Fresh Foods

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 ...

Slice of the Bakery Market

Slicing into the overall bakery market that racked up $59.7 billion in grocery sales in 2018, there are similar diverging preferences for baked goods of all kinds. The first Power of Bakery report, recently released by Food Marketing Institute and ...

How Does FMI Know the State of the Food Retail Industry?

The first ever The Food Retailing Industry Speaks (Speaks) report appeared in 1949. Seventy years later, this report continues to provide the food retail industry with important benchmarks, facts and figures that are used in our advocacy work on ...

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 ...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 ...