Retail Operations

Six Imperative Issues Facing the Food Industry in 2023

The articles in this year’s Boardroom volume 8 reflect FMI’s Imperative Issues Framework. Boardroom continues to provide analysis and recommendations through the lens of the food industry's imperative issues – from supply chain and workforce ...

Recapping The Third Annual Supermarket Employee Day

Everyday supermarket employees work within their communities to ensure families and neighbors are fed and receive fresh wholesome products to support their health and well-being. In recent years, the world has acknowledged how truly essential these ...

Drumroll Please: Introducing the 2023 Class of FMI Store Manager Awards Nominees

In addition to celebrating the hardworking people who make up our industry, we want to pay special attention to the store managers who are the heartbeat of local supermarkets across the globe. These devoted leaders embody their company’s vision and ...

The Impulse Equation for Nonfoods Items

It wasn’t that long ago when most shoppers were a captive audience at the checkout stand, prone to scanning the rack while waiting and tossing in a pack of gum, a tube of lip balm, hair ties or maybe some batteries. Of course, while such last-minute ...

Technology-Driven Consumer Loyalty

We’ve got some unique circumstances facing the food industry currently. While we know from our 2022 The Food Retailing Industry Speaks report that food retailers and suppliers are facing pressures like inflation, supply chain issues and workforce ...

Coupons, Packaging and Home Meal Prep – Oh My!

At the FMI Midwinter Executive Conference, our speakers addressed: The Complexity of Coupons; The Biggest Challenges, Opportunities and Strategies That Lie Ahead for the CPG Industry; and Evolving Eats—What’s Cooking with ...

How Retailers Can Take Back Seasonal GM Sales

If you’re going to do it, do it right. That phrase extends to many aspects of life and business. In the food retail industry, the advice especially resonates in category management, as retailers must determine what products to carry and how to best ...

Celebrating Our Supermarket Heroes

February 22nd marks the annual Supermarket Employee Day, a special day dedicated to recognizing and celebrating the hard-working individuals that keep supermarkets running. As a grocery store employer, this is your day to shine and show your ...

Where Food and Technology Meet

While the competition and presentations at FMITech at Midwinter enlightened attendees to the latest and greatest our industry has to offer in technological advancements, the Lunch and Insights presentation by Laurie Demeritt of The Hartman Group ...

You’ve Stirred It Up! Now Let It Simmer.

The food industry put both its best foot forward and its best food forward at the 2023 Stir It Up! event. The closing event of the 2023 FMI Midwinter Executive Conference, this fundraiser for the FMI Foundation featured six kitchens pitting their ...

Five Ways To Be A Better Manager In The Food Industry

In 2021, the food retail industry experienced 48% turnover in their overall retail workforce. While retailers have engaged in a number of programs to decrease turnover such as offering better wages/salaries, improved benefits, training/skills ...

How GM Drives Store Profitability

If a rising tide lifts all boats, then general merchandise (GM) is a wave that’s helping retailers stay afloat and on course with bigger baskets and rings. According to Mark Deuschle, president of Denver-based GM manufacturer and distributor Navajo, ...

Your Customers Are In It For E.V.E.R.

It’s my belief that members join and retain their membership in FMI for four powerful reasons, or put a bit differently, members are in it for E.V.E....

What You Need to Know about Modern Organized Retail Theft

Years ago, the industry also had a very different strategy for stopping someone attempting to take something from the store without purchasing it. At that time, we called it shoplifting, five-finger discount, or in the most severe sense, robbery or ...

When Work Feels Like Play

We are in the countdown to the FMI Foundation’s key fundraiser Stir It Up!, taking place Sunday evening, January 22, the last night of the FMI Midwinter Executive Conference. This event is fundamentally a cooking competition within the food industry,...