Signs of unrest are emerging among some of frontline workers at retail, who say they're neither paid enough nor protected enough given the personal risks they're undertaking to keep vital groceries flowing to households. As USA Today put it this afternoon, "the pressure cooker of the workplace appears ready to boil over." Today, group of Instacart gig workers, who pull ecomm orders from local grocery shelves to fulfill some online orders of growing base of consumers, refused to accept orders unless they were given extra $5 of hazard pay per order and issued free safety items like gloves and hand sanitizer. As many as 150K workers might have turned off their app, tho it was not yet clear this afternoon how extensive the strike was. "The upcoming Instacart strike will mark the first time gig workers in the United States—who face the double bind of working on the front lines of virus and lacking basic labor protections like healthcare and paid sick days—have walked off the job in response to coronavirus," aside from isolated wildcat strikes like one by Amazon warehouse workers in Queens, NY, reported Vice.com, which has been out front in covering issue. Now workers at Amazon's Whole Foods chain are planning to call in sick strike tomorrow "to demand paid leave for all workers who stay home or self-quarantine during the crisis, free coronavirus testing for all employees, and hazard pay of double the current hourly wage for employees who show up to work during the pandemic," Vice reported this afternoon. Since word about planned sickout began to circulate, Whole Foods has upped hourly pay by $2 an hour, offered to provide 2 weeks of paid sick leave to workers who test positive for Covid-19, and said it would not penalize workers for calling out sick." But organizers of sickout say that's not sufficient. Last week, attorney generals from 15 states sent letter to ceo's of Amazon and Whole Foods demanding expansion of sick leave policies to take financial pressure off employees who may infect others.

FDA said it's easing labeling rules for restaurants and food makers who wish to sell surplus ingredients as packaged items, saying they're not required to incorporate full nutrition facts panel as long as they include statement of identity, ingredient statement, name and place of business, net quantity and allergen info. Guidance can be found here.. . . Dean Foods' move to merge with Dairy Farmers of America quietly took a turn earlier this week, shifting from positioning DFA as stalking horse bidder to moving to court-administered auction process. That means DFA no longer has "inside track," as Kansas City Biz Jnl put it, with Dean exec telling paper it was way of avoiding unnecessary litigation. DFA said it's re-evaluating i

NY's Fairway Market chain, struggling for a decade with private-equity-fueled overexpansion, will see Wakefern-aligned operator of local ShopRite stores called Village Super Market pick up 4 of its stores via bankruptcy auction and new Key Food-aligned entity called Seven Seas Georgetowne pick up store in south Brooklyn, all to continue operation as going concern. For Village, which operates 30 ShopRite stores, this would be first store in city besides one up in Bronx, after co was reported to have eyed acquisition of rival Gourmet Garage chain last year. In addition, etail giant Amazon, owner of Whole Foods, has purchased leases for 2 stores in NJ for $1.5 mil. It's not immediately clear whether Amazon intends to convert them to distribution hubs, Whole Foods units or perhaps new banner it's getting ready to unveil in LA, but its efforts to pick up broader array of Fairway properties was fiercely opposed by grocery workers Local 1500, fighting non-union bidders, NY Post reported. Village Supermarket paid $76 mil for the 4 stores - all in Manhattan, including iconic original on Upper West Side - along with production/distribution center in the Bronx, per Gothamist, Shelby Report and others. Not receiving bids were stores in Harlem, Chelsea and Brooklyn's Red Hook nabe, but Fairway believes influx of new biz during pandemic should enable it to keep them going at least thru Aug, per Post.

Given its belief that PepsiCo's "incremental $12 bil investment in less than 2 years in advertising, capex and M&A to reap benefits over multiple years (for perspective, annual EBITDA $13 bil)," Credit Suisse has upgraded co to "outperform." In near term, as world deals with COVID-19 disruptions, PEP has a "strong position in water, sports drinks, juice brands and beneficiary from snack pantry loading," he noted. Also, DSD is "a competitive advantage and likely to strengthen" PEP's relationship with retailers, wrote Kaumil Gajrawala. In medium term, he sees signs PEP's North American Beverages, "1/3 of sales and the weakest division, as poised to improve. Two top brands showing improvements (Pepsi, Gatorade) with innovation gaining share (Bubly, Zero variants). Mtn Dew can finally be unleashed with Rockstar energy deal resolved" (meaning moving more overtly into energy with Rockstar contract restrictions gone). PEP non-alc bevs "can go to +3-4% growth on improved industry dynamics, portfolio evolution and increased spend," in Kaumil's view. "More importantly, margin opportunity is substantial," added Kaumil. "We estimate ~$0.50 (+10%) EPS upside if PBNA can return margins to 2011 levels (14-15% from today's 10%)."

High Brew Coffee is marketed as offering needed lift "for those who do," and these days the doers among us have become heroes in tending to the sick and keeping stores shelves stocked. So Austin-based co is heading out to expanding array of retailers and hospitals to donate single-serve cans of its potent cold-brew to exhausted ranks of those "ultimate doers," as marketing dir Miles Aghajanian put it Tues. Over past week, team started caffeinating staffers at local retailers like Whole Foods (first chain to pick up High Brew years back), HEB and its Central Market banner, Wheatsville Coop, Fresh Plus and Natural Grocers. As of beginning of week it had distributed 2K cans locally. It has now been building out effort into Houston, Dallas and Calif, working via its local field teams rather than thru distribution partner and investor Keurig Dr Pepper. One particularly exposed group of caregivers are traveling nurses, who are assigned 13-week jobs in strange locales, sometimes spending night in an AirBNB or even in their car, with little time to go shopping or head to café drive-thru. So High Brew is allying with TrustedHealth.com to get coffee to those unsung doers, too.

Since scoring extraordinary exit from Bai to tune of $1.7 bil acquisition by Dr Pepper Snapple Group, founder Ben Weiss has been embarked on building organic, superpremium entry to vie in booming hard-sparkler space under Crook & Marker brand (BBI, Oct 29 2018). As with Bai in early days, it seems to be taking some time for brand to find its footing, tho this time it had benefit of starting with big infrastructure of A-list execs and top beer distributors. Now we've heard co has undertaken considerable cutback, possibly approaching half of team, tho we haven't confirmed magnitude. Without offering details, Princeton, NJ-based co offered statement confirming there has been some degree of restructuring. "In light of the uncertain business conditions that we and other companies across the country are facing, including significant restrictions in our ability to physically access stores and wholesaler policies which impact our ability to deliver product, we recently made some changes to our organization including letting some of our team members go," commns exec acknowledged. "At the same time, we've also increased head count in some key areas as part of a broader restructure of our commercial organization. While any decision to let team members go is a very difficult one, we made the decision to undertake this restructure so that we can continue to provide best-in-class support to our retail and wholesaler partners both now and in the future. We remain very optimistic around the launch of our USDA organic alcoholic beverage portfolio and exciting upcoming innovations. We wish for the safety of all in the industry and their families during this unprecedented and uncertain time."

National Restaurant Show scheduled for May 16-19 in Chicago - with retired QB Peyton Manning a keynoter - is latest major event to become casualty of the pandemic. The organizer, Winsights LLC, made the call after consulting with CDC and Illinois governor's office . . . Meanwhile, Questex' World Tea Conference set for Denver on Jun 8-11 has been pushed back to Oct 15-18 in same city . . . And Specialty Food Assn said it's assessing potential impact on Summer Fancy Food Show in late Jun of conversion of NY's Javits Center to emergency hospital use.