Voice of Food Retail Blog

Digital Transformation Takes Food Retail By Storm in 2017

The grocery industry is at a critical tipping point. In January 2017, Nielsen and FMI embarked on a multi-year initiative to explore this unprecedented digital transformation. Initial findings from FMI’s The Digitally Engaged Food Shopper study ...

Emerging Issues: Identifying Challenges to Food Retailing

This is where FMI adds significant value to its members and their trading partners. Through our Emerging Issues initiative, we identify issues that have the greatest potential to affect the food industry in the next three to five ...

The Future Is Now: Food Retail Establishments Becoming Health and Wellness Destinations

While food trends may change as quickly as your Instagram feed refreshes, health and wellness in food retail continues to grow into a mainstay in food purchase decisions. Food retailers report the top two trends they believe will most positively ...

FMI Foundation Sets New Records in Fundraising, Family Meals, Research and Scholarships

2017 was a record-setting year for the FMI Foundation. In January, the Foundation launched a completely re-designed fundraising event that included a lively cooking competition designed to accentuate the FUN in Fundraising and celebrate the good ...

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 ...