A Penney Days promo will be inaugurated by J.C. Penney on Sunday, February 28, giving customers the chance to purchase products costing just 1 penny.

The initiative, launched under the motto “Get Your Penney’s Worth” and presented on Thursday, February 25, will unfold online (at jcp.com), and also in brick-and-mortar stores, for a period of one week.

Items pertaining to various private brands such as Arizona will either be commercialized for just 1 penny each, or as part of deals requiring the client to buy a regular-priced product in order to have the opportunity to obtain another one by paying just an extra penny.

It’s unclear for now which items will be so heavily discounted as to be included in this new campaign, and company officials have said that they won’t be disclosing such lists in advance, so as to encourage clients to visit their stores on a regular basis.

However, given that the Arizona product line typically includes accessories, footwear and apparel, it’s likely that Penney Days will attract many people wishing to expand their wardrobe at virtually no cost.

While it may appear unreasonable for the department store chain headquartered in Plano, Texas to slash prices by such an enormous margin, the strategy has been deemed necessary, in order to renew interest in the company’s merchandise.

As explained by Mary Beth West, who serves as chief customer and marketing officer at J.C. Penney, the target audience for the Penney Days campaign is represented by typical American moms, who are extremely budget-conscious and pressed for time.

Such customers have to benefit from a no-frills shopping experience that will provide them with products that are good value for money, without putting unnecessary pressure on limited resources.

Thanks to this new time-limited promo, those who aren’t so familiar with J.C. Penney’s wide range of merchandise will be able to sample these high-quality products, at unbeatable prices.

Even though the current campaign will only last a week, company representatives have announced that such promotions will unfold several times per year, so that as many customers as possible can explore five-star items available in J.C. Penney’s department stores.

The retailer probably devised Penney Days in an effort to revitalize sales, even though it might operate at a loss for the duration of the campaign.

in 2017, the company has had to shut down 40 of its department stores, the equivalent of 4% of the 1,060 locations it has across the United States.

This measure, involving retail shops whose performance had been extremely disappointing in recent months, corresponded to a personnel reduction amounting to 2,250 staff members.

In Plano, Texas, efforts to revamp and reorganize business have affected approximately 300 white-collar workers, who were offered more low-paying positions within the company, or severance payments in case they chose to search for a job elsewhere.

Many of the initiatives meant to streamline operations have been devised by Marvin Ellison, who was appointed chief executive officer at J.C. Penney on August 1, 2015.

It appears that efforts have paid off, as evidenced by the fact that sales for the last quarter of 2015 have risen by around 4.1%, with annual revenues reaching $12.26 billion and therefore surpassing the ones reported in 2014 ($11.86 billion).

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Snickers and Mars bars have been voluntarily recalled across 55 nations throughout Europe, after a plastic fragment was discovered in one of the hugely popular confectionery items.

The far-reaching decision was revealed on Tuesday, February 23, by Raoul Hamacher, corporate affairs manager at Mars Germany.

Apparently, the need to remove Snickers and Mars chocolate bars from thousands of supermarkets across Europe was prompted by the fact that a German customer reported the presence of a red plastic scrap in one of the sweets produced by Mars Incorporated.

Immediately after investigating the complaint, health inspectors determined that it had been genuine and well-founded.

Such plastic pieces are normally used to provide protective covering during the manufacturing process, and it appears that the shavings somehow entered the production line as well.

That’s why executives of the hugely successful American company based in McLean, Virginia issued this voluntary recall, fearing that the safety of their customers may be put at risk unless prompt action is taken.

Aside from Snickers and Mars regular bars, officials have also decided that it would be advisable to discard other related products, such as Milky Way Minis, Snickers and Mars Miniatures, as well as Celebrations Boxes and Doses.

The recalled items have all been produced at a facility from Veghel, in the Netherlands, somewhere between mid-December 2015 and mid-January 2016, according to Roel Govers, corporate affairs director for Mars Netherlands.

The perilous items were distributed across 55 European nations, and can be recognized by their “best before” date, which extends between June 19, 2016, and January 8, 2017.

It must be noted that company officials stretched the time intervals as much as possible, to ensure that no contaminated products remain commercially available, but it’s doubtful that all the items with such expiration dates have indeed been affected.

Nevertheless, people who have already bought such candy bars should avoid ingesting them, because the plastic pieces that these products may contain can pose a significant choking hazard. Instead, it is recommended to return the items to the place of purchase, so as to benefit from a full refund.

So far, Mars representatives haven’t revealed the scope of the voluntary recall that has just been made public, or the exact countries where such measures are currently being implemented.

Even so, it’s obvious that massive amounts of sweets have had to be dispensed with, given the fact that just the 3 factories operated by the company in Germany are known to produce approximately 10 million confectionery items on a daily basis. Therefore, financial losses related to this extensive food recall will certainly be tremendous as well.

Also, for now, it hasn’t yet been confirmed if the measures will be limited to Europe only, or if they will be expanded across the United States as well, making the Snickers and Mars recall even more massive than it already is.

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eBay sellers who are male tend to earn more than their female counterparts, researchers have recently concluded in a new study that shows the ubiquity of gender bias.

The findings were presented in the open-access journal Science Advances on Friday, February 19, following an extensive analysis carried out by Israeli experts: Dr. Tali Regev, affiliated with the Tiomkin School of Economics at IDC Herzliya, and Dr. Tamar Kricheli-Katz, assistant professor of sociology and anthropology at Tel-Aviv University.

A total of 631,516 transactions that occurred on the e-commerce platform between 2009 and 2012 were analyzed, in order to investigate potential gender gaps affecting eBay sellers.

In the auctions, which included the website’s most widely sold 429 products, 77% of the eBay members making the stock available for other users were male, while the rest were female. Most of the sales were represented by old or used items, while 78,350 of the purchases consisted in new merchandise.

It was determined that regardless of factors such as item description, initial asking price or seller credibility (feedback ratings and comments), women tend to receive less money than men do, for virtually identical products, especially if the items that are being commercialized have never been used.

More precisely, when it comes to successful auctions involving brand new products, for every dollar obtained by eBay sellers who are male, their female counterparts only receive around 80 cents, probably because the items made available by women are wrongly judged as inferior or less valuable than those traded by men.

When it comes to items which are defective or which have been pre-owned, used or refurbished, women usually receive approximately 97 cents for each dollar that men normally get.

As study authors speculate, used items may not have such a significant price disparity probably because customers instinctively put more faith in the descriptions that women provide for the second-hand merchandise that they are advertising.

Buyers subconsciously believe that eBay sellers that are female will be more accurate and honest about the degree of wear and tear that the products have had, and about the potential defects or malfunctioning components.

Study authors also discovered that eBay sellers are more likely to benefit from a smaller number of bids if they are female, than if they are male (89 versus 100), even though women usually have superior feedback scores and reputation, despite their more limited selling experience.

It was also discovered that even when selling identical gift cards, corresponding to the same amount of money ($100), eBay users with a female-sounding name (Alison) still earned less than those with a male name (Brad): $83.34 versus $87.42.

Apparently, the gender gap linked to eBay profits persists even for transactions that are performed using the “Buy it now” option.

The only exception that experts identified concerned children’s toys or pet supplies and accessories, these product categories usually permitting females to earn slightly more than males.

The findings of this unprecedented research are surprising especially when considering the fact it’s not compulsory to reveal one’s gender when advertising products on eBay.

However, as study authors point out, more often than not, it’s relatively easy to guess if platform members are male or female, just by looking at their user ID or at the merchandise they have auctioned off before.

For instance, in a trial asking 400 volunteers to determine the gender of eBay sellers when viewing solely their profile pages, accurate answers accounted for 1,127 of the total answers (which amounted to 2,000), while just 170 responses were incorrect, and the rest consisted in “don’t know/no opinion”.

According to Linda Babcock, professor of economics at Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz College, inequality between sexes that persists even on eBay is nothing short of disheartening.

That’s because it alludes to the fact that in other settings, where the participant’s gender is placed front and center, women are even more severely discriminated against.

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The recently appointed P&G CEO has announced his plans to rejuvenate the company, during a presentation held on Thursday, February 18.

David S. Taylor became the president and chief executive officer of the largest and most successful consumer goods company in the world on November 1, 2015.

Now, Procter & Gamble’s newly minted leader has had his first meeting with market research analysts during the 45th annual conference of the Consumer Analyst Group of New York (CAGNY), held in Boca Raton, Florida.

At the meeting, David Taylor shared his main strategies meant to counter the downward trend experienced recently by the Cincinnati-based manufacturer specializing in personal care products and household cleaning agents.

One of the aims is to achieve savings amounting to $10 billion in the following 5 years, according to Jon Moeller, Procter & Gamble’s chief financial officer.

Similar plans were also revealed back in 2012, and they materialized in cost reductions totaling $23 billion and in non-manufacturing personnel downsizing amounting to 12,600 office jobs that were eventually eliminated.

According to P&G representative Damon Jones, most of the upcoming “productivity improvements” will not be related to layoffs, retirements, buyouts and other job cutting measures.

Instead, the savings will emerge after streamlining processes so as to boost productivity, although there will be some downsizing involved also, depending on personnel needs corresponding to each business unit.

Another plan discussed by the P&G CEO during the CAGNY annual meeting referred to revamping human resources procedures, by adopting a new strategy called “Staff to Win”.

Basically, more outsiders will be brought in, so as to fill a wide variety of mid-level positions, including several marketing and sales jobs like that of brand director or brand manager, thus completely altering the company’s prior practices of only recruiting for such vacancies internally.

Also, executives will no longer be moved from one business unit to another, in order to learn about as many brands as possible.

Instead, they will be allowed to become more familiar with one particular division, in order to channel their entire expertise and experience into making a specific product line soar.

As revealed by the P&G CEO, efforts are also under way to make Procter & Gamble much more flexible and adaptable than it’s ever been, so that it can take advantage of all the opportunities available on the market.

Four of the company’s 10 main product categories will be highlighted: hair care (Head&Shoulders, Pantene, Olay), baby care (Pampers), fabric care (Ariel, Tide, Downy) and grooming (Gillette, Mach3, Fusion).

At the same time, corporate values will have be redefined, with a renewed focus on excellence, innovation and professionalism, so that more top-notch products can be provided to customers, while keeping business as sustainable as possible.

Increased emphasis will also be placed on advertising, with hundreds of millions dollars being allocated for this purpose by the time the last fiscal quarter concludes, on June 30.

More attention will also have to be given to boosting operations in China, where brand performance has remained subpar, despite the fact that this is Procter & Gamble’s second largest market, surpassed solely by the United States.

Hopefully, taking such steps will allow the company to finally experience a surge in sales once again, after the recent slump in revenues which has been going on for the last six quarters.

During the analysts’ conference, the zealous P&G CEO has also discussed one of the company’s upcoming products: Tide Purclean, especially designed to be not just highly effective, but also much more environmentally friendly than other detergents available nowadays.

65% of the ingredients of this new liquid laundry detergent originate from renewable bio-resources, and the product is manufactured thanks to eolian energy, based on a zero-waste policy, through which all the materials that would normally be discarded are reused instead of being dumped at landfill sites.

Tide Purclear will be commercially available starting from May, and the launch will likely be crowned with success, given the fact that just 3% of the detergents on the market are represented by “green” products, despite the growing need for such cleaning agents.

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Parmesan cheese sold nationwide may actually contain wood pulp combined with other cheap substitutes, representatives of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration have recently cautioned.

The allegations come right before Michelle Myrter’s court hearing, during which the former president of Castle Cheese Inc. is predicted to plead guilty of a criminal misdemeanor, consisting in condoning and even assisting in the commercialization of mislabeled and adulterated food products.

It all began in 2010, when Castle Cheese first introduced a new item wrongly branded as “100 percent Grated Parmesan”, which actually contained no parmesan whatsoever, having instead pieces of wood pulp, Swiss cheese, mozzarella, cream Havarti and white cheddar.

The FDA found out about the scheme in 2012, when a plant manager that had been in charge with creating the recipes for the misleading products was dismissed by the company, and decided to act as a whistleblower, exposing the entire conspiracy.

Federal officials launched an investigation against the manufacturer based in Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania, and that’s how it was determined that fake cheese had been the company’s specialty for around three decades.

Business had thrived as customers were being duped, to the point where annual sales back in 2013 had reached $19 million.

Thanks to this FDA probe, Castle’s production of fake parmesan cheese and other misbranded dairy products finally came to a standstill, as the wrongly advertised items were removed from supermarket shelves.

The once flourishing company was eventually driven to bankruptcy by 2014, and Michelle Myrter now risks spending a year behind bars and paying fines amounting to $100,000.

Meanwhile, the FDA has remained preoccupied with the accuracy of labels describing cheese commonly sold across the nation, which is why investigators decided to analyze various parmesan cheese products found in supermarkets.

It was discovered that Best Choice 100% Grated Parmesan Cheese and Always Save Grated Parmesan Cheese that are commercialized by Associated Wholesale Grocers actually contain no parmesan whatsoever, and the same thing can also be said about Target’s Market Pantry 100% Grated Parmesan Cheese.

Appalling conclusions were also drawn regarding the amount of wood pulp and other undisclosed ingredients contained in supposedly wholesome dairy items.

As explained by Dean Sommer, cheese and food technologist at the Center for Dairy Research, even though cellulose is considered safe, cheese shouldn’t contain more than 4% of this food additive, commonly used in order to remove moisture and to give dairy products a more creamy, less clumpy taste and appearance.

And yet, Great Value 100% Parmesan Grated Cheese sold at WalMart has 7.8% wood pulp, while Essential Everyday 100% Grated Parmesan Cheese found at Jewel-Osco has an even higher concentration of cellulose, reaching 8.8%.

Apparently, slightly better alternatives are Kraft 100% Grated Parmesan Cheese, which has just 3.8% wood pulp, or 365 Grated Parmesan Cheese available at Whole Foods, which has about 0.3% cellulose, although it must be noted that this compound isn’t even included in the list of ingredients.

Following these recent findings, Michael Mullen, a representative of Kraft Heinz, has recently spoken out, declaring that the company has always maintained high quality and safety standards, which it will continue to uphold.

The same viewpoint was also supported by Mary Frances Truco, a spokesperson for Jewel-Osco, who emphasized the great value for money that the supermarket chain has always offered, and revealed that the FDA’s claims will have to be analyzed in order to determine if they are indeed accurate.

Similarly, John Forrest Ales argued in Wal-Mart’s defense, casting doubt upon the validity of the research conducted by FDA officials, and explaining that company experts will be conducting their own investigation into this matter.

On the other hand, Neil Schuman, chief executive officer at Arthur Schuman Inc., which is considered the most successful hard cheese producer and importer in the United States, has recently declared that he has full faith in the discoveries made by the FDA.

As the entrepreneur explained, given that many cheese makers want to obtain a quick profit by replacing expensive ingredients with cheaper substitutes, around a fifth of all the hard Italian cheese manufactured across the country is labelled incorrectly.

Even more, when it comes to grated cheese, genuine ingredients account for just 40% of the dairy product’s composition, while the rest is represented by other compounds about which consumers remain none the wiser.

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Grilled hot dogs will join Burger King’s menu, representatives of the popular fast food restaurant chain have revealed on Wednesday, February 10.

Apparently, customers have long been clamoring for the Miami, Florida-based company to expand its menu by adding hot dogs to the mix.

Eventually, paying heed to these demands, executives decided to launch a trial test, in order to determine if the introduction of grilled hot dogs would indeed be a successful venture, that can also be easily implemented.

At a select few Burger King restaurants from 5 cities across the country, the menu addition has been prepared and tested extensively for the last year and a half.

Two varieties of beef-based hot dogs were soon perfected, by resorting to the very same kitchen utensils and equipment that are required when making hamburgers.

One of the much-awaited menu items is a classic flame-broiled hot dog enveloped in a bun, seasoned with chopped onions, and accompanied by mustard, relish and ketchup. Apparently, it will cost $1.99 and one serving will contain around 310 calories, 960 mg of salt and 16 g of fat.

The other one is a more complex creation, featuring ground beef, chilli powder and Cheddar cheese. This menu item has a slightly higher calorie count (330), 980 mg of salt and 19 g of fat, and will likely be priced at $2.39.

Kitchen staff learned all the steps required for preparing the two types of frankfurter meals by watching video tutorials starring Snoop Dogg, with Charo being the chef in the version destined for Spanish-speaking employees.

In approximately 10 days, the technique behind the two hot dog recipes was mastered by all the employees that received training, one of main lessons being the way onions must be sliced and prepared in order to turn into the perfect hot dog ingredient.

It was also soon determined that the products are indeed popular among customers, and should definitely be promoted nationwide.

As explained by Alex Macedo, who presides over Burger King’s operations in North America, the introduction of grilled hot dogs across the chain’s 7,100 locations starting from February 23 is not just a mere launch of a couple of menu items.

Instead, it marks the debut of a brand new category of products for Burger King, which is currently the largest hamburger chain in the world, surpassed solely by McDonald’s.

Given that approximately 20 billion frankfurters are commercialized across the nation on a yearly basis, if this initiative takes off, the financial benefits could be tremendous.

The fact that the hot dogs are flame-broiled instead of boiled is likely to appeal to customers, since it will remind them of barbecues held in the backyard, instead of evoking quick and often unsanitary snacks bought from street vendors.

In addition, the menu addition will surely be beneficial to Kraft Heinz, the company that Burger King relies on for condiments and dressings such as mustard and ketchup, which are indispensable for any good old-fashioned hot dog.

Given that the Brazilian investment firm known as 3G Capital retains a 71% majority stake in the fast food chain, and is also the owner of Kraft Heinz, it will only profit from the closer partnership between Burger King and its supplier.

It still remains to be seen if the grilled hot dogs will indeed fare well, or if they will go down in flames, like Burger King’s prior attempts at adding popcorn and low-calorie French Fries (“Satisfries”) on the menu.

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