👩‍🎓 Free tuition

Textbooks cost more than the MacBook... At least they double as a door jammer. College education in the US is notoriously pricey. To ease the burden, Walmart and Target are offering free college tuition to their workers.

• Walmart is offering 100% of tuition and book fees to 1.5M associates at 10 universities. It's allocating $1B over five years to cover career development offerings.
• Target is offering paid tuition and textbooks to its 340K full and part-time workers. They'll have access to 250 (mostly online) programs offered by about 40 colleges.

Two birds, one scone... It's no coincidence that two of America's largest retailers are upping their benefits now. The labor market is tight, so companies are sweetening the pot to attract workers. Covid fears, child care needs, and boosted unemployment benefits have prevented some employees from returning. Unemployment is still higher than pre-pandemic levels — but there are way more jobs than job seekers.

• Record openings: Your local bistro wants its waiters back. Job openings surged above 10M for the first time ever in June, as employers scrambled to hire while the economy reopened.
• Record wages: The average pay for US supermarket and restaurant workers topped $15/hour for the first time.

Tyson chicken nuggies are shaking… There’s a new poultry powerhouse on the scene. Cargill, whose wholesale food products end up in everything from baby formula to cat food, is the second-largest private company in the US (#flex). Now, it's partnering with Continental Grain to snatch up Sanderson Farms, the US’ third-largest poultry producer (#doubleflex). Sanderson shares jumped 7% on news of the $4.5B acquisition.

The coop is hot… Demand for chicken is soaring, and wing prices have nearly tripled from last year. In the meat aisle, Cargill is known for its big beef business 一 not chicken. Now, it's paying an 11% premium to add Sanderson’s poultry to its cart. The goal: catch up to spiking demand while it's hot.

• Fry it: Popeyes viral fried chicken sandwich has helped sales skyrocket since it launched in 2019. Since then, KFC, Wendy's, Burger King, McDonald's, and even Taco Bell have joined the lucrative Chicken Sandwich Wars.
• Deliver it: Dine-in chains like Applebee’s and Chili’s launched chicken wing delivery services to keep sales up during the pandemic.
• Love it: McD's crushed sales projections for its Crispy Chicken Sandwich last quarter, and says it's only at the beginning of its "multiyear chicken journey."

• Spendy: Dems released a $3.5T budget plan that sets the stage for massive investments in social programs and climate policy.
• Diverse: The SEC approved Nasdaq's proposal to boost the number of women, racial minorities, and LGBTQ people on US corporate boards.
• Pump: Oil prices fell to their lowest levels in more than two months, on worries that the Delta spread will hurt rebounding demand.
• Rent: Hertz's quarterly sales jumped 62% compared to last year's mid-pandemic quarter — as flights rebounded, so did airport car rentals.
• Trendy: Turkey's largest ecomm platform Trendyol raised $1.5B at a $16.5B valuation, making it one of Europe's most valuable tech startups.
• Cloudy: Tencent Music's streaming rival Cloud Village is pausing its $1B Hong Kong IPO plan, while investors grow wary of China's tech crackdown.

• Earnings expected from Coinbase, McAfee, FuboTV, Poshmark, and ThredUp

Authors of this Snacks own: shares of Walmart, Uber, CVS, and Bitcoin

ID: 1