Education

Addressing Your Most Pressing Challenge: Talent

According to The Food Retailing Industry Speaks 2022 report, workforce and talent top the list of challenges facing the food industry. With a turnover rate of 48% among food retailers and a 29% turnover rate for suppliers, it’s easy to understand ...

Drumroll Please: Introducing the 2023 Class of FMI Store Manager Awards Nominees

In addition to celebrating the hardworking people who make up our industry, we want to pay special attention to the store managers who are the heartbeat of local supermarkets across the globe. These devoted leaders embody their company’s vision and ...

Creative Ways to Find and Keep Meat Retail Staff

The labor squeeze has hit many industries over the past two years, causing employers to rethink how to entice new workers and retain existing ones. In the meat industry – which has often challenging environments and tasks that require specific ...

Coupons, Packaging and Home Meal Prep – Oh My!

I‘m not a grocer, but I am a marketing professional who loves to grocery shop. That’s part of why I’m passionate about my work to support the food industry. A bright spot in my project portfolio is the FMI Midwinter Executive Conference. I recently ...

You’ve Stirred It Up! Now Let It Simmer.

The food industry put both its best foot forward and its best food forward at the 2023 Stir It Up! event. The closing event of the 2023 FMI Midwinter Executive Conference, this fundraiser for the FMI Foundation featured six kitchens pitting their ...

Table Stakes: A Resilient, Transparent Meat Supply Chain

The farm-to-fork path has taken some twists and turns over the past few years. One part of the route is a rougher haul, marked by often simultaneous crises. Another part of the path is being cleared to provide a better view from production to the ...

Your Customers Are In It For E.V.E.R.

It’s my belief that members join and retain their membership in FMI for four powerful reasons, or put a bit differently, members are in it for E.V.E....

How Technology is Redefining the Meat Case

While the backroom used to be where butchers made cuts by hand, there’s a different kind of cutting edge in today’s food retail meat business. Advanced technologies are changing the way meat is produced, processed and packaged, as well as handled ...

When Work Feels Like Play

We are in the countdown to the FMI Foundation’s key fundraiser Stir It Up!, taking place Sunday evening, January 22, the last night of the FMI Midwinter Executive Conference. This event is fundamentally a cooking competition within the food industry,...

3 Easy Ways to Jumpstart Your Plans for Supermarket Employee Day 2.22.23

There are more than 40,000 stores that sell food and grocery items in the U.S. alone. Millions of supermarket employees come to work daily to keep shelves stocked and to provide communities with essential services that help them survive and ...

The Value of an Ongoing Relationship

After nearly 30 years as a membership professional in the association world, I’m still surprised that others I encounter do not realize the difference between a subscriber and a member. Many of us are subscribers to services like streaming ...

Amazingly Resilient, Deeply Caring: A Leadership Perspective from Anthony Hucker, Southeastern Grocers

FMI Midwinter Executive Conference Chair, Anthony Hucker, president and chief executive officer, Southeastern Grocers Inc. (SEG), reflects on his own experiences and the ways he upholds his commitment to putting people first in this turbulent ...

Thanksgiving, the Consummate Family Meal and Beyond

Thanksgiving is the consummate family meal. It bears all the nutritional, emotional, mental, and social merits that are accrued when we gather at table sharing a common need of physiological substance, and surprisingly discover that our minds and ...

2022: Give Thanks for Grocery Workers. 2023: Provide Recognition.

More than most years, in 2022 food retailers realized the value and importance of a strong workforce. From frontline associates to cake decorators, grocers have been making recruitment and retention of talent a top priority throughout this ...

How Corporate “Show and Tell” is Helping Food Retailers Thrive

Since kindergarten we’ve all learned the value of sharing with others. It’s reassuring and even heart-warming to hear and gain an understanding of what others have experienced in their lives. In business, it is a way to foresee issues ahead, ...