text:
7.26.18 2:02 PM Markets
Chick-Fil-A focuses on tech as it launches meal-kit trial
Chick-Fil-A recently announced the launch of a meal kit trial in its native state of Georgia. Here's a look at how and where they are hiring to support the new effort.
James Mattone
chick fil a
Chick-Fil-A ($PRIVATE:PRIV_CHICKFILA) recently announced that it will launch a trial of its brand-new meal kit service called Mealtime Kits across 150 restaurants in its Atlanta, Georgia home area. From Aug. 27 to Nov. 17, Atlanta customers will be invited to bring home one of five meal kits, including Chicken Parmesan and Chicken Enchiladas. Chick-Fil-A says that the kits feed two people, cost $15.89, and require no sign-up free or subscription.
The move signals a new focus on technology and digital marketing, and recent hiring trends at Chick-Fil-A reflect a desire to operate as a technology company to support rapid expansion.
Chick-Fil-A is going about the meal kit program cautiously, however. In a way to test market interest, customers from around the country are being asked to fill out a form expressing interest in trying out the new kits. We reached out to Chick-Fil-A to get a sense of the level of interest in the kits but haven't heard back yet.
Entering into the meal-kit business cautiously is likely warranted for a brand that has remained popular as it's expanded its retail footprint. Consumer interest in meal kits is still a bit of a mystery. In fact, this move comes in the wake of meal-kit startup Chef'd closing its doors last week. Chef'd sold meal kits à la carte sans subscription but was unable to sustain business despite solid investment and meal kits that ran around $30 each.
But Chef'd isn't Chick-Fil-A.
Chick-Fil-A has a brick-and-mortar backbone made up of chicken sandwiches and nuggets, waffle fries and beloved sauces.
The 150 Chick-Fil-A locations set for Mealtime Kit trials account for just over six percent of the chain's 2,300 plus restaurants.
Chick-Fil-A is also a growing empire; across its headquarters in Atlanta and its retail stores, it has seen a steady increase of about 3,000 jobs from the beginning of 2018 to today, according to LinkedIn data.
Chick-Fil-A has had a brief drop-off in hirings for a month, but it is now slowly creeping back up to its baseline level with a renewed focus on Corporate Services and Information Technology.
These new job listings appear to support Chick-Fil-A franchisees with point of sale hardware and software meant to allow for faster ordering, inventory management and, yes, remote ordering for customers from apps for things like meal kits.
Here's a snapshot of the 52 open Jobs types at Chick-Fil-A as of July 25, 2018:
Title (Count)
Corporate Services 9
Accounting/Finance, Marketing 6
Real Estate/Restaurant Development 4
Corporate Comunnications, Financial Services, Field Training, Supply Chain 3
Human Resources/People, Training 2
Enterprise Analytics, Franchisee Selection/Recruitment, Legal 1
Should its meal kit trial be a success and be adopted on a national scale, Chick-Fil-A will have the IT talent to maintain its in-store technology demands and the Chick-Fil-A-One app, one of the three ways that Mealtime Kits customers can order their ready-to-prep meals. And, given that it is the first meal kit in the fast casual industry, its prosperity may also open the door to other popular chains entering the meal kit market.
Imagine, if you will, a build-your-own Shake Shack burger or a Chipotle Mexican Grill kit with everything from fajita vegetables to guacamole.
But for now, we'll just have to get to the drive-thru window or walk in the story to get our fix for fast food and fast casual meals.
How Sam Adams founder Jim Koch became a billionaire after leaving a consulting gig to make beer
Crypto trading is surging in Nigeria despite a government ban. These traders told us why they got in the game.
Our rising Omicron anxiety in 4 charts
Want to know where to find the cheapest weed in the U.S.? We can tell you.


If not, you might want to learn, as resin suppliers and OEMs are driving the conversion from ASTM.
Is the change to ISO (International Standards Organization) testing procedures coming? It might already be here. After years of controversy, some major modifications are suddenly occurring in the way materials are characterized and compared.
While the majority of testing requests are still for ASTM (American Society for Testing and Materials) evaluations, trends suggest a major move to the new ISO test procedures replacing ASTM tests.
For decades the large resin suppliers in North America have characterized their products in American units by American test procedures, namely ASTM. The advent of engineering materials further solidified this approach as marketing and sales representatives compared their materials to competitors in terms of superior Heat Deflection Temperature or better Izod.
Design engineers could be heard saying, "I need a stiff material with a modulus of at least a million," and production managers might call for a touch impact-resistant grade with an Izod in the 16 range.
In that provincial world a strong material had Tensile Strength of 15,000, and reference to units like psi or ft. lb/inch were assumed and not required in conversation. With even the units of measurement assumed, ASTM test methods were all but taken for granted.
While that approach worked well in the past, the fact is the advent of a second testing language in the form of ISO is here and the North American plastics industry is learning to speak it and possibly preparing to make it their only form of communication .
For years, the Federal Government and plastics trade groups such as SPI have politely pointed to a need for American companies to convert to more internationally accepted procedures and metric units.
However many of these efforts in testing procedure consolidation have been to no avail. Instead, development of metric procedures such as ASTM D638M Tensile Properties were attempted.
Despite ASTM's switch to metric units as the sole unit of measurement for new standards, to be completed by 1997, the vast majority of the industry still conversed in units of psi and equivalence to ISO was nonexistent.
What's different now is that the changes are being driven by large end users themselves under the influence of global business needs that cannot be ignored.
USCAR (United States Council for Automotive Research) is driving thermoplastic suppliers to a full conversion to ISO test methods by June 1, 1998.
In addition, SAE material specifications such as J1639, which calls for characterization of thermoplastics largely by ISO procedures, is being used extensively to specify materials in Detroit. And resin manufacturers are faced with the option of characterizing their materials by these standards or loosing supplier recognition.
Similar end user driven influences are occurring in the he electronics industry with major electronics firms instituting Worldwide Specifications that combine both ISO test procedures with IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission) international standards. At the same time, CAMPUS (Computer Aided Materials Preselection by Uniform Standards), the worldwide materials data base is listing only ISO 10350 data.
Recent developments at ASTM D20 meetings further point to these changes, and in 1996 ASTM published a nearly 400-page volume entitled "ISO and IEC Selected Standards for the Plastics Industry."
Additionally, at the most recent meeting of the ASTM D20 Executive Committee, an extensive plan was unveiled to evaluate every ASTM plastics procedure line by line for comparison and harmonization with ISO and IEC standards, based on which, each procedure will be classified as either Identical, Equivalent or Not Equivalent.
While some of the specifics are still being worked out, Identical procedures will be provided with ASTM numbers, while some Equivalent procedures may be incorporated into existing ASTM procedures with identifiers like Part B.
Procedures determined to be Not Equivalent will probably receive an interim ASTM number until full ASTM recognition is obtained. Many hurdles, such as the absence of Precision and Bias Statements in ISO procedures and the conservatism of ASTM procedure writing still exist, but genuine progress is being made and ASTM seems committed to establishing equivalency to ISO.
Are these changes actually going to happen this time? While no one is absolutely sure, one way to gauge this is the volume of ISO testing at an independent testing lab like Plastics Technology Laboratories, Pittsfield, Mass. Over the past year PTLI has experienced major growth in the number of requests for ISO testing, and the requesters have mostly been major resin suppliers to the automotive industry.
As a result of these growing trends, the laboratories have modified their equipment and trained employees to be able to perform nearly all ISO tests. The new procedures not only call for new measurement units but require new specimen geometries, sometime s changes in procedures and even minor test equipment modifications.
With the changes in place, the new language of ISO can now be heard in the lab as technicians discuss HDT testing not in terms of 66 or 264 psi but referring to 80mm bars at 0.45 and 1.8 MPa tested flatwise.
While this entire subject is complex, it is time for North American plastics users to increase their familiarization with this new ISO language.
In any typical data sheet or plastics commercial database, resin purchasers can find a laundry list of properties, some common like tensile strength or noted Izod impact, others more exotic like electrical Dissipation Factor at 10 MHz.
In most cases however, first comparisons will hinge on a few basic properties including Tensile and Flexural results as a measure of strength, Modulus data to characterize stiffness, HDT for heat resistance comparisons and some form of impact test to monitor toughness.
With this in mind lets take a more detailed look at ISO vs. ASTM testing and to simplify things lets focus only on Specimen Preparation for four primary tests, namely Tensile, Flexural, Izod and HDT for thermoplastics.
Tensile, Flexural, Izod and HDT specimens are used for ISO testing vs. ASTM test. Accordingly, new tooling will be required to produce the ISO specimens. ISO/DIS294 9-1:1995 is quite specific in terms of the requirements for injection molding of specimens, even recommending transducers in the molding cavities to monitor cavity pressure and clearly outlines what types of runner systems are acceptable. Additionally, ISO 3167-1993 on Multipurpose Specimens allows for the use of the ISO multi-purpose test specimen cut down in length to produce all four required specimens for Flexural, Izod and HDT, thus simplifying the number of specimen geometries required.
ASTM methods clearly outline specimen geometries required but in general are far less specific on sample preparation and does not provide for multi-purpose specimens.
Table 1 provides a summary comparison of ISO 527-93 vs. ASTM D638-94b for tensile evaluations. Most laboratories will find conversion to the ISO procedure quite easy because the new sophisticated universal testers allow setting test speeds in metric with automated software. At Plastics Technology Laboratories, a new Instron Model 5569 Universal Tester with Series IX and Merlin Software changes speeds and units in a Windows Environment with the click of a mouse.
Laboratories with older equipment that provides set American unit crosshead speeds like 0.2 and 2.0 inches per minute may find that major and expensive equipment modification will be required to accomplish the ISO 527-93 procedure.
(ISO 178-93E vs. ASTM D790-92) Table 2 outlines comparison of the two methods. Again, we see that once specimen preparation is accomplished the conversion to ISO is quite simple.
New fixturing may be required, since some Flex fixtures are permanently set at American span widths like 2.0 and 4.0 inches and new radius on bending noses are required but these should require only minor fixturing expenses provided the universal tester c an be adjusted for metric speeds as addressed above.
(ISO 180-93E vs. ASTM D256-93a) Table 3 outlines the major specific differences. Conversion to this method generally requires the purchase of a new impact hammer (the pendulum that swings through to sample to break it on impact.) Again, at PTLI the presence of a digital Monitor Izod Sys tem from TMI, Inc. made the conversion easier since the microprocessor did all the metric calculations.
Older or dial type Izod apparatus may require had calculations since the dials are permanently marked with American units.
(ISO 75-93E vs. ASTM 648-88) An inspection of Table 4 demonstrates that two test procedures are available under the ISO procedure.
Most testing personnel believe that Flatwise testing will become the only method in the future and Plastics Technology Labs confirms that nearly 100% of the requests for ISO 75 tests call out the Flatwise variety.
From an equipment standpoint most HDT baths such as the Tinius Olsen variety at PTLI can be inexpensively modified to accomplish the new span and force requirements of the ISO procedure.


What exactly Latin America is? What are the prospects for gambling development in the region? What are the specialties in the legal system of Latin America and what should be expected in the future? All of these issues are reviewed by experts from the Slotegrator company in the following material.
Latin America is a collective name for the countries of South and, partially, North America, as well as the surrounding island states. It has to do with the fact that the Roman languages, which are official in Latin American countries, originated from Latin.
Latin America consists of Spanish-speaking mainland states starting from Mexico in the north to Argentina in the south, as well as Spanish-speaking Caribbean countries.
Latin America is an emerging market in the view of gambling activity. It represents a great potential for the development of the gambling industry, with more than 1.5 billion people living there.


The best camera is the one you have with you and that's increasingly becoming your trusty phone. What you save on convenience though sometimes means you come out with less-than-perfect shots. Now a new app will improve your Instagram pictures by creating long-exposure shots easily.
Long-exposure photography is a great way of shooting landscapes and is very popular when trying to capture the night sky or light. It can also transform your holiday snaps by effectively removing people and other moving objects from view, meaning you don't need to get to busy tourist spots before the sun rises. But this type of photography is tricky to get right and requires plenty of equipment, time and patience.
Spectre, a new photography app for iOS, wants to change that by allowing people to take long-exposure images with just their iPhone and without the need of a tripod or any other equipment. Instead, it uses AI to create the perfect image.
When setting up a shot, the app will scan the scene and choose a mode of photography appropriate to the location, recognising the waves in a beach photo or the fast movement in cities. It will also stabilise your shot for you, meaning you can take pictures with up to nine seconds of exposure without a tripod.
In the few days since it has been released, Spectre has shot to the top of the photo app charts and has garnered plenty of five-star reviews from impressed customers, as well as suggestions on how to improve and fix some bugs.
The app is made by Halide, which is one of the most highly-regarded photography apps for the iPhone. Spectre is available on the App Store now for an introductory price of US $1.99 for a limited time. For a more detailed look at travel photography, check out Lonely Planet's Guide to Travel Photography.


Long-term storage: We eliminated long-term storage fees for units that have been in a fulfillment center for 181 to 365 days. The last long-term storage fee charge for inventory in a fulfillment center for 181 to 365 days was January 15, 2019. We will continue to charge long-term storage fees for units we store for more than 365 days.
Minimum long-term storage: We reduced the minimum long-term storage fee on units that have been in a fulfillment center for more than 365 days from $0.50 per unit to $0.15 per unit. The last charge at $0.50 per unit was January 15, 2019.
Monthly inventory storage: We introduced separate monthly storage fees for dangerous goods that require special handling and hazardous materials (hazmat) storage. This change will first be reflected in April 2019 charges for storage that occurs in March 2019. Monthly inventory storage fees for other products will not change.
Monthly storage fees for most products will remain unchanged from 2018.
The table below shows the new monthly inventory storage fees for items that can be sold only through the FBA Dangerous Goods (Hazmat) program, which require special handling and hazardous materials storage. For more information, see FBA Dangerous Goods (Hazmat) program and the Dangerous goods identification guide. This change will first be reflected in April 2019 charges for storage that occurs in March 2019.
As of February 15, 2019, items that have been in a fulfillment center for 181 to 365 days are no longer subject to long-term storage fees. Long-term storage fees still apply for items that have been in a fulfillment center for more than 365 days.
These changes also affect storage fees for the Multi-Channel Fulfillment program.
As of February 15, 2019, the minimum charge for items that have been in a fulfillment center for more than 365 days is reduced from $0.50 per unit per month to $0.15 per unit per month. The greater of the applicable total long-term storage fee or the minimum long-term storage fee will be charged.
The elimination of long-term storage fees on items that have been in a fulfillment center for 181 to 365 days is in effect as of February 15, 2019. The last charge for long-term storage fees on items in inventory for 181 to 365 days was January 15, 2019.
The new minimum long-term storage fee also is in effect as of February 15, 2019. The applicable fee will be charged per unit per month for items that have been in a fulfillment center for more than 365 days. The last charge for minimum long-term storage fees at $0.50 per unit was January 15, 2019.
Which of my products will be charged the long-term storage fee, and how much will I be charged?
This information can help you estimate the number of items that will have been in our fulfillment centers for more than 365 days by the next inventory cleanup date.
The Recommended Removal report can also help you identify items subject to a long-term storage fee. This report automatically calculates, on an ASIN-by-ASIN basis, the number of items you would need to remove—assuming no further sales—to avoid the long-term storage fee, and populates a removal order for those items.
You can find the Inventory Age page by clicking Inventory Planning under the Inventory tab in your seller account. For the Inventory Health and Recommended Removal reports, click Fulfillment under the Reports tab.
Do I need to do a daily review for inventory that could be charged the long-term storage fee?
No, but active management of older inventory can help you avoid long-term storage fees. If your inventory remains in our fulfillment centers for more than 365 days before being sold or removed, you will be assessed a long-term storage fee on the 15th of every month. You can use the Inventory Age and Inventory Health reports to identify which ASINs in your inventory would subject to the long-term storage fee at the next inventory cleanup date. All inventory is accounted for on a first-in-first-out basis.
Will I be charged both the minimum long-term storage fee and the long-term storage fee for a unit that has been in a fulfillment center for more than 365 days?
No. Items that have been in a fulfillment center for more than 365 days will be subject to either the long-term storage fee (charged per cubic foot) or the minimum long-term storage fee (charged per unit)—whichever is greater.
Does my inventory need to be out of the fulfillment center before the inventory cleanup date to avoid the long-term storage fee, or will submitting a removal order before the cleanup date be enough to avoid the fee?
Submitting a removal order before the cleanup date allows you to avoid the fee, even if the inventory has not been physically removed yet. Inventory in sellable condition will be available for sale until the removal is complete. You will not be charged for removed inventory until it has been returned to you or disposed of.
Is the long-term storage fee in lieu of the monthly inventory storage fee or in addition to it?
The long-term storage fee is in addition to the monthly inventory storage fee. The monthly inventory storage fee will continue to be charged each month.
Will this fee change affect Multi-Channel Fulfillment?
Yes. All non-fulfillment fees for Multi-Channel Fulfillment will continue to be the same as for FBA. For more information on changes to applicable FBA fees, see FBA features and fees. The fulfillment fees for the Multi-Channel Fulfillment program are not changing at this time.
No. Small and Light Fees are not affected by this change. For more information, go to FBA Small and Light.
Will this fee change affect the Inventory Placement Service?
No. Fees for the Inventory Placement Service are not changing at this time.
If you have more questions, please contact Seller Support. If you would like to send us your feedback, email us at fba-fee-announce-feedback@amazon.com. The FBA team will review all comments sent to this address.
For more information, see Inventory storage fees and FBA long-term storage fees.


text:
LISTEN TO SASHA'S LUCKY 7
Take a spin of seven tunes that inspired Sasha...
DJ Mag Staff
Monday, April 11, 2016 - 12:04
Over the last couple of years, alongside the luscious, hypnotic club music that he's famous for, Sasha's been working on a collection of tripped-out, textured ambient music. "I'd be going backwards and forwards between the two things.
Whenever we'd finish a club track, I'd want to go and write something like this," he tells DJ Mag about the process of putting together 'Scene Delete' for Late Night Tales. "I've been writing ideas down and not really finishing them, so it was really good to focus and have a deadline, building a project."
It's an astounding, very easy-on-the-ears filmic release that pays respect to the likes of soundscape masters Steve Reich, Nils Frahm and Max Richter. With this in mind, would a movie score be something Sasha might like to work on in the future, perhaps? "It's part of the reason I'm hanging around in Los Angeles, there's a couple of exciting things in the pipeline…"
The track that reminds you of your childhood?
"I remember I used to listen to ELO a lot when we did car journeys when I was a kid. Let me think which of the tracks it would be. It was 'Out Of The Blue' or 'Discovery'? I think it was 'Out Of The Blue', 'Mr Blue Sky', 'Sweet Talking Woman'. It was around about that age when I used to get into music, around seven, eight or nine. Or The Police."
The first record that you ever bought?
"Well, the first album I bought was 'Reggatta De Blanc' by The Police. I bought a couple of singles beforehand, but out of the bargain bin. The first single I ever bought, I think, was Judas Priest in WHSmiths. The Police record was the first time I ever went into a record shop and bought a record."
What do you listen to that isn't dance music?
"Now, since the invention of Spotify, you just seem to follow what all your friends are listening to — random things. I have been listening to a lot of score stuff recently, just because I've been trying to get my head into working in that area.
I just follow all my friends' 'discover weekly' playlists and what they've been listening to. Been listening to a lot of classic electronic stuff, I guess a lot of the stuff I've been listening to to get ready to make the Late Night Tales record. I've been immersing myself in that kind of Olafur Arnalds, Nils Frahm, Max Richter. When I'm not working on making music with beats in it, I like listening to ambient, dreamy stuff."
The track that's guaranteed to make you cry?
"(Laughs) I remember when I was eighteen and I used to go out to clubs and I remember I wanted that CeCe Rogers 'Someday' record. They used to play it at the end of the night at the Hacienda and I couldn't get hold of it for about a year and it used to drive me crazy.
I used to have some proper moments at the end of the night on the dancefloor to that record. It might have bought me to the verge of tears. It doesn't quite have the same affect anymore. That was 1988 when I was a whippersnapper and I was just getting into DJing myself."
What's an album or compilation that you're currently into?
"I was listening to this Scsi-9 thing. I don't even know if that's new. It's called Scsi-9 'Nostalgia', I was just listening to it this morning, it's a wicked piece of electronic music."
The record in your collection that you most treasure?
"It's a record I can't find actually, it's driving me a bit mental. I remember I'd been DJing and I'd stayed up all night and there was a knock on the door and this postman delivered a vinyl — a one-sided grey piece of vinyl with nothing on it, no note or anything.
And it was Recorded Delivery, you had to sign for it, and it was all very mysterious. And I put it on and it was the original version of 'It's Grim Up North' by The KLF. The version that they released of it as a single was pretty rubbish, but this was a tripped-out acid record, it was absolutely insane. And it's lost in my record collection somewhere. It's in there, I never would have given it away, I've got 50,000 records and I know it's there."
Your all-time favourite track of all time?
"Today it'll be 'A Day In The Life' by The Beatles. I don't know why. It's an epic piece of music, it's one from my childhood and I remember being amazed that people could put together music like that."
Sasha DJ Mag Lucky 7 Songs Influences
Ministry Of Sound's new club concept, Sovereign, with Sasha event
New limited-edition book celebrates global DJ culture
Win a copy of DJ Mag's limited-edition hardback book, 100 of the World's Best DJs
Jae Tallawah aka TU3SDAY awarded AZ Mag creative grant in collaboration with DJ Mag
Watch Friction's set live from DJ Mag HQ
Watch Shamsa's set from Amsterdam Pride for KPN

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl