Retail Operations

Retail Stockpiling: Inventory Taxes, Just-in-Time and Beyond

In the grocery industry, inventory stockpiling can be an important hedge, but it can also be a costly one. Apart from production issues and supply chain bottlenecks that make securing large quantities of products more challenging for retailers, one ...

The New Climate of Food Retail

We have all witnessed large scale changes to the design and layout of our favorite grocery stores since the start of COVID-19. Most of the in-store dining experiences were dismantled, and the salad bars turned into grab-and-go stations for pre-made ...

Infographic: A Window into Who is Grocery Shopping Online

Over the coming weeks, we’ll dive into insights from 2021 U.S. Grocery Shopper Trends and explore online grocery shopping via an infographic series. First, we look at who is grocery shopping online. The number of online grocery shoppers grew during ...

How Food Industry Leaders Learn Virtually

This past year and a half brought differences in all aspects of life, including education. But these differences have brought opportunities to become stronger. Our summer intern had his college curriculum go virtual, and there are benefits to this ...

Race Matters on the Food Aisle

FMI’s consumer trends paint the portrait of an American public emerging from the pandemic fog with a heightened sensitivity to social justice issues – especially as they apply to food. Whether that gets manifested in a commitment to waste less food, ...

Permission to Innovate? Consumer-Centric Private Brand Strategies

For the last several years, we have been hearing private brand acceptance is at an all-time high. And for only the second time in history, the first being the great recession, consumer trial of private brands hit record highs due to the COVID-19 ...

COVID-19 Shines a Spotlight on the Importance of Preserving Local Pharmacies

Despite their essential role in serving communities, pharmacies nationwide continue to be threatened by hidden “clawback” fees charged by drug middlemen that are both shuttering pharmacies and costing patients more at the pharmacy counter....

Charting a Path Forward for the Food Industry

As the food industry takes the important initial steps of learning from, building on, and moving beyond the novel challenges and circumstances COVID-19 has presented, FMI believes it is crucial that trading partners undertake a candid sharing of ...

Get To Know Our SPAR International 2021 Store Manager Award Finalist

As a new, local bypass was being constructed that would divert customers away from her Denmark-based store, manager and second-generation operator Malene Hansen was busy thinking of her own new route to ...

Get To Know Our Meijer 2021 Store Manager Award Finalist

If you do the math, John Spaulding has operated six different stores and worked at 10 Meijer locations throughout his 42-year career. It all adds up to a stellar reputation and a proven formula for store manager ...

Get To Know Our Harris Teeter 2021 Store Manager Award Finalist

Donna Maxwell’s secret to managerial success is staying grounded – literally. For one thing, she spends as much time as possible on the floor of her Harris Teeter store in California, Maryland. It’s there that she meets regularly with staff to make ...

Get To Know Our Hy-Vee 2021 Store Manager Award Finalist

For someone who started working at Hy-Vee before he had a driver’s license, Brandon Lampkin has certainly contributed to the success of colleagues and the business over the past 31 ...

Get To Know Our Food City 2021 Store Manager Award Finalist

What’s in a name? Plenty, when you’re Hugh “Rusty” Rollins, manager of a Food City store in Athens, Tennessee. This is a store manager who knows most of his customers by name after working for the company for nearly 40 years. In turn, his nominators ...

Solar Energy Has Bright Outlook in Food Retail

As more companies have looked to reduce their electricity consumption and carbon footprints in recent years, exploring renewable energy has become a logical next step. Leading chains such as Kroger, Publix, Aldi, H-E-B, Giant Eagle, Stop & Shop, ...

Remembering George Floyd

Today in Minneapolis and in cities across America, people are finding ways to commemorate the one-year anniversary of George Floyd’s tragic murder at the hands of police ...