Along with beef and bacon, peanut butter has long been a popular flavor for dog treats, and about seven years ago, it occurred to Tamara Coleman, founder of Bark Bistro, that there might be a market for a line of peanut butter for pooches.

“No one was marketing peanut butter to dogs, peanut butter happens to be one of the No. 1 search terms for treats for dogs,” Coleman told Retail Brew.

Coleman had started Bark Bistro a couple years earlier as a boutique dog food company, but was daunted by the see-sawing price of beef and other proteins, and decided to stop making the dog-meal products and pivot to peanut butter. The product line would be called Buddy Budder, and Coleman, who at the time lived in Boca Raton, Florida, began producing it entirely in her kitchen in January 2019.

“This started in my townhouse kitchen with literally one Hamilton Beach food processor,” Coleman said. “I was just buying peanuts at Trader Joe’s or Publix, and I was just playing around with different flavors.”

At the beginning, it seemed that she wasn’t just working with peanuts; she was working for peanuts.

Keep reading here.—AAN

While some retailers have taken the “If you can’t beat them, join them” approach to third-party AI platforms such as ChatGPT, Amazon is confident customers will ultimately choose its own AI-powered offerings over dealing with a middleman.

Faced with a choice between a “horizontal agent” and an in-house offering, CEO Andy Jassy told shareholders last week, “a lot of customers are ultimately going to choose to use a great shopping agent from that retailer.”

Here’s his reasoning: The four things shoppers want are broad selection, low prices, fast delivery, and a “retailer that they can trust and that takes care of them,” Jassy said, adding while horizontal agents are “pretty good at aggregating selection,” retailers are “much better at doing all four of those items.”

Amazon isn’t writing off the possibility of working with third-party agents, but Jassy was insistent both parties need to work together to deliver a better customer experience.

Keep reading here.—AV

It’s that time of year again. The Lyst Index, which tracks the hottest fashion brands and products each quarter, just dropped its Q4 rankings, and the top of the list is looking pretty familiar.

Much like in Q3, Saint Laurent claimed the No. 1 spot, followed by Miu Miu and COS. Interestingly, while Saint Laurent has continued to top Lyst’s index for the past couple of quarters, sales for the retailer were down in Q3 of 2025.

But perhaps the biggest surprise of the season was Ralph Lauren—which sat at No. 4—a new entrant in the top five that pushed The Row down to seventh place.

Keep reading here.—JS

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