Each week, Report on Business editors choose five stories that shouldn't be missed. Here are the 'must reads' for the week of Feb. 15, 2010.
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For years, Bob Poirier avoided shopping at Loblaw's Save Easy supermarket in Shediac, N.B. He found the prices high, the lettuce wilted and the lighting too dim. Instead he headed to rival grocer Co-op. That changed late last year when Loblaw Cos. Ltd. converted the Save Easy on Main Street to one of the company's No Frills discount supermarkets. The lettuce seems crisper, the pork chops more tender and the shelves better stocked. Shediac isn't alone among cities and towns across Canada to get a spiffed-up No Frills. Over the past few years, Loblaw has been racing to upgrade its No Frills stores in Ontario, while converting its underperforming Extra Foods supermarkets in Western Canada to the discount banner. Now it's taking the formula to Eastern Canada with its test in Shediac.
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As the U.S. tries to navigate its way out of the worst recession in decades, companies see two very different economies, depending on their size. Large, established businesses can borrow money from investors through the corporate bond market, which has come roaring back to life after shuddering to a halt during the financial crisis. Small firms, by contrast, aren't so lucky: They don't have the option of bypassing banks, which remain wary of lending. That dichotomy is becoming increasingly central to the fledgling economic rebound. Traditionally, small businesses have provided an outsized proportion of new jobs as the U.S. economy emerges from recession. But without access to capital, it will be difficult for them to play that role.
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For a family-owned ice equipment manufacturer from small-town Ontario, the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games were supposed to be an opportunity to get its name out on the global stage, and escape the long shadow of its better-known competitor. Instead, the Games have turned into a very public embarrassment for Elmira, Ont.'s Resurfice Corp. - and an unexpected break for its U.S.-based nemesis, Frank J. Zamboni & Co. Inc.
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Two dome-like structures rise out of the thick ice fog of a Prairie winter day. From a distance, a science-fiction city seems to be taking shape on the rolling grasslands of east-central Alberta. Then, as you draw near, another sensation takes hold - the oppressively pungent odour of cow manure. On this day, the enveloping fog is making the smell worse than usual, explains Bern Kotelko, the mastermind behind this olfactory assault. But this is, after all, a feedlot, and the odour, he maintains, is actually the sweet smell of Canada's energy future. . . Mr. Kotelko is among the leaders in a manure-to-megawatt movement which, at its most visionary, lays on pie-in-the-sky rhetoric as thickly as the stuff collecting in cattle pens. Yet he is no wide-eyed dreamer operating on the fringes of capitalism, but a hard-headed cattleman.
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As far as shrines go, the squat white building surrounded by a graffiti-smeared wall is one of London's holiest. After all, a member of the pop group it once housed claimed they were bigger than Jesus. Now the faithful are being asked to pass the plate to help save Abbey Road Studios, where the Beatles made almost all of their hit records beginning with Love Me Do in 1962. The studio is reportedly up for sale by its owner, the cash-strapped music company EMI Group Ltd., for a rumoured £10- to £30-million ($16- to $48-million). The National Trust, a preservation charity that owns hundreds of historic homes and gardens throughout Britain, is considering coming to the rescue.