Opinion

There’s a global race right now to become the global drug chain leader. It brings three very different things together: the board game Risk, an iceberg and a Bob Dylan song. I’ll explain.

Gone are the days of big companies outperforming the small. Today, most industries are being shaped by emerging smaller and mid-sized organizations, many of which out-innovate competitors that are much larger and more powerful.  According to an IRI report from 2016, small and medium manufacturers accounted for more than 75% of all “New Product Pacesetter” companies and 64% of the growth in dollars. New challenger brands and dark horse competitors are having a profound impact on business and the broader culture.

The news that Walgreens is to scrap its $9.4 billion merger with Rite Aid is unsurprising. The glacial pace of the Federal Trade Commission investigation and increasing signals that the federal government would disallow the merger have forced a rethink.

In some ways, the process so far has been a colossal waste of resources and effort. Walgreens has to pay out a $325 million termination fee to Rite Aid, and all parties — including Fred's, which was due to acquire some Rite Aid stores — have invested time and money with very little to show for it.

My daughter and I were experimenting in the kitchen the other evening — cooking up what was sure to be a masterpiece. Reaching into the lazy Susan in the spice cabinet, I had a eureka moment.

To be honest, this is not the first time that this fleeting thought has crossed my mind. But it resurfaced with a vengeance when my daughter commented about the lazy Susan, “This is so cool. Everything I need is just a quick spin away from being right in front of me.”

In April, Drug Store News and Mack Elevation co-hosted the third annual New General Market Summit. The one-day thought leadership event examined the changing face of the American shopper — driven not only by the growth of multicultural and millennial consumers but also by the influence these consumers are having on all consumers — and how the best brands are able to connect on an emotional level, as well as build community and advocacy with an ever-more diverse consumer.

The opioid abuse epidemic has justly garnered much of the nation’s attention. Reports show that on an average day, 91 deaths occur daily due to opioid-related overdoses in the U.S. As a society, we shoulder $55 billion annually in health and social costs related to prescription opioid abuse.

Earlier this year associates from Hamacher Resource Group, Inc. (HRG) returned from the Natural Products Expo West with armfuls of literature, samples, and ideas. In fact, the sheer volume of items they saw with the probiotic, ready-to-drink, immunity, or wellness-boosting attributes could easily fill a warehouse. The challenge, as I see it, is how in the world does a consumer know which products to consider, how to manage their consumption, and how to avoid hypervitaminosis or other supplement over-saturation?