Supply Chain

Partnering Through A Crisis

As the food industry focuses on our critical task of supplying grocery products to shoppers during the COVID-19 outbreak, it’s important to have strong partners to back our efforts. This crisis has created many fast and unexpected changes in how we ...

Re-Writing the Industry’s Crisis Response Playbook

​The food industry is no stranger to responding to crisis. However, when it comes to responding to the national emergency brought on by COVID-19, the industry is rewriting the playbook on crisis response in real-time. This emergency is nationwide ...

Grocery Stores Remain Constant in Times of Need

Even amidst numerous state emergency declarations relative to mass gatherings impacting restaurants and bars, the White House re-emphasized that grocery stores will remain open during this national emergency....

How Is the Grocery Supply Chain Responding to Coronavirus?

We live in a global economy, which is evident every day in the aisles of a grocery store. In times of crisis, most notably the current situation with increasing cases of COVID-19 in the U.S., shoppers are taking control of their environment – and ...

The 2020 Strategic Playbook For The Food Industry

FMI and Oliver Wyman’s annual journal publication Boardroom provides a starting point. In fact, volume 5 of the journal is a strategic playbook for the emerging issues a food retailer or supplier should be discussing in their boardrooms—that’s how ...

Coronavirus Dual-Preparedness Mode

I have a bottle of alcohol-based hand sanitizer with at least 60% alcohol sitting on my desk at work. It’s half-full, and I’ve used it more in the last two weeks than the last two years. I am also washing my hands with soap and water for 20 seconds. ...

What’s In A Brand?

Life is full of circumstances and situations that prompt us to evaluate our personal brand and make necessary changes, adapting to a new position or setting by shifting our brand. Sometimes these involve small adjustments and sometimes we must ...

Reflecting On Your Supply Chain Performance

January is a time of reflection and for setting intentions for the year ahead. For food retailers, this includes reviewing how well they met customers’ demands over the holidays. Did your store have what shoppers wanted, when they wanted it, in the ...

FMI’s 2019 Year in Review

There is something particularly noble about accomplishments that have so many ups and downs and surprise developments that they require a special brand of perseverance. Finishing the fight requires overcoming the nagging drag of self-doubt when the ...

3 Factors That Contribute to Dwell Time and How to Solve Them

Long dwell times can strain carrier relationships, increase costs and hurt production. It’s a problem both food retailers and supplier can agree needs to be addressed. That’s why the Trading Partner Alliance (TPA), including both FMI and GMA, ...

Smart Approaches to Sustainability in Fresh

Sustainability is a complex subject that includes aspects such as packaging, food waste, recycling and the future of plastics. The fresh industry recognizes the importance and is identifying meaningful strategies to make progress. This was clear ...

Proposed Regulatory Changes Could Offer Truckers Much Needed Flexibility

Grocers know all too well the important role the trucking industry plays not just for food retailers, but for the American economy more broadly. Trucks are responsible for moving 70% of all freight tonnage in the U.S. every year, which includes ...

Past is Prologue: Working with a New Congress to Pass the USMCA

There are 89 freshman House members in the 116thCongress and nine new Senators. Most, if not all these individuals, have not voted on a trade agreement in any context and many come from professions where the impacts and benefits of trade would not ...

Four Things to Know About FMITech@Midwinter

An abundant number of opportunities exist for technology in food retail–from shaping omnichannel success, leveraging data for enhancing customer experiences, streamlining the supply chain, machine learning and everything in between. In order to ...

The Small, But Mighty, Micro-fulfillment Center

One trend emerging at the center of food retail store design is the Micro-Fulfillment Center (MFC), a new automation in the food retail industry. Although small, as the name implies, these warehouses are well equipped to autonomously fulfill online ...