada, down from ~750,000 tourists seen before the pandemic, according to recent StatCan data. The loss in the big-spending Chinese market is a blow for Canada's still-recovering tourism industry. 

In next month’s federal budget, the feds are poised to put forward a framework legislation to bring open banking to the financial system. What is that, exactly? We’re glad you asked.  

Driving the news: Open banking is a system that lets users decide how their financial data is shared. Under the framework, banks would share a customer’s financial data with third parties, like fintech apps, via APIs.

The plan to bring the excitement of day trading to the experience of buying a Baconator didn’t pan out for Wendy’s, but the concept could be coming to more restaurants soon. 

Driving the news: Wendy’s backtracked on its plan to implement so-called surge pricing into its fast-food joints, but some in the restaurant industry say dynamic pricing — where prices fluctuate frequently based on demand — could soon become commonplace.

Sure, it’s easy to poke fun at cheesy cash-for-gold infomercials, but maybe the Russell Olivers of the world knew something we didn’t about where gold prices were heading.

What happened: The price of gold reached a new all-time high of US$2,185 per ounce on Friday, part of a rally that’s seen gold’s value jump 30% since the end of 2022. 

Of all the days to decide how the constitution should define the duties of women in society, Irish voters headed to the polls on International Women’s Day to cast their votes. 

Driving the news: Yesterday’s referendum posed two questions to citizens — to vote “yes” or “no” to loosen the definition of family and to remove references to a woman’s role being solely as a caregiver within the home, long seen as crucial to the “common good” of society.  

 On this week’s episode of Free Lunch by The Peak, we sat down with Chris Walker, the CEO of Canadian AI chip maker, Untether AI, to talk about the future of the industry.