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Order a Coke to wash down some hummus in the Israeli-occupied West Bank these days and chances are the waiter will shake his head disapprovingly or worse, mutter shame, shame in Arabic before suggesting the popular local alternative: a can of Chat Cola. Chat Cola its red tin and sweeping white script bearing remarkable resemblance to the iconic American soft drink’s logo has seen its products explode in popularity across the occupied West Bank in the past year as Palestinian consumers, angry at Americas steadfast support for Israel in its war against Hamas in Gaza, protest with their pocketbooks. No one wants to be caught drinking Coke, said Mad Asaad, 21, a worker at the bakery-cafe chain Croissant House in the West Bank city of Ramallah, which stopped selling Coke after the war erupted. Everyone drinks Chat now. Its sending a message. Since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack triggered Israel’s devastating military campaign in the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian-led boycott movement against companies perceived as supportive of Israel gained momentum across the Middle East, where the usual American corporate targets like McDonalds, KFC and Starbucks saw sales slide last year. Here in the West Bank, the boycott has shuttered two KFC branches in Ramallah. But the most noticeable expression of consumer outrage has been the sudden ubiquity of Chat Cola as shopkeepers relegate Coke cans to the bottom shelf or pull them altogether. When people started to boycott, they became aware that Chat existed, Fahed Arar, general manager of Chat Cola, told The Associated Press from the giant red-painted factory, nestled in the hilly West Bank town of Salfit. I’m proud to have created a product that matches that of a global company.” With the buy local movement burgeoning during the war, Chat Cola said its sales in the West Bank surged more than 40% last year, compared to 2023. While the companies said they had no available statistics on their command of the local market due to the difficulties of data collection in wartime, anecdotal evidence suggests Chat Cola is clawing at some of Coca-Colas market share. Chat used to be a specialty product, but from what weve seen, it dominates the market, said Abdulqader Azeez Hassan, 25, the owner of a supermarket in Salfit that boasts fridges full of the fizzy drinks. But workers at Coca-Cola’s franchise in the West Bank, the National Beverage Company, are all Palestinian, and a boycott affects them, too, said its general manager, Imad Hindi. He declined to elaborate on the business impact of the boycott, suggesting it can’t be untangled from the effects of the West Bank’s economic free-fall and intensified Israeli security controls that have multiplied shipping times and costs for Palestinian companies during the war. The Coca-Cola Company did not respond to a request for comment. Whether or not the movement brings lasting consequences, it does reflect an upsurge of political consciousness, said Salah Hussein, head of the Ramallah Chamber of Commerce. It’s the first time we’ve ever seen a boycott to this extent, Hussein said, noting how institutions like the prominent Birzeit University near Ramallah canceled their Coke orders. After Oct. 7, everything changed. And after Trump, everything will continue to change. President Donald Trumps call for the mass expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza, which he rephrased last week as a recommendation, has further inflamed anti-American sentiment around the region. With orders pouring in not only from Lebanon and Yemen but also the United States and Europe, the company has its sights set on the international market, said PR manager Ahmad Hammad. Hired to help Chat Cola cash in on combustible emotions created by the war, Hammad has rebranded what began in 2019 as a niche mom-and-pop operation. We had to take advantage of the opportunity, he said of the company’s new Palestinian taste logo and national flag-hued merchandise. In its scramble to satisfy demand, Chat Cola is opening a second production site in neighboring Jordan. It rolled out new candy-colored flavors, like blueberry, strawberry and green apple. At the steamy plant in Salfit, recent college graduates in lab coats said that they took pains to produce a carbonated beverage that could sell on its taste, not just a customers sense of solidarity with the Palestinians. Quality has been a problem with local Palestinian products before, said Hanna al-Ahmad, 32, the head of quality control for Chat Cola, shouting to be heard over the whir of machines squirting caramel-colored elixir into scores of small cans that then whizzed down assembly lines. If its not good quality, the boycott wont stick.” Chat Cola worked with chemists in France to produce the flavor, which is almost indistinguishable from Cokes just like its packaging. That’s the case for several flavors: Squint at Chat’s lemon-lime soda and you might mistake it for a can of Sprite. In 2020, the Ramallah-based National Beverage Company sued Chat Cola for copyright infringement in Palestinian court, contending that Chat had imitated Coke’s designs for multiple drinks. The court ultimately sided with Chat Cola, determining there were enough subtle differences in the can designs that it didn’t violate copyright law. In the Salfit warehouse, drivers loaded family size packages of soda into trucks bound not only for the West Bank but also for Tel Aviv, Haifa and other cities in Israel. Staffers said that Chat soda sales in Israel’s predominantly Arab cities jumped 25% last year. To broaden its appeal in Israel, Chat Cola secured kosher certification after a Jewish rabbi’s thorough inspection of the facility. Still, critics of the Palestinians-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, or BDS, say that its main objective to isolate Israel economically for its occupation of Palestinian lands only exacerbates the conflict. BDS and similar actions drive communities apart,they dont help to bring people together, said Vlad Khaykin, the executive vice president of social impact and partnerships in North America for the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish human rights organization. The kind of rhetoric being embraced by the BDS movement to justify the boycott of Israel is really quite dangerous. While Chat Cola goes out of its way to avoid buying from Israel sourcing ingredients and materials from France, Italy and Kuwait it can’t avoid the circumstances of Israeli occupation, in which Israel dominates the Palestinian economy, controls borders, imports and more. Deliveries of raw materials to Chat Colas West Bank factory get hit with a 35% import tax half of which Israel collects on behalf of the Palestinians. The general manager, Arar, said his company’s success depends far more on Israeli bureaucratic goodwill than nationalist fervor. For nearly a month last fall, Israeli authorities detained Chat’s aluminum shipments from Jordan at the Allenby Bridge Crossing, forcing part of the factory to shut down and costing the company tens of thousands of dollars. Among the local buyers left in the lurch was Croissant House in Ramallah, where, on a recent afternoon, at least one thirsty customer, confronting a nearly empty refrigerator, slipped to the supermarket next-door for a can of Coke. It’s very frustrating, said Asaad, the worker. We want to be self-sufficient. But we’re not. Isabel Debre, Associated Press
Category:
E-Commerce
Tens of thousands of U.S. government workers have been fired in recent weeks, according to a Reuters tally of announcements tracking President Donald Trump’s plan to shrink the federal workforce. So far, few indications of those lost jobs have appeared in the various formal measures of the U.S. job market. Economists will be keeping an eye on the data because federal government hiring has been a steady contributor to overall U.S. employment growth as the pace of private-sector hiring has eased. Over the last two years through January, the ranks of non-U.S. Postal Service federal workers as a share of overall payroll employment has edged up to 1.52% from 1.47%. Despite that rise, the federal civilian worker share of total U.S. employment is near its historic low of 1.4% from late 2000. The federal workforce share peaked at just over 4% in the early 1950s. Also, Trump’s cuts – being carried out under the direction of Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency – have not just been aimed at those directly on government payrolls but also at private companies and individuals performing contract work for the government. A 2020 Brookings Institution study estimated that for every one federal employee there are two contractors. With that in mind, Torsten Slok, chief economist at Apollo Global Management, estimated that with a “consensus” estimate of ultimately 300,000 DOGE-related federal job cuts, the total employment reduction could be closer to 1 million. So when will these reductions start to materialize in the official data? Here’s a guide: Weekly jobless claims Each Thursday, the Labor Department’s Employment and Training Administration reports the number of people who the previous week had filed for state unemployment benefits for the first time. The report includes a running tally of all those who continue to collect benefits beyond one week, a figure called “continued claims” and reported with a one-week lag. Federal employees who have lost their jobs, though, are not included in the state claims data. They are tracked separately under the Unemployment Compensation for Federal Employees (UCFE) program, and the data is reported with a one-week lag. In the latest week ended February 8, 613 initial claims had been filed by former federal workers, and that figure has not climbed above 1,000 in more than two years. It also remains below the level typically seen during comparable seasons in the years immediately before the COVID-19 pandemic. In the previous week, 7,110 former federal workers were receiving continued benefits, around the same number seen at this time of year in the last two years. Moreover, those continued claims tended to be much higher during comparable times of year before the pandemic. Since the Trump and Musk cuts are not aimed only at those earning a government paycheck, some indications of the extent of job losses may start appearing soon in data from individual states with high concentrations of jobs supported by federal government activities. Washington and the neighboring states of Maryland and Virginia are home to hundreds of thousands of workers whose employers perform work under federal contracts, making them key locations to watch. Only Washington has shown an uptrend in new benefits filings. In the latest week ended February 15, the advance number of new filings was about 1,700 and the highest in nearly two years. It is also well above the level typically seen in the years just before the pandemic, with the exception of a short-lived spike in January 2019 due to a government shutdown over a budget impasse. New claims in Maryland and Virginia, meanwhile, have both averaged about 2,800 per week since Trump took office on January 20, both within the trend range over the last year. Texas, Florida, California and Georgia also have high numbers of federal workers and associated contractors. There are some caveats. Not everyone who loses a job is eligible for jobless benefits, and this includes certain contract workers. So some job losses will never appear in the weekly claims data. Also, not everyone files for benefits immediately after losing a job – or at all. Many people don’t file for a week or more after their job was eliminated, and some among them will find new work promptly and never have a need to seek government support. That said, a generally slowing job market may mean that final dynamic is less at play this time around. Nonfarm payrolls Each month, typically on the first Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports the U.S. employment situation, which updates the unemployment rate as well as the total level of employment and levels and changes by sector, including local, state and federal government employment. The next report is due on March 7, covering February. It is based on a survey conducted during the week when the 12th day of the month falls. In this case, that was a week when news reports about firings within the federal government began circulating widely, so there is a chance that the level of non-USPS civilian employment was affected by that development. Net federal hiring outside the postal service totaled 3,700 in January. It has averaged about 5,700 a month over the last two years and has shrunk in just one month in that span. It is unclear whether the reports of firings that surfaced during the week of February 9-16 would have been made official and reported in that week’s BLS survey. Trump shrunk federal civilian employment by about 17,000 workers in his first year of office during his first term, including about 13,000 in his first three months. But it began growing again, and by the time the pandemic struck he had overseen an expansion in the federal workforce of 60,000 people. Job openings and labor turnover survey The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) measures the number of posted job vacancies on the last day of each month, and also estimates the monthly number of gross hirings and job separations, including people who quit, are laid off, or leave for another reason such as retirement. It is not as timely as the payrolls report. The next report, for instance, will be issued on March 11, covering January. As a snapshot of where things stood at the end of the month, it could reflect Trump’s January 20 hiring freeze order, which directed that all job postings be removed and many job offers rescinded. The latest figure, for December, showed 140,000 federal government job vacancies, roughly in line with the monthly average over the term of former President Joe Biden. Monthly federal openings totaled about 110,000 during Trump’s first term from January 2017 to January 2021. Gross federal hiring, meanwhile, totaled 30,000 in December – unchanged for three months and the lowest number since May 2018. State and local payrolls reports The BLS also provides monthly state and local employment reports. The next State Employment and Unemployment report will be issued on March 17, covering January. This report shows employment levels, job gains and losses and unemployment rates across all 50 states, Washington, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. It shows government employment levels but combines state, local and federal government figures. Still, it will be another resource for indications of government contractors shedding jobs, especially in areas of high concentrations of these employers. However, it is not likely that this will make itself evident before the report for February is issued in mid-April. The Metropolitan Area Employment and Unemployment Summary, meanwhile, tracks employment across nearly 400 metropolitan areas across the U.S. This has an even longer delay, of two months, and shows payroll employment levels, changes and jobless rates but does not show employment sector activity. The earliest this might be expected to reflect the effects of federal firings at the local level will be in late April when the report for February is issued. Dan Burns, Reuters
Category:
E-Commerce
Cava hopes to expand its physical footprint after a year of financial success, CEO Brett Schulman announced in the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call Tuesday. Over the 2024 fiscal yearCavas first full calendar year as a public companythe Mediterranean fast-casual restaurant chain saw a revenue growth of 28.3% and delivered four straight quarters of free cash flow. And after opening 58 new restaurants this past year, the company anticipates new market openings in Detroit, South Florida, Pittsburgh, and Indianapolis. Were very excited to continue to grow those markets and build upon the presence we have in existing regions, Schulman tells Fast Company. The anticipated launches in these four new markets come after a successful launch in the greater-Chicago metropolitan area, where three new Cava locations opened in 2024. Schulman says that was our best market opening ever. The Maryland-based chain currently operates inside 25 states and Washington, D.C., as the demand for health-conscious dining continues to grow. “You can’t discount your way to prosperity” In the last fiscal year, CAVA experienced 8.7% traffic growth, while many industry competitors saw negative traffic growth. Schulman says that around two in three customers enter CAVAs physical spaces to place an order, speaking to the chains emphasis on Mediterranean hospitality. Much of this success, Schulman says, comes from an increased focus on providing value, rather than price discounting. You cant discount your way to prosperity with guests, Schulman says. We look at value as a combination of quality, relevance, convenience, and experience. He claims that all his decisions are guided by Cava’s mission of bringing heart, health, and humanity into food, from importing olive oil from Greece to putting fresh dill in the tzatziki dip. In a difficult economy, especially for fast-casual restaurants, Cava appears to be bucking industry norms. Roti, a different Mediterranean-style fast-casual chain, filed for bankruptcy in August. Buca di Beppo and Red Lobster also both filed for bankruptcy in the past year. According to Schulman, Cava stands out from the fast-casual chains that may be struggling because it looks at people as assets, not expenses.” The demise of the dining room is greatly exaggerated, he says. People are feeling a void of human connection, and they’re craving it. And brands that are able to deliver that are the ones that are gaining market share and gaining brand affinity. Cava’s success in a struggling industry After its blockbuster IPO in June 2023, the build-your-own-bowl chain has only seen success. Its stock price has soared 158% since the IPO, and Yelp named Cava its fastest growing brand of 2024. And according to fast-casual competitor Chipotle’s most recent earnings report, sales growth in the past fiscal year for its set of comparable restaurants only increased by 7.4%a little over a quarter of Cavas revenue growth. Another large factor in last years success is Cavas reimagined loyalty programa system similar to Chipotles points-based program. Frequent customers can exchange points (10 are awarded for every dollar spent) for free drinks, cookies, and even entrees. Since the new loyalty system rolled out nationwide in October, Cava has seen a 2.3% increase in revenue going through the pool, hitting a record-high revenue from loyalty transactions last year. In the coming year, Cava hopes to add rewards that are brand-centric rather than food-based. Weve expanded our audience, Schulman says. Weve got our audience more highly engaged, which allows us to have much more personalized one-to-one communication.
Category:
E-Commerce
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