Government Relations

Buying the Luxury of Time to Think

The luxury of reflection and leisurely consideration is disappearing as we seek to do business in a world requiring us to stay two steps ahead or risk quickly finding ourselves three paces behind. At FMI, we have redoubled our efforts at identifying ...

In-Store Pharmacies Are Just What the Customer Ordered

Oliver Wyman reports that more than 1,600 retail locations are now home to healthcare clinics, and an increasing number of pharmacy, supermarket and mass chains have entered the healthcare space. Shoppers desire convenience, access and transparency ...

K-VA-T’s Omnichannel Approach to National Family Meals Month™

Food City was selected for a Gold Plate Award for their omnichannel campaign that excelled in community outreach. To educate and engage their consumers, Food City used in-store, social media, print, and community strategies to spread the message of ...

Advocacy: There’s An App for That

The FMI Advocacy app provides members and supporters with resources to successfully advocate to Congress, from Washington, D.C. or back in the home states and ...

FDA Provides Protections and Opportunities to Make Menu Labeling Successful in Supermarkets

In early May FDA formally extended the menu labeling rule compliance date until May 7, 2018, due to substantive regulatory and enforcement concerns expressed by many food retailers. But even more important, FDA has opened a 60-day comment period to ...

The New Food Safety Testing Gold Standard: Whole Genome Sequencing

While the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2011 (FSMA) has updated U.S. food safety regulations, an emerging technology, known as whole genome sequencing (WGS), is revolutionizing outbreak investigations to more rapidly identify and prevent ...

Are you Prepared for FSVP Compliance? Compliance begins May 30

The first compliance dates for FDA’s FSMA rule on Foreign Supplier Verification Programs (FSVP) for importers of food for humans or animals begin May 30, 2017. The FSVP rule requires importers who are covered by the rule to have risk-based programs ...

What the Tax on Imports Means for Your Business

The Trump administration is now past the “first 100 days” and looking to engage on longer-term issues. Congressional Republicans and the President have identified tax reform as one of their top priorities and are beginning to firm up plans for how ...

Making the Connection with Storytelling

In any organization, the power of storytelling transcends not only audiences but departments. It’s an effective communication tool that connects individuals to one another through the opportunity to frame relatable experiences. ...

Grocers in Government: Why Advocacy is a Key Ingredient for Successful Business

At the beginning of May, representatives from the grocery industry visited the nation’s capital for our annual supermarket Day in Washington fly-in, which is held in partnership with the National Grocers Association and Food Industry Association ...

Soda Taxes: Coming to a City Near You?

If you live near Chicago, Philadelphia, Santa Fe, Seattle, or in Northern California, you’ve probably heard a lot about soda or “sugar-sweetened beverage” taxes recently. If not, pay attention, since efforts to tax these items are a growing trend ...

FMI In the News: Congress should stand with Main Street, not Wall Street

The following opinion piece by Leslie Sarasin, president and CEO of Food Marketing Institute and Peter Larkin, president and CEO of National Grocers Association appeared in The Hill on May 3, 2017....

Photo Friday: Congressional Happenings on the West Coast with Northgate Gonzalez Market

The Food Marketing Institute (FMI) helped Northgate Gonzalez Market host Congressman Tony Cardenas (D-CA) on April 13 at store #24 in Norwalk, CA, where they showcased the mercado concept and talked through some of the more pressing issues impacting ...

30 Years and Counting: Modernizing the Tax Code

Doing your taxes is probably exceeded only by jury duty on the list of civic responsibilities people dread. The genesis of this anxiety is simple to trace - the United States has an outdated and unwieldy tax system that hasn’t been updated in over ...

Forecasting Food Policy

The food retail industry has experienced several years of new rulemakings and other regulatory actions on a scale unlike previous regulatory environments. In addition to the industry-supported Food Safety Modernization Act, new regulations cover a ...