Voice of Food Retail Blog

Adjusting our Optics on the Consumer

FMI’s 2017 work in clarifying shopper expectations of transparency, addressing consumer concerns and highlighting community service helped better frame the food retail picture and sharpened industry focus on the customer’s craving of personalized ...

Final Jeopardy!: Navigating Disruption in Food Retail

Raise your hand if you’re a fan of the long-running TV show Jeopardy! Isn’t it satisfying when you can answer the question, especially if the contestants are stumped? Considering all the disruption today in the food industry, don’t we wish we had ...

Food Retail as a Social Network

Food retailers are embracing their roles as arbiters and curators of these food experiences, so we recognize the need to challenge FMI’s ways of communicating the priority issues of food retail to better depict our members’ dynamic ...

The Expanding Universe: Food Retail Keeps Pace With an Evolving Definition of Sustainability

The definition of sustainability has evolved enormously over the past decade, expanding into the broader concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR). When we talk today about sustainable supply chains, it doesn’t just cover the environmental ...

The Freshest Source for Information

Food retailers understand that the fresh experience is dictated by the new expectations of a more engaged consumer, so it’s important for FMI to keep its finger on the pulse of the shopper, helping food retailers navigate consumers’ demands – and ...

SQFI: Shifting Food Safety Initiatives from Reactive to Proactive in 2017

The Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) shifted the food safety mindset from reactive to proactive. SQFI has responded by making changes and updates in 2017 to help companies nurture a food safety culture that is preemptive and ...

2017: A Quest to Improve Food Safety

Each year, FMI’s Food Protection Committee (FPC) establishes initiatives that serve as the focus of the committee’s work for the year. Its initiatives focused on dealing with new regulations, managing recurring food safety problems and tackling ...

Celebrating 2017 Legislative, Regulatory, Judicial Success and Laying the Groundwork for the Future

While tax reform is probably the most significant legislative item for 2017, the broad range of legislative and regulatory items that FMI and the industry were able to influence – both offensively and defensively – demonstrates the diverse portfolio ...

The Lego Legacy of 2017

2017 has been a year of big accomplishments for FMI, but something of a Lego-experience since these huge achievements are the sum of many, many small steps and tiny pieces coming together. Over the next few weeks, FMI will devote its blog platform ...

To Speak with One Voice

We refer to this new program as the Unified Voice Protocol and it is FMI’s most recent effort to establish a model approach to proactively perpetuate the environment of trust consumers tell us they enjoy with food retailers and to enhance that trust ...

Protecting Your Brand Reputation with Seafood Fraud Mitigation

While emerging technologies and tools to track and verify, such as blockchain, will enhance our future response to supply chain fraud, FMI is focusing its efforts on helping members detect it today. FMI has just released, Best Practices on How to ...

In the Spirit of Giving, Let’s Stir It Up!

It’s that time of year when we’re all encouraged to give back a little. Maybe you’re running a store promotion to raise money for a local charity or working with a local food back to provide families holiday meals. However you’re giving back this ...

Preparing Food Retailers for the Blockchain Revolution

Built on the foundation of trust and security, blockchain is a technology framework that stores, updates and verifies data across a decentralized peer-to-peer platform. This data is stored in encrypted, timestamped records – or blocks – that link to ...

What Will the Role of Store Development Be In The Digital Age of Food Retail?

Food retailers know that digital and mobile technology are influencing shoppers’ expectations for experiences and convenience. Meeting consumer needs will ultimately transform the size, layout and offering in retail ...

Store Managers Ingrained in the Success of a Community

It’s undeniable that these food retail professionals possess a unique quality of leadership, and an incredibly diverse skill set that, in a single day, ranges from being a professional circus ringleader to a strategically, savvy business operator. ...