After years of financial struggles, Walgreens is spinning off into a private standalone company, and new CEO Mike Motz is purportedly bringing a “renewed focus on retail.”

That phrase, tucked into a press release from private equity firm Sycamore Partners—which purchased Walgreens’s parent company for $23.7 billion in August—hints at what could be a significant strategic pivot for a pharmacy chain whose retail business had arguably become an afterthought.

The disparity was starkly presented in the company’s last earnings report as a public company earlier this year. While pharmacy sales grew 11.8% in the third quarter, retail sales were down 5.3% due to weaker demand in key categories such as grocery, household, beauty, and health and wellness.

“Walgreens has not been tremendously successful at retail,” Neil Saunders, managing director and retail analyst at GlobalData, told Retail Brew. “It has, in fact, neglected retail, and that has created a lot of problems.”

Keep reading here.—AV

At a campaign event last August where tables were filled with grocery items, then-candidate Donald Trump promised to cut food prices “starting on Day One,” but more than 235 days into his second term, food prices are up all over the place.

The average price of a regular cup of coffee was up 2.9% year over year in August, to $3.52, according to new restaurant data from Toast, a digital technology platform used by about 148,000 restaurant locations. Cold brew prices rose even higher, up 4.6% YoY in August, with a median price of $5.47.

A hindrance to coffee prices coming down anytime soon may be—you’ll never guess!—Trump’s tariffs. Brazil, which accounted for 35% of US unroasted coffee imports in 2023, per the USDA, has been slapped with a 50% tariff; Colombia, which accounts for 27% of coffee imports, is subject to a 10% tariff.

Keep reading here.—AAN

While many retailers are hiking prices to cope with tariffs and the end of de minimis, Apothékary is taking a contrarian route: thinking about lowering prices.

Shizu Okusa, founder and CEO of the Japanese-inspired wellness brand, told Retail Brew that she’s more concerned with “consumer perception and sentiment/fragility” than with passing costs along.

“We’re, frankly, absorbing a lot of the price impact that’s happening in our supply chain,” she said. “We’re not actually planning to raise any prices, but we are changing how we merchandise.”

The 5-year-old company, which generated $20 million in revenue by November 2024 and was on track to hit $35 million by early 2025, has leaned on bundling as its primary response to rising costs.

Keep reading here.—JS

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