Just-baked bone-shaped treats containing ancient grains including quinoa, buckwheat and chia sit on a lab counter that looks more like a large kitchen island. The smell is so good they could be mistaken for real cookies. And that’s the objective, as animal lovers across America increasingly project their personal tastes on their cats and dogs.

Dog treats may seem like a strange bet for one of the world’s largest traders of crops such as corn, wheat and soybeans. But the $91 billion pet-food market is growing so rapidly it will be almost as big as the chocolate confectionery market by 2024, according to data from Euromonitor International Ltd.

“What we are seeing is a trend toward humanization of pets, so pet food solutions and labels are starting to mirror more and more what the pet owners are thinking and eating,” Ian Pinner, vice president of growth and strategy at ADM, said in an interview. “Think about gluten-free pet food. It’s a very small category, but it’s a category that’s growing very quickly at the moment.”

The newly-opened research center is part of ADM’s push to transform itself into an ingredients and animal-nutrition business, a drive largely responsible for billions in acquisitions in recent years. This year’s $1.8 billion buyout of Neovia, ADM’s second-biggest deal ever, expanded the pet-food business from just supplying ingredients, premixes and treats to manufacturing and owning consumer brands.

ADM is already seeing strong results. In the third quarter, the nutrition unit — which also contains Wild Flavors, a maker of flavors, colors and food ingredients — accounted for 17% of earnings before interest, taxes, and amortization, up from 9.5% a year earlier.

Dogs and cats have become so popular that American households now have more pets than children. As a result, the pet-food market is expected to have grown at an average annual rate of 5.5% to $91 billion in the 10 years through 2019, according to Euromonitor data. By 2024, the researcher found, pet food sales may hit $115 billion, just $1.1 billion less than the chocolate market.

Pet food usually contains a blend of meat and grains, including corn, wheat, rice and soy products. But just like in human food, the gluten-free craze is spreading with pet owners increasingly seeking grain-free options. Many brands and treats have replaced traditional recipes with ingredients that include pea protein, sweet potatoes and even tapioca starch.

“As we humanize pets, there are more and more ingredients being introduced,” Ryan Lane, president of ADM’s North American animal-nutrition business, said in an interview in Decatur. There’s now a value proposition with things like food without wheat, or corn or soy, he said.

“That has been the biggest change over the last five years,” Lane said. “And our specialty ingredients business can supply those.”

As consumers become more demanding, so do ADM’s customers.

The 117-year-old agriculture giant is working harder to cater to customer needs as it develops new products. To prototype treats for clients, for instance, ADM’s lab has a 3-D printer that can make “on the spot concepts and designs for what might be a new dog treat,” Pinner said. The research center is also focusing on aquaculture, another growing area for ADM, and should have salmon and shrimp tanks in operation by 2021.

Just like for humans, taste is crucial. The pet treats ADM develops are tested in partnership with the University of Illinois. Dogs will get two bowls of dog food and scientists will note their preferences. Studies also take into account if a dog has a right or left paw preference, meaning they have a tendency to turn one way or the other when deciding which bowl to focus on. And surprisingly, taste is also important for fish.

“Salmons are carnivores and they will spit it right out if it doesn’t taste right,” Lane said.

Overall, Americans last year spent around $72.6 billion on everything from pet food to veterinary care, a figure that’s expected to rise by 3.9% this year, the American Pet Products Association estimates.

“If you think about labels, wanting to be more nutritious and less processed, healthier and more traceable, I think those are trends you’ll see coming through companion animals as well,” ADM’s Pinner said.

She knew there was an audience, but she had to find a way to fit into the schedule of workers — often women — trying to juggle family life and caring commitments around long hours on the shop floor.

Getting workers up to speed on everything from digital skills and visual merchandising to functional math is becoming more pressing as major chains such House of Fraser, Mothercare and ToysRUs shutter stores and shift online. The employees being left behind are predominantly female, often facing high barriers to securing new positions in a changing workplace, even when initiatives like Wainwright’s Ambition Leeds are stepping in.

It’s a particular problem for Britain, which really is a nation of shopkeepers. Retail is the largest private sector employer with 2.9 million people. Of the sales assistants and cashiers on the front line of stores, around seven in 10 are female, according to the Annual Population Survey.

But while you’re still likely to hear a female voice at the grocery store checkout, it’s increasingly likely to be a machine. Self-service checkouts and home delivery are now ubiquitous. J Sainsbury, the second largest supermarket chain, is even trialing an entirely till-free store in central London, meaning the kinds of jobs available are shifting away from the female dominated end to those more usually held by men.

“Work is gendered,” said Vivian Hunt, managing partner for the U.K. and Ireland at McKinsey. “The further you go back in the supply chain, in manufacturing and warehousing, there are fewer women but those jobs are a little slower to be automated. It’s the customer facing, customer service roles, it’s the call support centers, the back office jobs with low physicality. These roles are more vulnerable.”

The Office for National Statistics estimates that about two-thirds of cashier, sales and retail assistant jobs are at high risk of being replaced by technology. Of the 108,000 job losses in sales and customer service occupations between 2011 and 2018, almost three quarters were women, according to analysis by the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce.

At department store Debenhams, many workers face an uncertain future. It may close as many as 22 locations next year as part of an agreement with creditors to save the company.

Ex-retail workers are staying unemployed for longer. About 40% have been unemployed for six months or more, the second-highest of all sectors and a stark turnaround from before the global financial crisis, when they had among the shortest periods of unemployment, according to the Resolution Foundation.

Overall, 70% of roles at high risk of automation are currently held by women, according to the ONS. McKinsey estimates that one-in-four working women will need to substantially re-skill — and probably more in retail.

Many of the industry’s new jobs, Wainwright says, aren’t on the shop floor. They’re more like social media specialists, visual merchandisers, data analysts and multimedia designers. Even those in more traditional customer service roles face new challenges, from event planning to drive store footfall to the IT skills needed to handle online order collections.

For bosses, a tight labor market and lack of qualified candidates means redeploying existing workers is increasingly attractive. Employment is near record highs and the jobless rate is below 4%. McKinsey estimates the cost of retraining an employee is around 10% of their annual salary, while replacing them can cost as much as 30%.

Retraining isn’t always that simple, though. Despite huge changes in attitude over the past century, women in still spend an average 23 hours per week caring for family members, more than double the time spent by men. As a result they may not be able to commit additional — and usually unpaid — time to learning outside working hours.

Mobility is also an issue for women who are likely to earn less than their partner. Wider caring responsibilities may also mean they need to remain close to elder family members, or near to childcare for their own kids.

For Wainwright and the team at Ambition, the answer was to fit around the lives of those it hopes to reach. That means opening early, for pre-work sessions, and late, with at a location right in the center of the retail district.

“When we’re running a breakfast session, people know that they can leave here and be at work literally within five minutes,” Wainwright said. “The money could be invested in retraining them. It makes far more sense than getting rid of people.”

Only days after the Arnaults’ LVMH snapped up jeweler Tiffany & Co. for $16.2 billion, word surfaced of a possible riposte from the Paris giant’s crosstown rival, the Pinaults’ Kering. The Gucci owner has held exploratory talks with Italian skiwear maker Moncler SpA about a potential acquisition, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

“We had expected the LVMH-Tiffany news to catalyze a round of industry consolidation — which Kering-Moncler would be a part of — but the race seems to have gotten underway even more swiftly than imagined,” said Swetha Ramachandran, investment manager of the GAM Global Luxury Brands Fund.

The rivalry, more than two decades in the making, has defined the modern luxury industry and shows no signs of ending. Since 2001, when Kering founder Francois Pinault beat out LVMH Chief Executive Officer Bernard Arnault for control of Gucci, the companies have increased their hold over the sector through dozens of deals.

Kering has announced at least $14.7 billion of acquisitions since 1995, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, compared with at least $45.5 billion for LVMH. Each family’s wealth has increased vastly as the companies integrated their purchases and rode a wave of demand in China.

As their dominance over the business has grown, the two families have broadened the playing fields on which they compete. The Pinaults and Arnaults have bought up neighboring vineyards in Burgundy, set up separate art museums in Paris and even one-upped each other with contributions to the rebuilding of Paris’s fire-ravaged Notre Dame Cathedral.

On one scorecard, Arnault has a clear lead. He’s the richest person in Europe with a $101.8 billion fortune, after adding $33 billion this year alone, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Pinault, whose son Francois-Henri now runs Kering, has a net worth of $38.7 billion, up $9 billion in 2019.

Sprawling structures like those of Kering and LVMH — which owns brands ranging from Louis Vuitton to Christian Dior to Dom Perignon — have gone out of style in other industries. But there’s no conglomerate discount for these giants.

Combining many different brands under one umbrella lets LVMH and Kering pool functions like purchasing and information systems, while feeding investment to those that need it most, as individual labels ride the ups and downs of consumers’ changing tastes.

With a market value of more than 200 billion euros, LVMH is one of the biggest companies in Europe. Its rival, which owns Saint Laurent, Boucheron jewelry and Brioni suits, trails at 68 billion euros, but Gucci has been the fastest-growing major luxury brand over the past few years.

As the bigger player, LVMH has led the way in turning new acquisitions into drivers of growth. While Arnault has had a few missteps, including purchases of Donna Karan and Marc Jacobs and unsuccessful runs at Hermes International and Gucci, deals for the likes of Bulgari jewelry, Givenchy and Christian Dior have paid off handsomely. LVMH has pushed newly acquired brands upmarket with a sharper focus on marketing and store presentation, boosting profits.

Kering’s offerings include Ulysse Nardin watches, fashion labels such as Alexander McQueen and Bottega Veneta, but it’s less diversified than LVMH. The company has become increasingly dependent on Gucci, which provided more than three-quarters of its operating profit in the first half of the year. That’s putting pressure on Kering to hedge against the risk that demand for the Italian brand’s new looks could fade. Hence the possible interest in Moncler, which has a market value of about $12 billion.

To secure the maker of puffy down jackets worn on the ski slopes of St. Moritz and at the World Economic Forum in Davos, the Pinaults will need the backing of another luxury billionaire. Moncler Chairman Remo Ruffini’s holding company owns a 22.5% stake in the company, valued at about $2.5 billion.

Moncler confirmed that it’s had contacts with Kering, saying there are no concrete proposals. A representative for the French company declined to comment.

So successful have the Pinaults and the Arnaults been that others elsewhere have sought to emulate the conglomerate approach, but so far their acquisitions have been limited to second-tier brands. Capri Holdings Ltd., the U.S. parent of Michael Kors, has added Italian label Versace and Jimmy Choo. Tapestry Inc. owns Coach, Kate Spade and Stuart Weitzman. China’s Shandong Ruyi has talked of turning itself into an Asian LVMH.

With many Italian luxury labels already acquired and others struggling, that means the global luxury business is increasingly controlled from Paris.

“Competition is the mother of invention,” Luca Solca, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein in Geneva, said. “The rivalry between LVMH and Kering – or between Arnault and Pinault, if you really want to personalize it – has brought the creation of two incredible companies that sit at the top of the modern luxury goods industry.”

He added that the CAAT should conduct the inspection immediately. If it finds any airlines financially unhealthy, it should increase its frequency of such inspections and order them to improve their financial status.

He said that the move is aimed at proactively preventing financial troubles from causing problems to passengers.

CAAT director general Chula Sukmanop said that it has found several carriers should be closely monitored in relation to their financial status.

If they fail to improve their situations in compliance with relevant rules, they risk having their licences revoked, he added.

This is in line with the long-term contracts PTT has signed with four suppliers.

The company estimated that the total demand of LNG next year would be almost the same level as this year or a little bit higher.

The LNG demand from power plants is expected to remain the same this year at 4,800-5,000 million cubic feet per day, accounting for 60 per cent of the country’s total demand.

The demand by the industrial sector, which accounts for 20 per cent of total demand, is expected to increase from this year.

He expected the demand for industrial use will expand as PTT’s gas business has continued to expand its gas distribution network to tap more number of industrial customers.

PTT has also increased the number of partners to distribute its LNG on a retail basis. Therefore, he expected growth in LNG demand for industrial use next year.

PTT is expected to begin trial of LNG-related services in the first quarter next year as part of the government’s policy of turning Thailand into the regional LNG trading hub.

The activities include LNG reloading and LNG bunkering services.