Research

Our Voice of The Food Industry blog offers commentary from FMI subject matter experts on timely and important topics to the food industry.
  • Loyalty Programs: Getting to Know You, Getting to Know All About You

    Sep 26, 2019
    Thirty years later shoppers are still sharing data with their grocery store, privacy is still a concern, and there is a limit to the willingness of shoppers to share personal information for specific benefits. According to the 2019 U.S. Grocery ...
  • How Is Online Shopping Changing Grocery Shopping?

    Sep 23, 2019
    This year’s U.S. Grocery Shopper Trends report takes a deep dive into the growing world of online shopping and explores how the evolving ecommerce world is changing how Americans shop for food and how that may impact food retailers. On the surface, ...
  • Gen Z Shoppers Partner with Grocery Stores on Health and Wellness

    Sep 18, 2019
    Young adulthood is a time of freedom, discovery and charting your path in the world. Eating balanced, healthy meals is normally a low priority during this time. Gen Z, however, couldn’t be more different—they are young adults focused on ...
  • Three Lessons Grocers Can Learn from Starbucks About Foodservice

    Sep 16, 2019
    According to the 2019 Power of Foodservice at Retail report, in a typical week, an average of 4.5 dinners are prepared at home, whether cooked from scratch or using semi/fully prepared items. When preparing dinner, 63% of consumers incorporate time-...
  • Online Shopper Reality and the Limits of Intuition

    Sep 10, 2019
    Since the advent of online grocery shopping, it has just been intuitively assumed that this new channel would take a major bite out of brick-and-mortar grocery traffic and sales. It just felt like a logical assumption that as people more frequently ...
  • I'm A 26-Year-Old-Grocery-Shopping Personalization Pro

    Sep 6, 2019
    Do you ever wonder how much you're personalizing your grocery shopping? Today’s households are eating in increasingly personalized ways as they pursue individual aspirations of eating well, challenging the food shopping experience....
  • Where Do Plant-Based Proteins Fit in The Grocery Store?

    Sep 4, 2019
    FMI’s Power of Meat 2019 report finds, plant-based meat alternatives sales increased 19.2% last year and account for $878 million in annual ...
  • Life on the Verge of a Meltdown – Personalizing Shopping with a Toddler

    Aug 20, 2019
    Grocery shopping with a toddler is like shopping with a ticking time bomb. You have a finite amount of time to get your shopping completed before the inevitable meltdown ...
  • How Two Millennials Personalize Health and Well-Being

    Aug 15, 2019
    Any internet search for "healthy" will show there is no one size, fits-all approach. As a 24-year old type-1 diabetic, I need to take good care of my health, especially through my diet. My husband, Nick, still has a young person's metabolism and ...
  • Who Decides What’s for Dinner?

    Aug 13, 2019
    When asked who makes the household food decisions, some people may think of the 1950’s model of homemaking, where a stay-at-home wife did most of the shopping and food selection for a family. FMI’s 2019 U.S. Grocery Shopper Trends report indicates ...
  • Confessions of a Subscription-Service Enthusiast

    Aug 12, 2019
    I’ve always been a pushover for predictive analytics, and I take solace in the fact that I’m not alone among those who relish in custom products and services. According to U.S. Grocery Shopper Trends 2019, I’m one of the 8% of U.S. shoppers who have ...
  • The 25% Of Us Who Grocery Shop for Ourselves

    Jul 30, 2019
    I’m one of the 25% of grocery shoppers making purchasing decisions solely for myself. As a single shopper, I have my own methods to meet my household shopping needs, but are my shopping habits really that different from co-shoppers, shared shoppers ...
  • Comparing Grocery Shopping: Brick-and-Mortar vs. Online

    Jul 24, 2019
    Last year, I wrote about how brick-and-mortar grocery stores are alive and well, and looking at the 2019 U.S. Grocery Shopper Trends report we see this trend remains strong. An important indicator is the number of trips that consumers make to brick-...
  • What Does It Look Like When Grocery Trends Intersect?

    Jul 23, 2019
    What does it look like when all of these trends intersect? It looks like a month in the life of FMI’s Carol Abel, who manages a single-shopper household with a varying grocery list. In one month, Carol shopped at five different grocery stores with ...
  • Meal Kits: One Man’s Dream Becomes A Reality

    Jul 19, 2019
    According to FMI’s 2019 U.S Grocery Shopper Trends report, 17% of U.S. shoppers have tried a least one subscription-model approach to food procurement, most often online meal kits or grocery deliveries. Men have adopted meal kits at a higher rate ...