Corporate Social Responsibility

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 ...

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. ...

A Spoiler Alert on Broiler Issues

Food retailers can soon expect being contacted by their friendly neighborhood animal activist regarding concerns with broiler chicken production. Five specific areas of concern will be named. However, as a means of getting retailers to address ...

Grocery Stores Explore More Social Media and Digital Advertising

A couple of years ago, I wrote about how grocery stores used social media with findings from our 2015 Food Retailing Industry Speaks report to make the case that the food retail industry was just beginning to dip their toe in the digital marketing ...

The Ripple Effect of Kindness

In today’s world it is far too easy to miss the powerful ripple effect caused by one kind act, and no one demonstrates this better than food retailers....

Recasting Disruption As Growth Opportunity

If we continue to characterize all things driving change as disruptors, we paint all change in the darker, more negative hues, suggesting that we view it as something we are being thrust into against our ...

Surprise! Shoppers Expect Retailers to Know the Answer to These Questions

I have found I can usually trust my instincts and intuitions when it comes to knowing what most people think, and when I question my judgment in this regard I tend to rely on my Kentucky roots and the connections I still have there to gauge what ...

How Do #GrocersDoingGood Create Youth Development Programs in Communities?

The unique strength of Cooking up Change comes from its power to elevate a meal and a message created by students so that it reaches their peers locally and nationwide. Through the competition, students gain a platform to discuss the importance of ...

Help Needed to Set the Table for Economic Growth

Our industry is in a time of great transition and change. The landscape is evolving in ways that necessitate significant capital expenditures and investments in order for traditional grocery stores and supermarkets to remain ...

The Unsung Heroes of Local Communities

While I often witness how the stores I frequent are involved in making a difference in our neighborhood, through the awards, I get to glimpse how the oft-unmentioned kindness of grocers throughout the U.S. can change their neighbor’s lives, proving ...

From Customer to Partner

Shoppers are on a quest to become more deeply connected to the food experience, and the retailer is a vital part of facilitating that connection – not just by providing the product, but also by providing the surrounding story about the product....

Transforming a Good Idea into a Reality

The Trading Partner Alliance’s Product Code Date Labeling initiative took a big step into the real world with the publication of two documents: 1) Product Code Date Labeling: Crucial Initiative to Reduce Consumer Confusion and 2) an implementation ...

Going the Distance for Consumers – Beyond the Label

Customers are looking for more and more information about the products they buy – the kind of detailed information that will not fit on the package, but can be conveyed electronically. ...