Research

Innovation Takes on New Meaning in Private Brands

When the COVID-19 pandemic arrived, many companies temporarily put at least some private brand product innovation on hold to address the crisis. More recently, we’re starting to see a renewed commitment to innovation. Food retailers saw the pandemic ...

Food Retailers Put Technology Front and Center

Consider how technology experimentation has played out in the food retail industry. In recent years, retailers have made progress in fits and starts, going after use cases ranging from better customer experience to improved efficiency. ...

Witnessing the Food Industry

Recently, I was able to share insights gleaned from my experience by speaking at the Retailing Summit hosted by FMI’s newest university member, Texas A&M and the Mays School of Business Center for Retailing Studies. My talk at the virtual event was ...

Who Will (or Will Not) Be Sitting at Your Thanksgiving Table?

As I look at FMI’s most recent U.S. Grocery Shopper Trends COVID-19 Tracker, I see that we are not alone with our dilemma. Nearly a third of Americans are planning to do less this Thanksgiving than in previous years (30%). ...

How Food Retail Ecommerce Got Ready for Prime Time

In hindsight, it’s interesting how food retailers described their ecommerce sophistication a year ago in the FMI Food Retailing Industry Speaks report. Only 4% of responding companies with online sales considered themselves to be very sophisticated ...

Four Common Misconceptions About Food Prices

A number of misconceptions regarding grocery prices regularly permeate both the news and our water cooler conversations. These are due to a combination of outdated ideas that should have been put to rest long ago and high profile “examples” that are ...

And Now for Some Good News on the Family Meals Front

The number of partners and stakeholders continues to grow and the creativity with which they have embraced and shared the good news of family meals is yielding incredible results. I am pleased to share that we’ve made another leap, and in 2020, 33% ...

A Tale of Two Years: A Look at The Food Retail Industry in 2019 and Early 2020

The most recent The Food Retailing Industry Speaks report identifies a striking similarity between ”A Tale of Two Cities” and a tale of two years, 2019 and 2020, for the food industry. Both relay the story of how stark change and challenging times ...

I Am Running Out of Ideas, Somebody Help!

As I made my way by the deli section, I was forced to follow a different path than normal because of the new one-way signs on the floor. As I explored this new area of the store that I did not know existed, I saw an array of chicken, seafood and ...

Consumers Need Help Cooking Frozen Foods

On September 23, 2020, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) issued a press release highlighting new consumer research on the preparation of frozen ...

A Fly on The Wall: A Look at The Food Industry’s Performance

FMI is about to release our 71st annual The Food Retailing Industry Speaks report, which tracks operations and strategic initiatives of the food retail industry. This year’s Speaks report reviews performance for 2019, but it also incorporates ...

A Rollercoaster Ride for The Meat Department in 2020

The past six months has been so “unprecedented” that FMI and NAMI decided to break our trend of annual reports to conduct a The Power of Meat: Midyear 2020 Edition to take a fresh look at what was happening in the meat industry from the shopper’s ...

Why Do Shoppers “Shop Around?”

What is it that drives grocery shoppers to “shop around?” For many grocery shoppers it is private or store brands. Private brands, according to Trends, are a key driver of perceptions that the store meets a shopper’s needs. Grocery stores that ...

A Millennial Declaration to Strengthen Family Meals

At the intersection of health and well-being and food safety, the Family Meals Movement signifies community service, inclusion, respect and a drive to build a brighter future ...

As Shoppers Become Brand Agnostic, What Does That Mean for Private Brands?

Today’s shoppers bring a broad and sophisticated range of criteria with them when making their food shopping decisions. While there still remain occasions and situations where brand is the prime driver (I would never consider any ketchup other than ...