Sobeys will sell its milk, yogurt and ice cream manufacturing operations to Quebec-based dairy co-operative Agropur. The dairy plants located in Western Canada include two in Edmonton, one in Winnipeg, and one in Burnaby, B.C. They will be sold for $356 million to Agropur.

The manufacturing operations have 281 workers all together, and process over 169 million litres of milk every year. They generate $400 million of annual revenue. Agropur will license the Lucerne trademark from Sobeys and supply Sobeys stores among others with the dairy products produced.

“This agreement maximizes the value for these assets while securing long-term supply agreements that create synergies for our entire Canadian business,” says Marc Poulin, president and CEO of Sobeys. “It also ensures that these facilities will continue to produce the very popular Lucerne dairy brand, which will not only remain available in our Safeway banner stores, but will be expanded to our network of Sobeys and IGA stores throughout the West.”

Loblaw workers on strike were met with disappointment when they visited the company headquarters last week in order to start some negotiations. The picketers, consisting of 40 staff members, began walking 600 kilometres from Northern Quebec to Brampton, Ontario on June 15. Upon their arrival to picket the company headquarters on Wednesday, they weren’t able to get a hold of any Loblaw officials, according to the Montreal Gazette. While most left the scene, about four of them reportedly stayed to picket for the weeks to come.

“We have tabled our final offer in all three cases, including competitive increases consistent with dozens of other collective agreements we’ve recently concluded in the province of Québec and consistent with the agreements in the Québec market at large,” says a Loblaw spokesperson. “We do not expect any talks to take place upon their arrival in Brampton.”

The reason for the strike dates back to August 2012 when 190 employees of a Maxi store in Rouyn-Noranda were locked out, followed by a Rouyn store closure in June 2013 and another case of workers being locked out in December 2012, at a Provigo store in Temiscaming.

Canada Safeway ranked number one on Greenpeace’s annual list for supermarkets with sustainable seafood practices. Canada Safeway, bought by Sobeys last year, got a score of 74 out of 100 for its practices, followed by Loblaw with a score of 73 and Metro with 67. Canada Safeway was commended for offering sustainable options for products like canned tuna and farmed salmon. Safeway also recently announced that it wouldn’t source seafood from proposed ocean sanctuaries in the western and central Pacific Ocean, as well as fish from the Ross Sea ocean sanctuary.

Overwaitea Food Group came in fourth on the list, followed by Walmart Canada in fifth place, Federated Cooperatives at sixth, Sobeys taking the seventh spot and Costco at eighth, rounding out the list and failing to receive a passing grade.

“If [supermarket chains] really want to meet their commitments they are going to need to get stricter and more involved in improving the unsustainable fisheries and farms that they source from or start making harder sourcing decisions about which suppliers to move away from,” says Sarah King, Greenpeace Canada’s oceans campaign coordinator.  “Promotion of unsustainable seafood also needs to stop. It undermines their sustainability efforts.”

A poll by Statcom for Greenpeace earlier this year showed that 74 per cent of Canadians want at least 10 per cent of oceans to be turned into sanctuaries.

Target has been awarded the Leadership in Energy & Environment Design (LEED) certification for 124 Canadian stores, with plans to get it for nine more stores to open later on this year. The qualifications for a LEED certification include meeting the criteria for categories such as sustainable sites, energy and atmosphere, materials and resources, water efficiency, and indoor environmental quality.

“This past year marked a major milestone for Target,” says Mark Schindele, president of Target Canada. “LEED certification of these 124 stores reinforces Target’s commitment to the environment, making Target a leader among Canadian retailers when it comes to sustainable buildings.”

Following the opening of three Target stores in Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia this year, Target has plans to open six more stores in Ontario, as well as one store for Quebec and Manitoba each.

Data shows that Canadian e-commerce is growing rapidly as the estimated amount of online purchases in Canada was reportedly $25 billion in 2014. According to data from Nextopia, British Columbia is the province that spends the least at peak times with an average of $196 per person, while Alberta is the province that spends the most with an average of $319 per person. The numbers are expected to grow as online sales have generated $18.9 billion back in 2012, followed by a $5.1 billion increase in 2014 to $25 billion. This number is expected to be around $34 billion by 2016.

Days like Cyber Monday, which is one of the largest e-commerce shopping days of the year, generate a large quantity of sales online. Back in 2012 and 2013, sporting goods experienced a 105 per cent growth, followed closely by a 93 per cent growth in footwear.

Even though Canadian e-commerce still only represents 7 per cent of the North American e-commerce market, experts say it’s bound to catch up as it’s outpacing the U.S.’s growth at 14.3 per cent, with a 0.5 per cent lead.

According to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, total nonfarm payroll enployment increased by 288,000 in June, which surpassed experts’ expectations. Consequently, the unemployment rate has decreased to 6.1 per cent as the civilian labour participation rate stayed at 62.8 per cent. U.S.-based data from the National Retail Federation shows that employment increases in the retail market, excluding autos and gasoline, account for 27,800 new jobs in June and 230,800 for the year.

“Details in the national jobs report were uniformly positive and showed that the labor market continues to provide more muscle to a growing economy,” says NRF Chief Economist Jack Kleinhenz. “It should be noted that this is the strongest three-month trend since early 2012. The momentum in the labor market and retail job growth will translate into stronger expectations for the second half of 2014. This report sets the stage for job gains as we head into the busier retail season.”

More economic growth is expected for the remainder of the year.

After a decade of legal battles, the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled in favour of 190 former Walmart workers from Jonquiere, Quebec who lost their jobs back in 2005. The court decided five-to-two that the workers be compensated. Prior to the court’s decision, the union has filed a complaint that Walmart fired the unionized employees by “modifying working conditions to eliminate their jobs.” The elimination of their jobs came months after the employees unionized in 2004, becoming the first Walmart workers in North America to do so.

Previously, an arbitrator had ruled in favour of the union, which was overturned later by the Quebec Court of Appeal. Following that, the Supreme Court turned the decision around by ruling in favour of the workers.

“It was in fact reasonable to find that a reasonable employer would not close an establishment that ‘was performing very well’ and whose ‘objectives were being met’ to such an extent that bonuses were being promised,” says the ruling. Walmart representatives said that the company was disappointed with the decision and would consider its options.

According to a new survey by Unity Marketing, affluent consumers are the key to success for retailers. A survey suggests that brands need to learn the retail trends and competition among the affluent consumers in order to shape their advertising campaigns in-store and online.

“The study probes in depth into how affluents shop across a wide range of different types of retailing environments, including general merchandise discounters, department stores and luxury department stores, luxury branded boutiques, fashion boutiques and home furnishings stores,” says Pam Danziger, president of Unity Marketing. “While affluents are clearly the primary target customers for the true luxury stores, they are also critically important to retailers that are more mass market, as well.”

For the report, 1,436 affluent consumers within the top 20 per cent of households by income were studied on their shopping habits. A quarter of the participants cited online shopping as the best shopping, while half of the participants said they shop online whenever possible.

Costco founder Jim Sinegal’s first impression of Amazon was when he bought a Kindle with a defective screen and had it immediately replaced by the company, with an email from Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos telling Sinegal to consider him his ‘personal customer service representative.’ Since then, Sinegal has supported Amazon’s customer-centric service and long-range business perspective. In turn, Sinegal told CNBC that he thinks Bezos is inspired by Costco’s membership model.

“I think what will stop [Amazon shareholders] is if, number one, the pressure of becoming profitable becomes so great that they’ve got to change their game plan,” Sinegal told CNBC. “I think that eventually they have to figure out how to become a little more profitable in their business.”

Market researcher Kantar Worldpanel says that e-commerce is responsible for 3.7 per cent of sales for food, drinks and personal care products, with a prediction to rise to five per cent by 2016 as manufacturers embrace the online world further. Iglo Group, which is hoping to get 25 per cent of online sales with its Birds Eye frozen goods by 2017, told Reuters that since the online market is new, “everyone’s trying new things.” Examples of this are brands like L’Oreal, Nestle and Procter & Gamble selling only niche products such as cosmetics, coffee, chocolate and shampoo online.

Rabobank analyst John David Roeg told Reuters that most food manufacturers are “seriously unprepared for online retailing,” and that they need to work on areas such as product assortment. According to CheckoutSmart, a provider of digital grocery rewards, the brand Coca-Cola came on top as the online grocery brand in the UK, which has been developing the brand’s online marketing.

“That change doesn’t have to be as complex and scary,” says Erin Hunter, Coca-Cola’s global head of consumer packaged goods strategy.