Fresh Foods

Our Voice of The Food Industry blog offers commentary from FMI subject matter experts on timely and important topics to the food industry.

Stay Connected

  • “How” Matters As Much as “What” in Produce: Findings from the Power of Produce 2019

    Mar 26, 2019
    Just as consumers are rethinking fresh produce in their diets as they embrace more plant-based foods, grocers can also take a new look at their merchandising mindset for fresh fruits and vegetables. The opportunity is certainly ripe: the newly-...

  • The Seafood Category Is Distinct And Intriguing

    Mar 21, 2019
    What reveals the market potential for seafood at retail, given the diversity of products and varying availability and seasonality around the country? The Power of Seafood report – the first in FMI’s “Power of…” series to focus on seafood – shares ...

  • The SCOTUS Case that will Reexamine What “Confidential” Means to You

    Mar 19, 2019
    A legal case heading to oral argument before the U.S. Supreme Court this spring has far-reaching implications when it comes to something you hold near and dear -- your confidential commercial information. FMI is a named party in the case because we ...

  • The Power of Meat 2019

    Mar 12, 2019
    Shoppers are on a power trip when it comes to meat and poultry. And that’s not a bad thing. People continue to enjoy power-packed protein in their diets, usually in the form of meat....

  • Tailor-made In-Store Food Experiences for Different Communities

    Mar 5, 2019
    Food retailers can create in-store memorable experiences lots of ways, but I’m always particularly impress by the grocery stores that take the time to learn their local shoppers’ fresh culinary preferences and build tantalizing experiences around ...

  • The Ever-Changing Meal Kit

    Feb 28, 2019
    The meal kit - in which a consumer receives everything needed to prepare a “home-cooked” meal - has had a short, but colorful history. Meal kit companies that have been around for as long as four or five years seem like sturdy industry veterans. ...

  • Smart Retailers Make It Fresh and Make It an Experience

    Feb 12, 2019
    Smart retailers realized there is a new and very good reason for shoppers to visit a physical store - the incredible real-time experience that comes with the foods and beverages they ...

  • Let Us Begin to Unpack the Romaine Crisis

    Feb 11, 2019
    When the government issued a nationwide consumer advisory on all romaine lettuce just days before the biggest food holiday of the year, the operational impact was massive, and the repercussions continue today. Compounding the situation, this was the ...

  • Fresh Food Management: The Role of Fresh In Retail

    Jan 16, 2019
    Fresh Item Management is not an easy task for any sized retailer. It requires a lot of cooperation from department heads, quality data, constant due diligence, and an end goal for efficiency/profitability. During the recent NRF 2019 Show, I had the ...

  • A Fresh Look Forward

    Jan 8, 2019
    There’s nothing stale about the fresh category in retail, which is arguably turning the food retail business on its head. It’s the ultimate disruptive category when it comes to competing for share of the business and we dedicated significant ...

  • Health and Wellness: The Heart and Soul of Food Retail

    Jan 4, 2019
    Health and wellness is at the heart of almost every food retail success story this year. Significantly, according to the 2018 Food Retailing Industry Speaks research, industry executives identified the consumer health and wellness proposition (81 ...

  • FMI’s 2018 Financial Diversity

    Dec 31, 2018
    Providing the retail food industry with the myriad products and services that FMI offers requires resources—both human and financial capital. To avoid being a one-pronged fork, any well-run business endeavors to diversify its revenue sources and FMI ...

  • Food Safety in 2018 – A Collision of Public Health and Common Sense

    Dec 19, 2018
    Two words sum up food safety in 2018: Romaine Lettuce. Say those words in front of your peers in the food industry and you will be met with heads in hands, eyes rolling, heads shaking and deep sighs. You might even end the conversation before it has ...

  • FMI’s Strategic X’s and O’s in 2018

    Dec 17, 2018
    What is true for the industry is reflected in the life of its trade association. 2018 has been a year of the need for FMI to pay attention to where we plot our X’s while carefully watching out for those sneaky O’...

  • Preventing Unwelcome Guests at Your Holiday Table

    Nov 20, 2018
    Forty-six million turkeys are consumed each Thanksgiving, according to the National Turkey Federation, but the centerpiece for the family meal currently under scrutiny due to an ongoing investigation and multi-state outbreak of a multi-drug ...