Retail Operations

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,...

How GM, Household and HBC are Crucial to Total Store Collaboration in Inflationary Times

A successful total store experience for the consumer requires total store collaboration between the food retailer and its trading partners. That is especially important in today’s operating environment—when record-high inflation is the latest ...

Winter Weather Outlook for the Food Industry

The weather—we all talk about it, watch it intensely and constantly wondering what the weather will be. In a business sense, knowing possible long-term weather trends and potential conditions can help the food industry prepare for supply chain ...

3 Easy Ways to Jumpstart Your Plans for Supermarket Employee Day 2.22.23

There are more than 40,000 stores that sell food and grocery items in the U.S. alone. Millions of supermarket employees come to work daily to keep shelves stocked and to provide communities with essential services that help them survive and ...

Does That Empty Shelf Mean There’s a Product Shortage?

SKU rationalization is a process by which food retailers and manufacturers manage their inventories to be able to offer their customers the most in-demand products or create shelf space for new and innovative ...

The Value of an Ongoing Relationship

After nearly 30 years as a membership professional in the association world, I’m still surprised that others I encounter do not realize the difference between a subscriber and a member. Many of us are subscribers to services like streaming ...

Amazingly Resilient, Deeply Caring: A Leadership Perspective from Anthony Hucker, Southeastern Grocers

FMI Midwinter Executive Conference Chair, Anthony Hucker, president and chief executive officer, Southeastern Grocers Inc. (SEG), reflects on his own experiences and the ways he upholds his commitment to putting people first in this turbulent ...