Corporate Social Responsibility

When Silence is Not Golden

If we needed a prompt that racism remains one of America’s most critical moral failings, then the recent senseless murder of 10 black grocery shoppers in Buffalo, New York, provided a grim and tragic reminder that this societal blight persists. The ...

Lessons Learned from Trailblazing Grocery Consumer Affairs Professionals

Often, you must look back in order to move forward. I recently had the opportunity to reflect on FMI’s consumer affairs accomplishments over the past several decades with a group of trailblazing grocery consumer affairs professionals that met in ...

Glory to Grocery Do-Gooders: The 2022 Community Uplift Awards

Food retail is not just about stocking shelves and bagging groceries. The work of the industry reaches far beyond the physical parameters of grocery stores and into the very heart of communities they serve. Food retailers go to great lengths to ...

Photo Friday: Consumer Affairs Reunion

More than 20 food retail consumer affairs professionals recently met in Washington, D.C. to share insights from their storied careers. Six of these professionals were recipients of the Esther Peterson Award for customer service and in 2021, FMI ...

How Does FMI Know the Current State of the Food Industry?

The answer is from YOU. We know because the industry tells us each year when we ask, as we have been doing every year for more than 70 years. The first ever The Food Retailing Industry Speaks (Speaks) report appeared in 1949. Seventy-three years ...

Reassessing Problematic and Unnecessary Materials in the Supply Chain

Over the last year, stirrers that are non-reusable, non-recyclable and non-compostable were deemed as one of 11 items in a list of “problematic and unnecessary materials” by the U.S. Plastics Pact. FMI and more than 100 other organizations on the U....

What is Operational Sustainability Anyway?

FMI recently hosted a discussion featuring the Ratio Institute, a nonprofit focused on achieving sustainable food retailing through expert collaboration, industry resources and practical tools. The discuss was designed to provide members of our ...

How To Express Your Love on That Special Day in February

No, we’re not talking about Valentine’s Day. February is when we celebrate Supermarket Employee Day on Tuesday, February 22, 2022 (2.22.22). Here are some action items for preparing to express our love and appreciation for those supermarket heroes ...

5 Awesome & Easy Ways to Celebrate Supermarket Employee Day

Supermarket Employee Day is the official day created in 2021 by FMI to give back to the people and teams who are the unsung heroes of the grocery store! Building on the energy from the inaugural start, for Supermarket Employee Day 2022, here are ...

Being the Champion of Supermarket Employees

Reflecting back on 2021, it reminds me of the final scenes of that original award-winning movie, Rocky, where Sylvester Stallone’s character has the chance to face the biggest challenge of his career and is knocked down again and again only to ...

Seizing the ROI of Social Responsibility

Give and you shall receive. This age-old adage is not only fitting for this charitable time of year, but it also provides concise guidance for food retailers looking to maximize customer loyalty and satisfaction. Now more than ever, consumers want ...

Can We Get to Zero Food Waste?

Last night at dinner, a family friend asked if it was true that around one-third of the food in this country is wasted. It was sobering to say yes. Estimates vary, but approximately 25-40% of food grown, processed and transported in the U.S. will ...

An Update on Our Work Towards Sustainable Packaging in the Food Supply Chain

The U.S. Plastics Pact Roadmap, released today, was created by this collaborative, solutions-driven consortium to enable participants to collectively reach ambitious goals by 2025 that couldn’t otherwise be met on their ...

The Next Hot Topic: Social Justice and Food

The whole world is anticipating, yearning, and preparing for the day when the COVID-19 pandemic does not dominate the horizon of our life considerations. From a food industry perspective, part of that involves speculating which pandemic-tinged ...

Speaking from the Heart on Valentine’s Day

I am seizing this opportunity to issue this blog as my heartfelt Valentine’s Day card to the food industry, the community I have always admired and respected, but have come to appreciate and dare I say, love, in some new and more profound ways over ...