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For years, Heinz has consistently innovated in the ketchup space. Theres been jalapeo ketchup, chipotle ketchup, mayochup, and even pickle ketchup. Other sauces have gotten similarly modernized, with stunt products like a Taylor Swift-inspired ranch dressing and a hot-pink Barbie barbecue sauce. Notably forgotten amid this flurry of condiment exploration? Mustard. Now Heinz is rectifying that error, officially announcing the release of the condiment Heinz Mustaaaaaard, the brands first new mustard product in 10 years. The smoky-sweet chipotle honey mustard will debut for a two-week period at Buffalo Wild Wings, followed by a limited-time nationwide release at Target, 7-Eleven, Walmart.com, and Amazon.com. [Photo: Kraft Heinz] Heinz Mustaaaaaard was initially teased back in February, when Heinz revealed it would be collaborating on the sauce with record producer DJ Mustard (so named because of his given first name, Dijon). The timing was spot-onMustard had just exploded in the cultural zeitgeist after a callout of his name in Kendrick Lamars song tv off inspired memes and resulted in Mustard joining the 2025 Super Bowl halftime show. At the time, Heinz named Mustard as its official chief mustard officer. But, according to the team at Heinz, this wasnt just a collaboration with Mustards name attached to it: The producer met with Heinzs R&D team in person to select the final flavor, down to the specific proportions of each ingredient chosen. [Photo: Kraft Heinz] DJ Mustard mixes a mustard Most people are probably familiar with Mustard through his music and his recently viral collaboration with Lamar. Fewer are aware of his side hustle as a grill master. Heinz pitched a potential collaboration with Mustard more than a year before the official partnership announcement in February. During that time the team learned that Mustard already had a love for Heinz, says Peter Hall, president of elevation for Heinz North America. Mustard shared that he had long used Heinz mustard as his go-to staple when grilling, and that he had a particular penchant for sweeter mustards. In a press release, the artist said Heinz mustard has always been the most important ingredient among his grilling secret weapons, noting, I knew I wanted to make my own sauce one day, something that wouldnt be like anything else out there. Adding mustard gives you that nice browning, bark formation, and grilling, but thats just step one. [Photo: Kraft Heinz] The actual creation of Mustards mustard was a four-month-long process, starting with the music producer personally visiting Heinz headquarters in Pittsburgh to help mix up the recipea kind of access that Heinz has never granted to a celebrity collaborator in the past. Richard Misutka, director of R&D for Kraft Heinz Elevation Brands, worked directly with Mustard during his visit. He says the team prepped around 10 different add-on flavors that might pair well with mustard, including honey, chipotle, jalapeo, bacon, caramelized onion, and even mango. Then, to ensure that they could replicate each potential recipe, all of the various combination components were weighed before they were mixed and tasted by Mustard. [Photo: Kraft Heinz] We started with our Heinz yellow mustard, and then we started playing around with some of the flavors, Misutka says. True to Mustards reputation, he liked the honey, so instead of playing around with the yellow mustard, we pivoted to the Heinz honey mustard. At that point, Misutka recalls, Mustard chose to add an extra shot of honey to the standard recipe. Then we looked at some of the other flavors to help accentuate the experience. We pushed him out of his comfort zone a little bit, because we knew he did not like spicy foods. So we’re like, Let’s just try the chipotle here and see what you think. He absolutely loved it. While bacon and mango were both possible contenders for Mustards top pick, the chipotle combination ultimately won out. I think it has tremendous balance. I mean, you have th sweetness, you have the vinegar tartness, you have the smokiness from the chipotle, as well as the heat, Misutka says. It’s really a great product, and it was a tremendous experience. Mustard summed up his estimation of the product in his own words: This is the one, the Mustard of all mustards.
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E-Commerce
If you live in one of the 10 U.S. states with a bottle deposit program, youre probably familiar with the idea of feeding your empty plastic bottles or aluminum cans into a machine and getting a few cents back for your effort. But what if instead of earning a nickel or a dime, you could be entered in a lottery for a chance to win a bigger prize with each bottle you return? That option actually motivates people to recycle more bottles, researchers discovered when they tested it out on a small scale. Not only did people recycle more often, but they actually felt a little happier after doing so (compared with when getting a regular 10-cent return). And, it turns out, Norway already offers this incentive and also has one of the highest rates of recycling for plastic bottles in the world, at about 97%. This idea that people prefer a small chance at a bigger prize to a small reward is a common one in behavioral economics, says Jiaying Zhao, a professor of psychology and sustainability at the University of British Columbia and one of the authors of this study, which was recently published in the journal Waste Management. She wanted to see if the same principal could help spur sustainable behavior changes. Bottle deposits already help increase recycling rates. In the U.S., beverage containers (including plastic and glass bottles and aluminum cans) that are eligible for a bottle deposit have an average recycling rate of 64%, but beverage containers that arent eligible for a refund have a recycling rate of just 24%. That latter figure includes all the bottles in states without deposit laws, and containers that are exempt from deposit lawslike in Massachusetts, for example, where regular plastic water bottles arent eligible for a deposit. Offering a chance at a bigger prize could increase recycling rates even more. The researchers set up bottle return locations in British Columbia and Alberta in Canada, offering people the option of a 10-cent return or a 0.01% chance at a $1,000 prize. With that lottery option on the table, people brought 47% more bottles to recycle. The researchers also surveyed people on their happiness levels after returning the bottles, and they found that the people who chose the lottery option were slightly happier, even when they didnt win. The same people even came back multiple times to return bottles, says Jade Radke, a PhD student at UBC and the study’s coauthor. In Alberta, the researchers set up their bottle return at a rib festival, and people were even walking around to collect cans on the tables and try again, she says. (The bottle return in British Columbia through this study was located at a food court and set up for two months.) The potential impact of increasing recycling rates this way is huge. Creating new bottles comes with a lot of carbon emissions, and not recycling bottles also comes with a lot of pollution, so it can be a meaningful way to decrease all of those things, Radke says. If we could scale the results from the study to the entire U.S., that would mean an additional 2.1 million tons of containers recycled here. That would also save carbon emissionmore than 4 million tons, or about the same as taking 1 million cars off the road per year. And for any legislators that may be concerned a lottery system would cost more money to run, the researchers say it ends up being the same average payout as per-bottle deposit systems. When the researchers set out to test this incentive, they didnt know it was already available in Norway. Now they see it as further proof of a recycling solution. Norway began offering a bottle recycling lottery in 2009 (a bottle lottery has also been available in Finland since 2011), and now, 97% of all plastic beverage bottles there are returned. In Norway, people can use a reverse vending machine to either choose between the guaranteed refund, or the chance to win 5, 10, 100, or 100,000 euros. The system also doesnt encourage gambling, its creators say, because theres no way to enter with cash and there are no near misses, like with other kinds of gambling. The Norway bottle lottery has another twist: Some of the lotterys proceeds go to the Norwegian Red Cross. This chance to donate to a charity through bottle returns could be another motivator. Instead of 10 cents back to you, what if the proceeds go to a food bank or charity? Zhao says. Her team actually tested the effectiveness of this option as well, with results soon to be published. The researchers also plan to test how the lottery incentive impacts people who bring giant bags of bottles to big bottle depots, in order to see if the incentive increases their recycling rates as well. It’s important that municipalities that may want to offer a bottle lottery still give people the option of the regular 5- or 10-cent return, Zhao says. In cities across the U.S. and Canada, people known as canners or binners actually rely on bottle returns for part of their income to get by. We don’t want to take the short gain option away, she says. Instead, we want to give people the option to choose.
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E-Commerce
At colleges and universities across the country, older adults are roaming the quads. These are not emeritus professors or late-blooming freshmen, though. They’re residents, living in an increasingly common type of senior housing. A growing number of colleges and universities have started augmenting their campusesand boosting their revenuesby building senior living facilities right alongside lecture halls and student dorms. Dozens of projects are either built or planned in and around campuses all over the U.S., from Stanford to Notre Dame to the University of Florida, providing a much-needed source of housing built specifically for the needs of older adults while creating new sources of revenue for colleges that are seeing their student enrollment numbers fall and their futures in doubt. They’re also creating a surprising social synergy between two demographic groups that don’t often mix: college kids and senior citizens. That unconventional pairing is becoming a draw for older adults, and making more universities think seriously about converting parts of their campuses from educational spaces to retirement communities. “In the past, maybe people would move to Florida and retire from society. But now people want to stay engaged and involved,” says Cynthia Shonaiya, a partner at the architecture firm Hord Coplan Macht (HCM), which has designed several senior housing projects on university campuses, sometimes known as university-based retirement communities. “Lifelong learning is something that is important to seniors nowadays.” Broadview at SUNY [Photo: Brian Lauer, Jeffrey Totaro Photography] One of the firm’s newest senior living projects is Broadview, located right across the quad from the administration buildings on the campus of the State University of New York’s Purchase College. The project includes 174 independent living apartments, 46 villas, 36 assisted-living residences, and 32 memory care suites. It’s anchored by a 10,000-square-foot building called the Learning Commons that features lecture halls, a performance space, arts studios, and a maker space that are all accessible to both residents and students. Each serves as a conventional gathering area for retired residents, but they’ve also become impromptu learning and teaching spaces, with projects led by both residents and students. “It’s symbiotic,” says Shonaiya. “You have to have a space where people come together that is intentional.” Broadview at SUNY [Photo: Brian Lauer, Jeffrey Totaro Photography] It’s also an attractive concept, particularly to people with a connection to the college. “As soon as we went to market, we saw so many ex-teachers and current teachers automatically sign up for units in the building,” says Chad Bederka, a principal at HCM. “Within the first 15 minutes, the largest units were gone.” Broadview is a $398 million development, arranged through a ground lease from the college to a third-party developer. As state-owned land, the deal was shaped by state legislation, which requires 75% of the proceeds to provide scholarships and 25% to support new faculty. The college receives $2 million in rent payments annually. The financial viability of such projects has caught the attention of university administrators across the country. Alejandro Giraldo, senior living practice leader at the architecture firm Perkins Eastman, says this project type has grown in popularity since emerging about 20 years ago, offering an unconventional source of revenue for higher education institutions. Broadview at SUNY [Photo: Brian Lauer, Jeffrey Totaro Photography] “In many cases, there’s not an option to sell the land because of endowments or because it’s a public school,” he says. “They’re asking what is the product that is going to help us fulfill our educational mission, maintain it, but also expand it and bring some revenue to the school.” Perkins Eastman is a firm that has specialized in senior living since its founding in 1981. In recent years, it has been hired to design more senior livin projects on or adjacent to universities and colleges, including Vincentian Schenley Gardens, an assisted living facility next to Carlow University and the University of Pittsburgh. It’s a privately developed project that’s using its proximity to universities as a selling point. Other projects of this type are developed directly by universities and link senior residents to continuing education opportunities. Sometimes projects are led by third-party developers who emphasize the link to the universities’ programming and student population. “Every school has different approaches and strategies. That’s what is interesting about this. There’s no two that are the same,” Giraldo says. “Unless you have a very close partnership between the operator and the university, that is a recipe for disaster.” Vincentian Schenley Gardens [Image: courtesy Perkins Eastman] Drew Roskos is an associate principal in Perkins Eastman’s senior living studio, and in addition to being an architect, he has a master’s degree in gerontology. He says senior housing at universities works best when projects create an active connection between the residents and the university. That can take the form of an assisted living facility that partners with a university’s nursing program, or an active adult community that has programming tied directly to classes or curricula. Being on a campus helps make those connections even stronger. “The closer the proximity, the more rich and more meaningful the relationship can be,” Roskos says. Vincentian Schenley Gardens [Image: courtesy Perkins Eastman] Building connections between residents and students is also a goal, and one that’s of increasing concern. In 2023, the Surgeon General put out a major report highlighting the negative health and social consequences of isolation and loneliness. Older adults are particularly vulnerable, according to the report, but so are young people. “The idea of having seniors moving to a community that’s on a college campus, with young adults who can mentor them, and they can learn from each other, I think it has significant social benefits,” says Shonaiya. When designing these projects, Shonaiya says architects and senior housing providers must consider what types of amenities they need to include to forge better connections between residents and a university’s students and programs. Some things are already built into a typical college campus, like dining halls, performance venues, and craft-centric spaces like woodshops, and senior housing projects can piggyback off their close proximity. But some facilities built for 20-year-old college students won’t meet the physical needs of older adults, so amenities like a swimming pool or a nearby restaurant are often added. “It’s a balance of what can be shared, what is accessible, and what needs to be duplicated so that it remains convenient for the seniors,” Shonaiya says. NewBridge on the Charles [Photo: courtesy Perkins Eastman] Other design considerations include general accessibility requirements like short walking paths between residences and university amenities, wide hallways, brighter lighting, and interior color schemes that don’t create jarring contrasts. Shonaiya says the Learning Commons at Broadview required special attention to acoustics in order to ensure older users are able to hear and participate in lectures and classes held in the space. “All of those aspects are baked into the design, but in such a way that the students don’t feel like they’re coming into a nursing home,” she says. Broadview at SUNY [Photo: Brian Lauer, Jeffrey Totaro Photography] The projects also need to fit into the surrounding campus, which can sometimes be difficult. Bederka says the Broadview project at Purchase College was added to a campus made largely of concrete brutalist buildings designed in the 1950s and 60s. “Trying to integrate a senior living community into a brutalist design was very challenging,” he says. Instead of mimicking the campus aesthetic, the designers looked to the surrounding community and designed the project to reflect the Georgian-style buildings in the area and the campus’s roots as former farmland. These projects work best whenthey embody the unique character of the university they’re associated with, says Roskos, noting, “You need to find the story that’s behind the relationship. It’s really a reflection of what the university campus feels like. It’s got to operate as a business, but it should be cohesive with its environment.”
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E-Commerce
AI hallucinations are one of users’ biggest concerns when utilizing large language models (LLMs). And while many might expect front-runners like OpenAI and Anthropic to lead the way in addressing the issue, it’s a travel and expenses platform that may be breaking new ground. On Wednesday, Navan revealed its new AI platform, Navan Cognition, which goes beyond single-purpose chatbots and basic AI tools to create an AI workforce capable of automating complex tasks. “We never do cool technology for the sake of it,” says Ilan Twig, Navan’s cofounder and chief technology officer. “We use the best technologies to drive the best user experience.” On June 20, the company confidentially filed for its initial public offering. Navan was last valued at $9.2 billion in 2022 after raising $304 million in equity and debt financing. Navans Cognition-powered virtual travel agent, Ava, can book and reschedule flights and hotels, manage upgrades, process expenses, and provide 24/7 support through a conversational chatbot platform. But early in development, the company realized that for AI to be truly reliable, it must work unsupervisedand more importantly, with no critical hallucinations. “A critical hallucination is when the user somehow, or the bot somehow, gets to the point where something undesirable happens,” Twig says. A hallucination can impact both the user and the company, particularly in terms of travel, whether by booking a flight that doesnt exist to satisfy a request, or offering a free upgrade the user isnt entitled to. With this in mind, Navan began using Cognition through Ava in 2023, ultimately finding that instead of using one generalist chatbot, a network of specialized agents working together produced more accurate and reliable results. “We focused on a real-life problem, and we built the infrastructure to support that real-life problem,” Twig says. Working as an organization Inspired by the neural connections of the human brain, Navan Cognition deploys a modular multi-agent framework, with AI specialized in different areas, supervised for accuracy. In a way, Cognition works as a company org chart, breaking down AI into various departments with particular specialties, like booking flights or issuing refunds. Other “departments” serve as compliance for logic, and “managers” answer questions and liaise with others if a question is unknown. Itamar Kahn, a neuroscience professor and principal investigator at Columbia University’s Zuckerman Institute says Navan identified the conditions that cause LLM hallucinations and developed solutions to eliminate them. Kahn, a close friend of Twig, first heard about Cognition in its early stages three years ago, following the framework’s development. He also provided support for Twig’s recent white paper detailing how Navan Cognition works and what problems it aims to solve. “I have a shared research interest with Ilan: high-order cognition. Essentially, any kind of system, artificial or biological, can react to changing circumstances in its environment, and respond to those efficiently,” Kahn says. When a user asks Ava a question or assigns a task, Cognition routes it through several specialized agents to determine the best course of action. Meanwhile, a supervising AI agent checks responses for accuracy and credibility, acting as a safeguard. Twig says he was inspired by the way supervisors in call centers review and learn from agent calls. So I said, okay, I’m going to have a supervisor,” he tells Fast Company. “But instead of waiting for the end of the week and sampling two calls, I will actually do it for every response that the agent wants to send back to the user. It will first go to the supervisor to ensure that it doesnt feel or smell like a hallucination. Navans departmental-like approach has proven effective, with Ava now handling around 8,000 chats daily, reportedly with zero critical hallucinations. The systems lack of need for human oversight has also helped Navan scale without having to expand its travel support agent workforce. Why is a travel platform at the forefront of AI innovation? Innovation requires curiositya trait Twig has carried from childhood into his work at Navan. At age 15, Twig became obsessed with light, building a virtual harp using mirrors, resistors, and the south-facing window of his childhood home in Israel. “I ended up having eight virtual beams of light connected to the computer. Whenever you disrupted any of the lights, it would generate a note. And it was the Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol . . .” He has nurtured that same inventive spirit on his engineering team at Navan, encouraging fresh thinking on common problems. “We are curious. We are not afraid of making mistakes,” Twig says. But it wasnt just out-of-the-box thinking that led to Cognitions development. Being a smaller company without a sole focus on AI forced Navan to innovate differently. “They’re not an AI company that is trying to solve the problem of large language models,” Kahn says. “They wanted to solve this problem for all of these customers. And I think this is why this system is working.” With fewer resources than giants like OpenAI, Navan had to take a creative approach. “It’s a choice of architecture,” Kahn says. Rather than building another LLM to replace one with errors, Navan changed the inputs and outputs that inhibited the hallucinations. With promising results, Navan is now preparing to scale its platform, making the Cognition framework available to other developers and companies to sign up for later this year. “It is an amazing opportunity, because LLMs are new thing,” Twig says. “It opens the door to pretty much follow your imagination. And if you are persistent and curious, there is an opportunity to do something that no one else on the planet did.”
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E-Commerce
Somewhere along the way, you learned how to read a room. How to anticipate what others needed before they said it. How to shape-shift just enough to stay admired, promoted, or simply safe. You became highly competent at adapting your identity, at being what the moment, the meeting, the mission demanded. And it worked. You delivered. You rose. You built a life of visible success. But lately, in the quiet spaces between the doing, somethings been stirring. A haunting whisper that asks: If I stop performing . . . who am I? This is the quiet cost of adaptation: achieving without anchoring, succeeding without a self. Its more common than we talk about. Especially among high-performing professionals. In fact, more than half of U.S. postgraduate workers say their job is central to their identity. And in environments where productivity and performance are prized above all else, its easy to confuse your role with your worth. Eventually, the gap between the self weve curated and the self weve buried starts to ache. However, theres good news. If the way youve adapted has left the core of you behind, you dont have to forfeit the success youve achieved to rediscover yourself. The key is to learn how to modulateadapt to meet the needs of those around you while still caring for yourselfversus modifywhen you alter yourself to engineer outcomes that cost you your identity. Both can deliver near-term success, but modulating is sustainable. Modifying isnt. Thats what Jason learned. The Story of Jason: A Master of Adaptation Jason had always been the go-to guy. Smart, strategic, relational, he could manage up, down, and sideways without breaking a sweat. By 42, he was COO of a global tech firm. On paper, everything looked ideal. But in a coaching conversation with me one morning, he surprised himself with tears. Ive been everything to everyone, he said quietly. And now Im not sure who I am. I know how to play any role. But I dont know whats real anymore. His voice cracked. I dont think Ive ever actually asked myself what I want. Jasons story isnt rare. Its the natural result of a system that rewards adaptation over authenticity, and of humans wired to belong at almost any cost. Why We Lose Our Identities Several forces drive this invisible drift: 1. Social Conditioning:From a young age, were praised for being compliant, easy, high-achieving. Youre so mature, someone says, because we didnt cry when we needed to. Youre such a leader, someone notes, because we stepped in where others stepped back. We learn early that being attuned to others makes us valuable. 2. A Need for Approval:Psychologically, we are wired to stay close to what feels safe. Children who sense that love is conditional learn to become highly adaptive. Adults carry those patterns forward, often unconsciously. In the workplace, this shows up as people who over-function, over-accommodate, or suppress parts of themselves to stay approved and feel validated. 3. Professional Incentives:Organizations reward whats visible: performance, productivity, polish. Authenticity, vulnerability, or questioning the game? Those are trickier. The SHRM research series found that 44% of U.S. employees feel burned out at work, with 45% feeling emotionally drained and 51% feeling “used up.” Even more disturbing, more than 15% of working-age adults globally experience anxiety or depression, often quietly, behind successful facades. The trouble isnt that we adapted. Its that we forgot we were doing it. Four Ways to Return to Yourself The good news? The self you buried isnt gone. Its just been quiet. Here are four ways to begin the return. 1. Notice the Cost of Over-Adaptation Begin by noticing the signs that somethings off. Do you feel hollow after high-achievement moments? Do you leave meetings unsure what you actually think or want? Do your days feel like performances strung together? Over-adaptation often comes with subtle burnoutnot of energy, but of identity. The mask has grown heavy, but weve worn it so long, we think its our face. This is not a failure. Its a signal. 2. Track What Feels True (and What Doesnt) Reclaiming yourself starts with paying attention to what resonates. What makes you feel more like you? What makes you shrink, go numb, or check out? What conversations, values, or people light something in you? Keep a simple alignment journal for a week. Jot down moments when you felt most like yourself, and least. Patterns will emerge. Your inner voice is quieter than your to-do list, but its still there. Listening is a practice. 3. Create Spacious Identity, Not Just Roles Its easy to collapse our identity into our functions. Im a leader. Im a parent. Im a problem-solver. But the self beneath roles is wider than any title. Ask: Who am I when no one is watching? What values do I hold when theres nothing to gain? What would I say or do if I didnt fear being misunderstood? In a world where 77% of workers have experienced burnout at their current job, according to research by Deloitte, choosing to explore identity outside of work isnt indulgent, its essential. Building a spacious identity means allowing yourself to exist even when youre not being productive or impressive. Its messy, but its true. 4. Practice Micro Acts of Integrity Returning to yourself doesnt require a grand reinvention. Start small. Speak up in a meeting when its easier to stay silent. Take an afternoon to do something that has no strategic value, only joy. Share honestly with a peer instead of defaulting to polished answers. Integrity isnt perfection. Its congruence. And every time you act in a way that matches your inner truth, you rebuild trust with yourself. Its Not Too Late to Return You adapted because you had to. Because it worked. Because it kept you safe or seen or successful. Theres no shame in that. But there comes a point when continuing the performance costs more than it gives. When the ladder you climbed leads not to joy, but to disorientation. And when the only real move left is inward. Thats what Jason did. He didnt quit his job or retreat to the woods. He started smaller. He blocked off one hour a week, just for himself, with no agenda. He began journaling what felt true and what didnt. He reached out to an old friend and admitted he wasnt as fine as he seemed. He brought more curiosity into his leadership meetings, even when he didnt have the answers. And slowly, the hollow places began to fill, not with more achievement, but with alignment. The good news? You dont have to burn i all down. You dont have to quit your job or find yourself on a mountaintop. You just have to start telling the truth. First to yourself. Then maybe to others. You can still be excellent. Still contribute, lead, and grow. But now, from the inside out. The self you thought you lost is waiting. Not to punish you, but to welcome you back.
Category:
E-Commerce
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