San Antonio-based H-E-B was ranked the No. 1 grocery retailer in the US for the fifth time in nine years, according to Dunnhumby’s latest annual ranking of grocery stores.

The family-owned company, which was founded in 1905 and operates more than 440 stores, is “firmly entrenched as the top retailer due to its superior ability to deliver a combination of better savings, quality, experience, and assortment,” the study found.

Massachusetts-based Market Basket ranked second, followed by Wisconsin-based Woodman’s in third.

“For the first time, the leading three retailers in the United States are all regional chains,” Dunnhumby noted.

Costco was ranked No. 4, followed by Aldi, WinCo Foods, Trader Joe’s, Amazon, Wegmans and ShopRite rounding out the top 10.

Amazon, which topped the rankings in 2021 and 2022, slipped two spots this year, while Sam’s Club dropped six places.

The family-owned company was founded in 1905 and operates more than 440 stores. Ron – stock.adobe.com

The study evaluated 81 major US grocery stores, combining financial performance with survey responses from more than 11,000 American shoppers.

Participants were asked about pricing, quality, convenience, operations and online ordering.

The rankings come as consumers face mounting financial pressure.

Costco was ranked No. 4, followed by Aldi, WinCo Foods, Trader Joe’s, Amazon, Wegmans and ShopRite rounding out the top 10. Christopher Sadowski

Shopper confidence declined last year amid concerns over rising prices, limited job opportunities and stagnant wages, according to Matt O’Grady, president of the Americas for Dunnhumby.

“Consumers across all income levels are feeling the squeeze and making more price-conscious choices,” O’Grady said in a statement.

“In this environment, building trust with American shoppers has never been more critical.”

The study evaluated 81 major US grocery stores. Christopher Sadowski

Overall food prices were up 0.7% in December and 3.1% from a year ago, according to the December consumer price index (CPI).

The all-items CPI index showed inflation pushed prices 0.3% higher last month and 2.7% on an annual basis.

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As reported by The Post, the Tennessee-based chain – ripped last month by critics including President Trump for scrapping its longtime logo that featured mascot “Uncle Herschel’ – meanwhile had ditched the cost-cutting practice of reheating its meatloaf in microwaves after baking it the night before.

The microwaving maneuver earlier this year had marked a switch from its longtime practice of baking meatloaf fresh each day. But in recent weeks, bosses once again told employees to keep using microwaves outside of the weekends, sources said.

A new corporate logo that eliminated the company’s “old timer” image was quickly scrapped. Getty Images

“We were told meatloaf will be fresh every day,” one veteran cook said. “Then they said cold portions will be on Monday through Thursday.”

On Wednesday’s earnings call, Chief executive Julie Felss Masino admitted there is work to do. “We must continue improving our food,” she said, adding Cracker Barrel is “placing an even bigger emphasis on the kitchen.”

As reported by The Post, customers had likewise complained Cracker Barrel’s Southern-style biscuits were being served “hard as a rock” after a cost-cutting measure shifted production to a day in advance, with biscuits frozen and reheated. 

After admitting the move was a mistake earlier this month, management has now swung the other way, ordering that biscuits be flawless or thrown out – despite the original concern that too many biscuits were going to waste.

Biscuits “need to rise about two inches, be fluffy and not baked ‘too brown’ or ‘too white,’” one Cracker Barrel cook told The Post, recounting orders from a manager last week.

Julie Felss Masino is featured in a regular video that goes out to employees, but has lately been missing. FOX News

Cracker Barrel’s meatloaf is reheated in microwaves on less busy days of the week. Cracker Barrel

“I honestly feel like [management] is floundering to see what they can get away with, what they need to change and what they can keep and not be noticed,” one veteran cook said of the conflicting orders.

“We are focused on the kitchen and our guests’ plates and serving up generous portions of craveable food with Cracker Barrel’s warm country hospitality,” the company said in a statement to The Post, without specifically addressing questions about the meatloaf and biscuits.

The turmoil is lingering after Cracker Barrel revealed this week that customer traffic at its restaurants – already down 1% in early August – dropped by 8% after the logo uproar on Aug. 19. The company now expects visits to fall by as much as 7% in fiscal 2026.

Cracker Barrel’s signature biscuits now have to be “perfect” or they are thrown out, staffers told The Post. Cracker Barrel

The 55 year-old restaurant chain has recently been branded as “woke.” Getty Images

As reported by The Post, Cracker Barrel’s meatloaf attracted social media attention last month when a TikTokker posted a video that purported to have been taken inside one of the chain’s kitchens.

“We throw it in a microwave and then we serve it to you,” according to the video, which panned to stacked trays allegedly filled with pre-packaged meatloaf. “And sometimes it’s still cold.”

Meanwhile, employees have been whispering about the future of Felss Masino herself. Ahead of this week’s earnings call, some staff were speculating she had been ousted, pointing to the disappearance of her regular internal video updates for staffers companywide.

Cracker Barrel denied the rumor, saying its leadership “communicates with team members across the Company through a variety of channels, including in person meetings, videos and emails.”

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Coca-Cola did not immediately respond to a request for a comment outside regular business hours. Costa, and Lazard did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The company has held initial talks with a small number of potential bidders for Costa, including private-equity firms, Sky News first reported, citing unidentified sources.

U.K.-based Costa Coffee operates in more than 50 countries. REUTERS

Indicative offers are expected in early autumn, but a sale is not definitive, Sky reported.

Coca Cola acquired Costa Coffee in 2018 for over $5 billion to strengthen its position in the global coffee market, competing with Starbucks and Nestle.

A potential sale of Costa Coffee, which operates in 50 countries, would add onto the wave of dealmaking in the packaged food space which has witnessed robust growth as companies seek scale to weather the impact of price inflation and consumers shopping for healthier options.

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In an earnings call last month, Coca-Cola CEO James Quincey hinted at changes to Costa’s operations, saying, “Our investment in Costa is not where we wanted it to be from an investment hypothesis point of view.”

Coca-Cola paid over $5 billion in 2018 to acquire Costa Coffee to compete with Starbucks and Nestle. AP

“We’re in the mode of reflecting on what we’ve learnt, thinking about how we might want to find new avenues to grow in the coffee category, while continuing to run the Costa business successfully.”

In the US, food companies are seeking healthier substitutes as they respond to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again campaign.

Coca-Cola last month agreed to use real cane sugar in the US.

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In the video, a guest who booked a stay at a La Quinta by Wyndham was welcomed by a tall screen displaying a virtual front-desk employee — who allegedly was in India.

“Do you need one room key or two room key?” the worker can be heard asking in the video, which has more than 2 million views since being posted on Saturday.

Miami hotel has outsourced their front desk to India. Guests are checked in virtually on video call with an Indian representative

More American jobs outsourced overseas. At some point this should just become illegal. If you make money in America, you should hire Americans pic.twitter.com/la8FJZHym3

— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) August 2, 2025

The guest replies: “Two, just in case I lose one.”

The hotel customer then signs a form on the screen using their finger.

A traveler staying at a La Quinta by Wyndham hotel was allegedly checked in by an outsourced, virtual worker. @languageguy1/Instagram

The interaction led social media users to slam the hotel chain for outsourcing jobs to overseas workers.

“More American jobs outsourced overseas. At some point this should just become illegal. If you make money in America, you should hire Americans,” one user wrote in a post on X.

Another sniped: “What hotel, so I can be sure to avoid it?”

Some frustrated users even called on President Trump to target the practice by slapping tariffs on US-based companies that outsource jobs to overseas staffers.

A spokesperson for Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, which owns La Quinta Inn, told The Post that it just learned about the matter and is actively investigating the situation.

“Do you need one room key or two room key?” the worker can be heard asking. @languageguy1/Instagram

“This is a franchised location, meaning the hotel is independently owned and operated, and as such, we don’t control staffing. That said, this franchisee’s use of this equipment is not brand approved nor is it being marketed to other franchisees,” a spokesperson told The Post in a statement.

“Further, our brand standards require hotels to have a team member physically stationed at the front desk at all times.”

The chain has several La Quinta locations in the Miami area.

It’s unclear how widespread the practice of outsourced virtual front-desk employees is at La Quinta hotels and other chains.

Wyndham does offer mobile check-in for some guests, according to its website.

A video posted to YouTube in February appears to show the same large tablet screen being used by an outsourced worker in a Wyndham hotel in Bonita Springs, Fla.

Outraged social media users were quick to slam the hotel chain on social media. @languageguy1/Instagram

“I checked into a hotel by talking to a man on a screen in the entryway. I scanned my ID, swiped my credit card, and the machine provided me a key,” the user who posted the video wrote in the caption.

Another social media user said they had a similar experience with a virtual front-desk employee at a hotel in Dublin.

“Honestly, it was a lot quicker than dealing with front desk staff, and it prints out your keycard,” the hotel guest wrote in a post online.

Meanwhile, a hotel in Amsterdam allegedly used a fully automated check-in process, where guests fill out a form on an iPad, take a key card from a pile and tap it on a reader to activate it, according to another user on X.

“There’s really no reason for these jobs at all in today’s age,” they added.

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Washington and Beijing agreed to a trade framework in June that restored a fragile truce, but with many details still unclear, traders and investors on both sides of the Pacific are watching to see if it will unravel or lead to a lasting detente.

On Monday, President Donald Trump began notifying trade partners of sharply higher US tariffs from August 1, after he delayed all but 10% of his April duties on most countries to give them time to strike deals with the world’s largest economy.

President Donald Trump attends a bilateral meeting with China’s President Xi Jinping during the G20 leaders summit in Osaka, Japan, on June 29, 2019. REUTERS

China, initially singled out with tariffs exceeding 100%, has until August 12 to reach an agreement with the White House to keep Trump from reinstating additional import curbs imposed during tit-for-tat tariff exchanges in April and May.

“One conclusion is abundantly clear: dialogue and cooperation are the only correct path,” the official People’s Daily said in a commentary, referring to the exchanges in the current round of China-US trade tension.

The article was signed “Zhong Sheng”, or “Voice of China”, a term the paper uses to express views on foreign policy.

Reiterating Beijing’s view that Trump’s tariffs amount to “bullying”, the paper added, “Practice has proven that only by firmly upholding principled positions can one truly safeguard one’s legitimate rights and interests.”

The remarks set the stage for another round of tariff war should Trump stick to what the ruling Communist Party’s official daily said was “a so-called ‘final deadline.’”

Shipping containers are stacked at a port in Shanghai on June 9, 2025. AFP via Getty Images

An American flag flies in front of shipping containers stacked on a container ship (C) at the Port of Los Angeles on June 25, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. Getty Images

The average US tariff on Chinese exports now stands at 51.1%, while the average Chinese duty on US goods is 32.6%, with both sides covering all their trade, the Peterson Institute for International Economics said.

The paper also took a swipe at regional economies that are considering striking tariff reduction deals with the United States that cut China out of their supply chains.

Last week, Vietnam secured a tariff reduction to 20% from 46% with a deal for goods “transshipped” through it, typically originating from China, to be subjected to a levy of 40%.

“China firmly opposes any side striking a deal that sacrifices Chinese interests in exchange for tariff concessions,” the paper said.

“If such a situation arises, China will not accept it and will respond resolutely to protect its legitimate interests.”

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President Trump’s China tariffs are threatening Christmas.

Toy makers, children’s shops and specialty retailers are pausing orders for the winter holidays as the import taxes cascade through supply chains. Factories in China produce nearly 80 percent of all toys and 90 percent of Christmas goods sold in America.

The production of toys, Christmas trees and decorations is usually in full swing by now. It takes four to five months to manufacture, package and ship products to the United States.

Mr. Trump’s 145 percent tariffs have caused a drastic markup in costs for American companies. Most of the entrepreneurs that have shared their plans with The New York Times have not yet canceled their orders. They hope that the president will back away from the tariff brinkmanship.

But the alarm in the industry is palpable, with the companies predicting product shortages and higher prices. Some business owners, citing how crucial holiday sales are to their bottom lines, are consulting bankruptcy lawyers.

“We have a frozen supply chain that is putting Christmas at risk,” said Greg Ahearn, chief executive of the Toy Association, a U.S. industry group representing 850 toy manufacturers. “If we don’t start production soon, there’s a high probability of a toy shortage this holiday season.”

For America’s Christmas industry, Chinese manufacturing is unmatched in its production speed and capability. Toy makers overhaul large portions of their product lines every year to adapt to the changing preferences of children. From materials to machinery, China’s factories are one-stop shops for importers.

Kara Dyer, founder of Storytime Toys, a maker of children’s books with playset puzzles, usually places a big holiday order with her Chinese factory in the first two weeks of April to have enough inventory by mid-July. The Christmas holidays account for about two-thirds of her annual revenue.

Ms. Dyer placed a small order of $30,000 worth of products before the latest tariffs, never expecting they would surge to such high levels. That shipment is en route to the United States. When it arrives, she said, she expects to owe $45,000 in tariffs. The shipment will provide the company with enough inventory for a few months, and she said she would probably raise prices at least 20 percent to cover the tariff costs. But she is waiting to make a big holiday purchase.

“I’m going to hold out hope for another two weeks that the tariffs will be removed and I’ll be able to place the order,” she said. “But if not, I will have to put my business on pause. I will definitely not place an order if the tariffs are in effect. It wouldn’t make any sense.”

In a Toy Association survey of 410 toy manufacturers with annual sales of less than $100 million, more than 60 percent said they had canceled orders, and around 50 percent said they would go out of business within weeks or months if the tariffs remained.

At West Side Kids in New York City, the shop’s owner, Jennifer Bergman, 58, is concerned that she may not have any toys to sell at Christmas. And the toys she can get her hands on could cost twice what they did last year, which would crimp her sales during the most important time of the year.

Toy companies are already marking up prices 10 to 20 percent, said Ms. Bergman, whose mother opened the store 43 years ago. She said that she would try to buy as much as she could now, but that the shortages were already starting. She had placed a large order of scooters to arrive for the summer. But the importer rerouted the shipment to Canada because it did not want to pay the tariff. She was told that she would get only a portion of her order.

If the tariffs remain, Christmas will be like “something we’ve never experienced before,” Ms. Bergman said. People will be standing in line to buy things that cost twice or three times as much as before, she said. Her business was already under pressure from competition by Amazon, but she fears that the tariffs will deliver a final blow.

“I don’t think I will be in business for Christmas,” said Ms. Bergman, who added that she was consulting a bankruptcy lawyer.

Nick Mowbray and his brother, Mat, founded Zuru Group in China, making an assortment of plastic dart “blasters,” water balloon accessories and bubble guns that are sold at Walmart and Target. He said retailers were not placing holiday orders. Zuru has cut its marketing budget for the holiday season in half, to $60 million, because it expects to be selling fewer products.

Mr. Mowbray, a native of New Zealand, said everything was in “a holding pattern.” If the tariffs remain at 145 percent, he expects prices for consumers to increase around 50 to 100 percent.

“That will be unaffordable for a lot of families,” he said.

Mr. Trump has in recent days struck a conciliatory tone toward China and the tariffs, fueling some hope among business owners that he may exempt industries that do not pose a national security threat.

Mr. Ahearn from the Toy Association said he was in Washington last week to lobby for a 24-month reprieve, which could give companies time to find ways to make their products in the United States.

But even if Mr. Trump grants importers temporary relief, significant disruptions will occur as companies rush to fulfill orders. Shipping costs are expected to surge, similar to the frenzy during the Covid pandemic, when a shortage of shipping containers led in some cases to a tenfold increase in freight prices.

Christmas is the busiest time of year for Aldik Home, a home goods store in Los Angeles. It generates more than two-thirds of its annual sales in the final three months of the year, selling artificial Christmas trees, wreaths, ornaments, lights and other decorations.

Larry Gold, the store’s owner, said he had worked with a Chinese factory for many years to design Christmas trees. He places the order in January for shipment in June or July. This year, he planned to send seven 40-foot containers from China loaded with $600,000 worth of trees. The current tariff would require him to pay nearly $1 million at once.

“Right now, we’ve asked them to hold up and wait,” Mr. Gold, 72, said.

Last year, the store sold seven-and-a-half-foot trees for about $1,000. Mr. Gold said he would have no choice but to pass on the tariff cost to shoppers, which would put the price of that same tree at more than $2,000. He said that price would in effect “kill the product.”

“I can’t believe anybody in this country who is buying trees from China will pay the 145 percent duty, because they’ll never sell them,” Mr. Gold said.

At this rate, he said, he will not bring in the trees, and his store, which has been open for decades, will have nothing to sell during the most crucial period of the year. He said he would probably be forced to close, costing his 40 employees their jobs.

“There won’t be a Christmas industry here,” Mr. Gold said. “The product all comes from China.”

Aaron Krolik contributed reporting from New York.

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When President Trump first pushed tariffs on China in 2018, Apple began moving more production of iPads and AirPods to Vietnam and iPhones to India.

But with Mr. Trump’s return to the White House, that strategy may have backfired for the world’s most valuable publicly traded company.

On Wednesday, Mr. Trump said that the United States would put tariffs of 46 percent on Vietnam and 26 percent on India. The White House has said the tariffs are effective immediately, but some trade experts consider them to be preliminary and designed to be a starting point for negotiations to reduce overseas tariffs.

The proposed tariffs threaten to compound the pressure on Apple’s business. The company is already dealing with 20 percent tariffs on products imported from China, where Apple makes about 90 percent of the iPhones it sells around the world. Mr. Trump said that the rate would go to 34 percent under his new tariff plan.

An Apple spokesman declined to comment.

The new levies are part of Mr. Trump’s efforts to remake world trade with tariffs on every country that imposes fees on American exports. U.S. trade officials estimate that India has a tariff rate of 13.5 percent on U.S. goods, with a 39 percent tariff on agricultural products. Vietnam has a tariff rate of 8.1 percent on U.S. goods, with a 17.1 percent tariff on agricultural products.

But during a news conference at the White House, Mr. Trump said the combination of tariffs, currency manipulation and trade barriers had a much more significant impact.

The costs of “reciprocal tariffs,” as Mr. Trump calls them, could put Apple’s business in a jam. The iPhones, iPads and Apple Watches that the company sells deliver three-quarters of its nearly $400 billion in annual revenue. With Mr. Trump saying he won’t allow products to be exempted from tariffs, Apple will have to either pay those fees, which will reduce its profit, or indirectly pass those added costs on to customers by raising prices.

The tariffs on iPhones and other devices imported from China will increase Apple’s annual costs by $8.5 billion, without any relief from the Trump administration, according to Morgan Stanley. That would reduce the company’s profit next year by $0.52 per share, or about $7.85 billion. That would be a roughly 7 percent hit on next year’s profits.

Apple’s stock fell 4.7 percent in aftermarket trading following Mr. Trump’s remarks.

“Apple will take these new tariff numbers and put them in models they have built and know within hours how big of a problem they have,” said Anna-Katrina Shedletsky, the founder of Instrumental, a Bay Area company that uses artificial intelligence to improve manufacturing performance. She previously worked at Apple.

After Mr. Trump took office, Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, went to the White House and promised that Apple would invest hundreds of billions of dollars in the United States. In February, Apple followed through on that promise by pledging to invest $500 billion in the country, with much of the money already part of its spending plans.

During the previous Trump administration, Mr. Cook’s work to build a relationship with Mr. Trump helped Apple avoid tariffs on most of its products. U.S. trade officials in the previous Trump administration didn’t put tariffs on iPhones, and they removed tariffs from the Apple Watch.

In 2019, Mr. Trump toured an Apple plant in Texas that made desktop computers. Mr. Cook stood beside Mr. Trump as the president took credit for the plant, which had been making computers since 2013.

In the years since then, Apple hasn’t moved production of a single major product to the United States. Instead, it embarked on an effort to diversify beyond China.

In 2017, as Mr. Trump started in office, Apple began setting up assembly lines for iPhones in India. It took five years for it to train workers and build the infrastructure to make its newest iPhones in the country. It is in the process of increasing production there, with hopes the country’s factories manufacture about 25 percent of the 200 million iPhones that it sells annually.

The company also began shifting production of AirPods, iPads and MacBooks to Vietnam. The country became a destination for Apple and others after Covid-19 shut down factories in China in 2020, and Vietnam’s factories accounted for more than 10 percent of the top 200 suppliers that the company had in 2023.

Vietnam was an appealing location because of its proximity to China. India was alluring because Apple wanted to boost sales of iPhones in the country, which is the world’s second largest smartphone market.

But Apple has struggled in the past with U.S. production. The Texas plant that made Macs had problems as some workers walked off the job after their shift but before their replacements had arrived, forcing the company to shut down the assembly line. It also struggled to find suppliers that could make components it needed like a custom screw.

Mr. Cook has said that the United States doesn’t have enough skilled manufacturing workers to compete with China. At a conference in late 2017, he said that China was one of the few places where Apple could reliably find people capable of running the state-of-the-art machines that make its products.

“In the U.S., you could have a meeting of tooling engineers, and I’m not sure we could fill the room,” Mr. Cook said. “In China, you could fill multiple football fields.”

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