Education

For Food Retailers Infrastructure Isn’t Just About Reliable Roads

This week kicked-off the seventh-annual Infrastructure Week, with hundreds of organizations and companies coming together to stress the importance of a reliable, well-managed national infrastructure. This year’s iteration comes at a particularly ...

New Tools to Get to ‘Know Your Industry’

How do you really get to KNOW an industry like food retail? You can work in it, but that might only give you one point of view about the industry. You can read about food retail, but you’d need to read a lot to understand both the history and ...

5 Modern Day Imperatives for Private Brands

In every business process there are several imperatives that move the needle in a positive direction. At the conference this week, I walked attendees through five key imperatives that have been identified through our private brand research supported ...

People Are the Most Valuable Asset to Any Business

I often hear our members asking how do food retailers meet the challenge to identify, recruit, train, and retain top talent? David Smith, president and CEO of Associated Wholesale Grocers, Inc. and co-chair of Future Leaders eXperience, says it’s ...

The Future of Retail Metrics

There is an advantage to looking at the larger retail landscape and applying the lessons learned to food retail. I had the pleasure of speaking with Rod Sides, vice chairman, U.S. retail and distribution leader, Deloitte LLP about how changes in ...

Backhaul Pilot Project Aims to Reduce Empty Trucks on the Road

The backhaul challenge in transportation is characterized by an imbalance in transport flows between locations. A backhaul, as it relates to trucking capacity and logistics, is the return trip of a commercial truck that is transporting freight back ...

Niagara University: A Relevant Food Retail Marketing Education

A few years ago, local and regional industry partners approached Niagara University in Buffalo, NY about the need for strong young professional talent in the food retail and consumer products goods (CPG) industry. The result of these initial ...

5 Things to Know About Gen Z Joining the Workforce

My son is part of Generation Z and he’s currently finishing up college. He started his first part-time job recently and was excited for the experience, but he also had some initial complaints about the way the organization did things, and couldn’t ...

Yesterday’s Trailblazers Are Inspiring Tomorrow’s Food Retail Leaders

Lakeisha Hall is a traffic manager for Associated Wholesale Grocers in Kansas City. Christina Caratura is a human resources specialist for ShopRite in Lawnside, N.J. Scott Kaverman is a category manager for Schnuck Markets in St. Louis, a company he’...

Did Millennials Usher in The Era of The Impossible Whopper?

Recently, Burger King introduced the Impossible Whopper—a vegetarian version of the classic Whopper—and there are claims of other fast food restaurants following this trend. Taste testers in the pilot location of St. Louis, Missouri, are giving the ...

Cornell University: Requirements for the Future Food Retail Workforce

I recently spoke with two faculty and staff members of Cornell’s FIMP program, Edward McLaughlin, Robert G. Tobin Professor of Marketing, and director of FIMP and Bill Drake, senior extension associate and director, executive education of FIMP and ...

Blockchain: It’s Not “If” But “When”

Blockchain is just a way to collect data on the goods that retailers use. The competitive advantage between retailers will be their ability to use that data to transform their business....

Every Day Community Cornerstones: Celebrate the 2019 Store Manager Awards Finalists

No longer are these incredibly hardworking individuals just responsible for running brick and mortar operations, they’re running complex, multi-faceted businesses. While navigating the ever-changing needs of consumers online and in-store, they ...

The Promise of Artificial Intelligence for Food Retail

At the recent Annual Meat Conference in Dallas, a roomful of attendees were baffled by what sounded like a simple question: “How often do you interact with artificial intelligence?” The fact is that, increasingly, in our everyday lives we encounter ...

Ninety-Three Retail Professionals Earn the FMI Food Retail Leader Certificate

In its inaugural year, 93 retail professionals earned the FMI Food Retail Leader Certificate. The certificates were awarded to individuals who completed the self-assessment of their leadership capabilities as they relate to the Compass® leadership ...