Education

Is Your Data an Enterprise Asset?

Data has been at the center of many discussions and presentations for years. Big data and small, for many retailers and brands data is not the strategy, but the intel that informs or supports a broader product and/or consumer engagement ...

The Future of Artificial Intelligence in Food Retail

A lot of futuristic movies and TV shows portray a society where robots or Artificial Intelligence (AI) take on a lot of the more mundane tasks in society. In Star Trek you can order a meal from a wall panel, in the Jetsons the dog, Astro, is walked ...

Strategizing for the Future: We’ve Launched FMItech@Midwinter

We’ve launched FMItech@, a new feature at FMI Midwinter Executive Conference, placing the spotlight on technology. We’ll delve deep into proven and emerging trends and their applications for your businesses. Through FMItech@, we’ve added Tech Talks, ...

How to Get Started with the SQF Food Safety Code for Retail

Today’s consumers are more educated about the food they’re providing their families and require more information about the quality of their food. Heightened consumer demand for increased food safety assurances starts with retailers providing ...

Grocers, Get Ready for Artificial Intelligence-based Transformation

Among the six digital imperatives for a successful omnichannel strategy established by FMI and Nielsen is one that involves completeness and consistency across in-store and digital shelves, cutting costs and creating a clear assortment inventory ...

When It’s Time to Plan, Best Plan to Make Time

Today, the approach to planning includes words like nimble, adaptable, agile and flexible. Of course, the irony is that to make our organizations all those things, we must plan for it. And that is exactly what FMI is doing. With the help of partners ...

University Profile: USC Marshall Food Industry Management Program Creates “Intrapreneurs”

As an adult, I sometimes dream about what it would be like to go back to school. Knowing what I know now, how would I do things differently and what courses would I take? I recently had the chance to learn more about the Food Industry Management (...

Photo Friday: Food Forward

FMI President and CEO Leslie Sarasin recently spoke at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation’s Food Forward event and moderated a discussion on Mapping Consumer Trends with Nicole Davis, senior innovation manager of our brands for Kroger, and ...

Making Disruption Work for Your Business

Food retailers continue to see opportunities for differentiation as consumer expectations continue to shift and evolve. They have also become increasingly savvy, having to compete with an ever-growing set of rivals. We’re seeing a variety of ...

The Blurring Lines of Foodservice

For starters, although we're in the food retail business, we’re all consumers at the end of the day. Like the people who shop our stores (or who we want to shop at our stores), we may divide our meals during a typical week by eating out at ...

The Fresh Food Supply Chain: Combating Food Waste

The strawberry – featured in a video produced by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and shown at a panel discussion on Combating Food Waste during the recent FreshForward event in Chicago – doesn’t stand alone. According to panelist Dr. Frank Mitloehner, ...

Global Food Production and Fresh Foods

“When I was a boy, the world population was three billion. Now, we are at seven billion. Throughout our lifetime, human population on the planet will have tripled,” said Dr. Frank Mitloehner, professor and air quality extension specialist in the ...

The Evolving Consumer: Tastes Change With The Times

The venue for the recent FreshForward event in Chicago, presented by FMI, underscored the inevitability of the evolving consumer. Held in a funky, colorful meeting space inside a former meatpacking building, the room’s décor was designed to spark ...

Community Outreach Awards: Making A Difference in Communities

It’s that time of year again when we like to recognize food retailers as the driving force behind these community and charitable events. Food retailers submit their best practice examples of programs designed to educate and mentor youth; impact the ...

Moving from Worry to What Works

As a good-news oriented, lets-find-the-opportunity–here kind of person, it troubles me that the piece of FMI research posed for annually providing a snapshot of the state of the food retail industry tends to focus on concerns and ...