It appears that there is some trouble brewing in the agreement between Starbucks (SBUX) and Kraft (KFT). As part of the agreement, Kraft distributed Starbucks bagged coffee and the Seattle's Best brand in supermarkets and other food retailers. The agreement dates back to 1998 and has grown to $500 million in annual sales (initially the deal net sales of $50 million).

The intentions were made public by Starbucks last night. The latest salvo fired in this java jive is a mere continuation of a fight that has included both companies accusing each other of having "improperly characterized the terms of the pact." According to Kraft, it requires Starbucks to pay the fair-market value of the business along with a premium in "certain instances."

Back on February 21, I began a series of articles on Crocs Inc. (NASDAQ: CROX). I have been recommending the stock to the members of the Insiders Insights club of my website since late 2006, when the stock was trading at $40 -- that's before the 2-for-1 split. Those shares are currently at almost $94. On a split basis the stock is above $46. Basically, my members have more than doubled their money in the past six months. Great investment, good timing. What to do now with this controversial company? Where can it go from here?

I have written that Crocs is not a fad, Crocs is an emerging, global phenomenon, and that Crocs even has the opportunity to become the next Nike Inc. (NYSE: NKE). The controversy surrounding Crocs involves the love-it or hate-it relationship with its shoes. People fall very heavily into one camp or another -- there's very little neutrality on this subject!

What makes Crocs a full-blown phenomenon is its extraordinary distribution model. 11,500 domestic-retail, distribution outlets and 12,500 international distribution outlets. Crocs distributes through third-party vendors, therefore not needing its own bricks-and-mortar set-up. It's brilliant as Crocs generates gross margins in the 60%+ range and its "real estate" is someone else's. With this model, Crocs generates operating profit margins in the 25-27% range. This is what appeals to institutional investors! I cannot emphasize this point enough. Young, start-up companies hope -- hope -- to have operating margins in the mid-20's% upon maturity, but to have these margins during the build-up stage is just remarkable. Besides its great sequential quarterly revenue growth, the operating margins "is the story"!

A recent article by Melly Alazraki examines the rapid advance of voice-recognition technology and its application to search utilities. As areas of speculative investment go, this is a great one! I suggest getting on the voice-recognition train right now because it's going to take off and once it does, there will be few stops between here and the top.

Now here's what you want to look for because this is being utilized successfully in warehouses and distribution centers around the globe. You want to find the companies who are developing voice-recognition programming which is "normalized" by the user at time of inception. Simply put, the best voice-recognition applications are user specific in the recognition of voice patterns.

On the industrial side, warehouse and DC workers spend a brief time introducing themselves to the voice-recognition programs by "installing" their own voices into the programming patterns. The applications come to recognize each employee's individual voice and speech patterns. Special nuances such as a lisp, teeth clicking, slurring or a nasal tone are cataloged as specific speech characteristics upon which the programming can rely for accuracy and validation of information and the individual. The industrial world has found that this allows the systems to adapt to any amount of accents, dialects and colloquialisms. In many cases these programs will even act as interpreter between employees and allow individuals who speak entirely different languages to interact effectively.

Please do look into voice recognition as your next cutting-edge investment. Check on the industrial side of things to get the real picture about what is working. Newly developing voice-activated search is already working at our house. I used it just moments ago. I told our two year old to go get her shoes... oh, never mind, that's something altogether different.

A distribution center in Kentucky operated by Kroger Co. (NYSE:KR) -- one of the nation's largest supermarket chains -- nearly had an employee strike at the beginning of the month, as the food retailer was about to turn over the distribution facility to two outside companies. The last Sunday of October was the date for the transfer of ownership from Kroger to the two distribution companies, but a letter announcing a delay was sent to the center's approximately 800 hourly workers a few days later.

Union leaders who represent the center's existing workers want Kroger to sign an agreement, naturally. This agreement would require the two companies Kroger is selling the distribution center to -- Zenith and Transervice -- to keep wages and benefits the same as Kroger currently offers as well as to guarantee job security for employees.

That last bit is odd -- "guarantee job security"? I've never understood why unions would want to ensure that employees -- from the best performers to the worst performers -- remain on the same scale with the same job security. I'm all in favor of merit-based and documented performance and pay increases instead of "longevity" increases that provide zero incentive for workers to ever perform their best -- and that's why I'd never work for a union shop. Ever.