Category: Retail

Inside a Walmart store in New Jersey, a worker puts the finishing touches on a cake with an edible ink Sponge Bob on top. A colleague creates a buttercream rosette border for a different cake, while another co-worker frosts a tier of what will be a triple-deck dessert.

It’s graduation season, the busiest time of year for the 6,200 employees the nation’s largest retailer trained to hand-decorate cakes per customers’ orders. The cakes themselves come, pre-made, frozen and in a variety of shapes and sizes, from suppliers, not Walmart’s in-store bakeries.

But there’s no sugar-coating the importance the company places on its custom cake business. Its army of icing artisans are the highest paid hourly workers in a typical U.S. Walmart, excluding managers. Cake decorators earn an average of $19.25 per hour, compared with $18.25 for all non-managerial store workers, a company spokesperson said.

Melissa Fernandez, 36, started working in the electronics area and then the wireless services department of the Walmart in North Bergen, New Jersey, before she transferred to the deli area in search of better pay. But Fernandez had her eye on a cake decorating job and after spending two months getting trained by a store colleague, she picked up a piping bag full-time in 2021.

“I love baking at home. I love painting,” Fernandez said. “I love doing anything artistic, and I just always wanted to be a part of it.” After 11 years with Walmart, she said she now makes about $24.40 an hour.

Despite their elite status within Walmart, the retailer’s cake decorators have attracted detractors on social media.

The company promotes its personalized baked goods on TikTok, and the workers behind such creations do the same with their own profiles. As the content has grown in popularity, critics have accused Walmart decorators of stealing ideas and undercutting the work of professional cake artists with their low-priced products.

After TikTok videos praising Walmart’s $25 heart-shaped cakes with borders that resemble vintage lace cropped up before Valentine’s Day this year, a few bakers produced their own videos explaining why their cakes cost so much more and critiquing Walmart’s.

Debates ensued in the comments sections over whether Walmart represented evils of capitalism or served the needs of the masses.

A customized sheet cake that can be sliced to serve 96 people costs $59 at Walmart, about one-third to half the price that a nationwide sample of independent bakeries list online for similarly sized cakes. For $5.20 more, Walmart customers can add strawberry or “Bavarian creme” fillings, which like the bare cakes, are vendor-supplied.

The slice of the celebratory occasion cake market Walmart holds appears vast based on company-supplied figures. One out of four cakes sold in the U.S. comes from Walmart, and its employees will collectively decorate more than 1 million cakes during May and June, according to a company spokesperson.

The number of cakes decorated each day at the location where Fernandez works nearly doubles to 50-60 when school graduations come around, compared to 30-35 a day during the rest of the year, said Michael DeMarco, the manager of the store’s fresh food department. He credits the decorators’ talent and promotional efforts on TikTok.

“We’re getting a lot of repeat customers. We’re doing a lot more business because of just the viral sensations,” DeMarco said.

A TikTok video that showed Fernandez designing a $24 version of a customized bouquet cake — 12 cupcakes that are individually decorated and arranged to look like a bunch of flowers — received nearly a half-million views. The bouquet design was one of the North Bergen store’s most popular cakes last month, a company spokesperson said.

The dressy heart-shaped cakes, as well as cakes that resemble meals like sushi or a pile of spaghetti and meatballs, are popular too, she said. Fernandez also has created “burn away” cakes: an iced cake topped with an image printed on paper, which is set ablaze to reveal a different image underneath.

“TikTok helps me stay up to date,” she said. “A lot of trends that I see on there, within that week or within that month, customers will come asking about it. And we’re pretty up to date as well.”

Jazzing up a cake by hand requires skill, whether or not someone else did the baking, she said. Funneling buttercream frosting through a bag and various sized piping tips to yield the desired design without misplaced blobs is not the same as drawing or painting, Fernandez explained.

“There’s a lot of pressure points that you have to practice in order to get the borders correct and the right thickness or the right texture,” she said.

Tiffany Witzke, who has been a Walmart cake decorator since July 2016 and works at a store in Springfield, Missouri, has more than 912,000 followers on TikTok. The job attracts people who “can be extremely skilled and talented,” Witzke said, adding that customers want increasingly complicated designs.

“When I first started, it was basically just borders and writing,” she said. “Now, everybody wants more and more and more on their cake.”

Liz Berman, owner of The Sleepy Baker, in Natick, Massachusetts, said she’s not worried about losing customers to Walmart because of her attention to detail and the premium ingredients she uses.

She charges $205 and up for a half-sized sheet cake, the bouquets made up of two dozen miniature cupcakes cost $110. All the cakes are made from scratch, and Berman said she designs everything herself.

“It’s just a totally different business model,” she said. “Everything I do is custom.”

For Walmart, the cake decorating business delivers higher profit margins than some other areas, such as groceries and electronics, according to Marshal Cohen, chief retail advisor at market research firm Circana. But it’s also resonating with shoppers looking for affordable luxuries.

“We’ve gone into a period where the consumer is saying, ‘This is good enough,’” Cohen said.

Customers interviewed at the North Bergen store on a recent weekday seemed to be satisfied. George Arango, 34, picked up two customized cakes, one to celebrate a co-worker’s retirement and the other for a colleague getting another job. After researching prices on various store websites, he decided to give Walmart a try.

“The price is fantastic,” he said. “I’m walking out with two cakes for $40.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. (AP) — When it came to picking a name for his business, Ralph Rodriguez rolled the dice. He went with Fort Liberty Pawn & Gun.

It’s going to cost him about $30,000.

“That’s signage, uniforms, stationery, business cards, advertising, and state licensing changes and federal changes,” he said.

When he was filing his incorporation papers last fall, Rodriguez knew one of President Donald Trump ’s campaign promises was to restore the names of Confederate officers — like Gen. Braxton Bragg — to military installations rebranded under the Biden administration. But it seemed to Rodriguez that he should go with the installation’s name as it was at the time.

“We were trying to attach ourselves to the military base and show support for them, because we know that’s going to be our customers,” he said with a shrug. “I could care less about Braxton Bragg.”

Less than a month into Trump’s second term, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the installation rechristened Fort Bragg, this time in honor of World War II paratrooper Roland Bragg of Maine.

Two things immediately went through Rodriguez’s mind.

“The first thing I said was, `It’s going to be expensive.’ And the second thing was, `Who’s going to get mad about THIS?’”

People were telling Rodriguez he should call his shop Fort Bragg Pawn & Gun even before Trump won the election. After all, it’s located on Fort Bragg Road.

Then shortly before the grand opening in December, someone vandalized his sign.

“We came to work and we seen a yellow line across the `Liberty,’” he said.

Rodriguez is used to catching flak for his Michigan roots or the peace sign tattoo on his right arm. And then there’s his wife’s crystal shop next door.

“My customers call her side the `liberal containment center,’” he said with a chuckle.

And what do her customers call his?

“‘Trumpers,’” he said. “Or, you know, ‘mega gun nuts.’”

As a sop to her husband’s clientele, Hannah Rodriguez carries a few stones carved in the shape of pistols and hand grenades.

“Crystals and pistols,” she said with a giggle.

But when it comes to Bragg vs. Liberty, it’s no laughing matter.

“Look, there’s no middle ground in Fayetteville. They’re extremely either right or left,” Ralph Rodriguez said. “If you tilt one way or another man, you’re going to lose customers … But we would definitely have lost more if we would have kept it Fort Liberty Pawn and Gun.”

Several other businesses in and around Fayetteville also went with Liberty, including the local federal credit union. It has already changed back, though it will take a while to redo all the signs.

At least one company is sticking with the name Liberty.

“We came up with this whole name based on the alliteration, because I’m a big writer geek,” said Sabrina Soares, broker in charge at the real estate firm Fort Liberty Living. “So, we’re probably just going to keep it as is.”

In 2023, the state spent $163,000 to change all the Fort Bragg highway signs to Fort Liberty. Switching them back is expected to run over $200,000.

Rodriguez figures he got off easy.

On a recent sultry afternoon, retired Army officer and mayoral candidate Freddie de la Cruz stopped by to chat and check up on a purchase: a semiautomatic 12-gauge shotgun, painted with the Stars and Stripes, which he’s planning to raffle off.

He said Rodriguez shouldn’t be so hard on himself.

“It was a smart move there,” he said. “At the time.”

Retired Army Master Sgt. Sidney High said he has no problem coming into a shop called Fort Liberty.

“It doesn’t bother me at all,” he said, resting his cola on a glass gun case. “I call it Fort Bragg all the time anyway. So, it doesn’t make any difference to me.”

Rodriguez figures it will take about six months to get everything switched over. He’s looking forward to putting this chapter behind him.

“I just want to be in business,” he said. “I want to be happy. I want everybody else to be happy. And it’s hard. It’s hard, and you can’t keep both sides happy.”

Just to be safe, he’s keeping both names on the paperwork.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

• Hormel Foods maintained its full-year 2025 net sales guidance at $12.2 billion despite economic uncertainty and tariff-related pressures, noting that consumers are feeling strained and adjusting their spending habits for maximum value. While tariffs have not significantly impacted Hormel yet, the company narrowed its growth and earnings forecasts slightly and emphasized strength in value-oriented and premium product lines like Applegate.

In its second earnings call of the year, Hormel Foods held its guidance steady despite a shifting macroeconomic outlook.

Hormel, known for kitchen staples such as Applegate, Skippy, and SPAM, narrowed its expectations during its earnings call Thursday but maintained its top-line expectation of $12.2 billion in net sales for the FY 2025.

The extensive offerings and categories Hormel operates in enables the Austin, Minn.-based brand unique insight into the spending habits and sentiments of consumers.

To this effect, executives noted shoppers are “strained” amid a “choppy environment.”

Much of this uncertainty stems back to President Donald Trump’s tariff regime, which has upended everything from Wall Street’s outlook to inflation expectations. With consumers potentially bracing for higher prices as a result of the foreign policy, Hormel said some are trading down on their shops while others are focusing on maximum value.

Consumers and analysts alike have whiplash from the news out of Washington D.C.: In the past few weeks alone, Trump’s team has reduced sky-high tariffs on China for 90-days, then accused Beijing of breaking the agreement, threatening 50% tariffs on the EU which were then delayed, and successfully appealed a court decision which banned the administration from introducing any of its “Liberation Day” measures.

“I would describe the consumer sentiment as not great, meaning they’re feeling the cumulative effects of inflation and at the same time feeling uncertainty in the macro environment,” John Ghingo, executive vice president of Hormel’s retail division, told analysts on the call. “I would describe that as a strained consumer sentiment. And what’s interesting is you do see some trading down from consumers to lower prices.”

He continued: “Some of our categories actually play very well for affordability, but if we pull back even from that and say, ‘where is the growth coming from?’ … we can see some very different pockets of strong growth because consumers are still looking for solutions.

“They’re still looking for what they would classify… as value. And so within our own portfolio, we see strong growth still in the premium … with our Applegate brand.”

Ghingo added that because consumers are stretched, they want to get maximum value and flexibility out of products—which is where protein products from Applegate and turkey specialists Jennie-O are flourishing.

Tariffs and Hormel

Of course, businesses aren’t only impacted by tariffs because of the effect on customers, but also on their supply chain and relative costs.

Most businesses say they are going to pass costs onto consumers, as the Federal Reserve noted in its May meeting: “Many participants remarked that reports from their business contacts or surveys indicated that firms generally were planning to either partially or fully pass on tariff-related cost increases to consumers.

“Several participants noted that firms not directly subject to tariffs might take the opportunity to increase their prices if other prices rise.”

Some brands, like Walmart, have already warned they may have to increase their prices—earning the ire of the Oval Office.

Hormel, a Fortune 500 company, noted its portfolio has not been impacted by tariffs “to date” (though let’s not forget, the sharpest end of tariff threats are yet to come to fruition), with Jacinth Smiley, executive vice president and CFO at Hormel adding: “Although our business has not been materially impacted by the tariff landscape to date, based on what we know today, we have assumed a range of $0.01 to $0.02 of tariff impacts in the back half of the year in our outlook.”

With that in mind, the brand narrowed its organic net sales growth outlook to a range of 2% to 3% and likewise narrowed its adjusted diluted net earnings per share expectations to $1.58 to $1.68.

That being said, Smiley added: “We remain confident in our outlook for bottom-line growth for each segment in the second half of the year and remain committed to delivering long-term value through strategic execution.”

Overall, Hormel reported Q2 2025 net sales of $2.9 billion with organic net sales up 1%.

In the retail category, net sales were flat with volumes down 7% year-over-year, with segment profits climbing 4%. In the foodservice category, organic volumes were down 1%, and the segment profit was down 4%, though volumes increased 4%. In the international segment, volumes were up 9%, net sales up 7%, though segment profit fell 21%.

Hormel’s share price is up 3.8% over the past five days, down approximately 3% for the year to date.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

Duolingo is now “AI-first,” job postings are emphasizing AI competency as a desired skill, and it seems every company is hungry for AI-powered efficiency. The AI boom is officially in every business corner, and branded social media is no exception—but should it be?

Much of social media content creation relies on creative thinking and production, and creative types haven’t been shy about criticizing AI reliance, particularly the kind that might eliminate jobs. At the same time, the allure of taking advantage of a moment like the ChatGPT-generated-action-figure trend is too strong, and all of a sudden, it seems the hottest (and quickest) thing a social media manager can do is get in on the AI buzz. It’s an impulse made even easier when companies like Adobe and OpenAI roll out creative-focused AI products.

But social media consultant and writer of the newsletter Link in Bio Rachel Karten has a theory. Rather than AI being the next big thing in brand social, it could end up encouraging an alternate route, a phenomenon that she’s dubbing “proof of reality.” In an effort to emphasize quality and craftsmanship, Karten expects some brands to use their social media feeds as a place to emphasize their human creativity, attention to detail, and the real, human-led work that went into making certain content for the brand.

“As the ways that posts are made on social media become more and more unclear…we’re going to see brands ramp up this proof of how they made the post,” Karten told Marketing Brew. “I don’t think it’s new necessarily, but I think those types of posts are going to hold more weight, especially for the consumer.”

Why AI?

Karten said she got the idea for proof of reality from watching The Studio, a satirical Apple TV+ show about a Hollywood film studio. In promoting the show, Apple put out a behind-the-scenes clip showing how an episode featuring one long continuous (and chaotic) shot was made. That’s when the proverbial light bulb went off.

“Not only does the content of the show feel [like it’s] in reaction to slop online, but so did the promotion of it,” Karten said. “We’ve seen this on social as well, with like BTS of the campaign…and sometimes the BTS even gets more engagement than the original post itself.”

Even as behind-the-scenes posts find resonance, companies both big and small are taking the opposite route. Coca-Cola faced backlash last year when its holiday ads were loudly and proudly created with AI, and the fast-fashion retailer H&M is planning to use AI-generated replicas of its models.

Karten said she has noticed AI-generated images being used on social accounts, like the athleisure brand Set Active. On TikTok, Set Active’s chief brand officer has noted that Set Active uses AI (and Midjourney, in particular) for some social image creation.

Karten surmised that small businesses in particular might find AI tempting as they try to capitalize on trends and figure out their own social media approach. But while the tech might speed things along, brands using it risk receiving negative comments and their campaigns becoming a talking point for the wrong reasons.

“That’s a piece of marketing that you need to think about now,” she said. “If you piss off some customers, they’re not just a few customers in your database that are leaving. A few customers…might create a TikTok that is bashing your brand that goes viral, and everyone is piling on.”

Give it a try?

According to freelance brand designer and Adobe Express ambassador Julie Christie-Clark, small businesses are exactly who can benefit the most from AI tools. Christie-Clark frequently uses Adobe AI products like Firefly and Express for client work, and she makes educational content on TikTok showing how AI can be implemented in creative design.

“I have lots of small businesses that can’t afford brand photography, brand photo shoots, or even buying lots of stock imagery, and they can’t quite find what they want in the libraries,” Christie-Clark said. “So it’s kind of game-changing for small-business owners to be able to have really impactful, professional graphics.”

Christie-Clark uses AI throughout the strategy, production, and final-delivery processes, finding that it can save time and improve her brainstorming abilities. She particularly leans on Adobe’s brand-safety tools, which Adobe Express’s VP and head of product Ian Wang emphasized is key to what makes tools like Firefly useful to brands.

“For us, it’s all about commercial safety and on-brand creation,” Wang told Marketing Brew. “We have custom models that our brands now are training based on their own content and data…when you do that, that’s another lever to make it look realistic, because all that’s clearly coming from this brand.”

As AI usage in brand social media ramps up, there’s still plenty of gray area. Karten has noticed some brand images looking similar to previous campaign concepts, and she wondered if AI is enabling ideation that doesn’t meaningfully diverge from prior creative work.

“When you can feed your mood board into AI and generate something original for your brand, where is that line?” she said. “It’s very tricky.”

Beyond the buzz

The rise of AI’s usage across brand social seems to signal a change in attitude toward the tools. Christie-Clark was “a wee bit skeptical” of using AI tools, but she changed her mind on the matter over the last year, which she said was because of the quality of AI products. She now believes in using AI in final products, not just in the brainstorming process, which is a method that some social media experts, like Karten, prefer.

“I’m tending to start to work AI-first, which I’m actually really surprised myself, with how long I’ve been doing things the same way,” Christie-Clark said.“I’m embracing the change to keep moving with the times.”

Whether or not AI is the next big thing in brand social, Wang said what will make AI products stand out is identifying ways to make the tech useful, not just exciting.

Being useful in creative fields doesn’t need to always mean using generative AI. According to him, incorporating AI into already existing brand work could be a step forward.

“There’s a massive bridge that needs to be crossed between exciting stuff that you love to play with, and it looks cool, to it being truly useful for your day-to-day and your livelihood,” Wang said. “That bridging layer is really what we’re focused on to make sure that it’s really useful to everyday users. I think [if] we do that, it becomes less intimidating.”

This report was originally published by Marketing Brew.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com