Sustainability

A Time for Conversations on The Future of Fresh

In the fresh industry, my area of focus at FMI, we need an opportunity not only to listen and learn, but also to converse, collaborate and plan action steps together. The need is great because the pandemic has scrambled so many of the traditional ...

Food Waste During COVID-19

We are both single shopper households, and during the COVID-19 pandemic have been lucky to be able to work from home while experimenting with new ways of food shopping and “cooking.” Right in line with a finding in the U.S. Grocery Trends COVID 19 ...

We’re All In This Together

Since the early days of the pandemic, FMI staff have been tracking news stories recording the food industry’s responses to their communities. Our tracking is a growing spreadsheet updated daily with nearly 200 rows documenting stories of food, ...

Grocery Heroes: A Half Million Jobs and Counting

We know from our U.S. Grocery Shopper Trends COVID-19 tracker that 25% of Americans are especially worried about having enough money to pay for food. Questions about the emerging job market have resulted in these anxieties and uncertainties ...

Essentially Essential: A First-Hand Account of Value Delivered

In late February, (only two weeks into the job) I was assigned to the Crisis Management Team, a cross-departmental group focused on the looming coronavirus outbreak. It was just a month after I joined the FMI team in the headquarters office that I ...

A Smart Way Forward on Sustainability

FMI is a partner in EPA’s SmartWay program. This voluntary public-private program offers technical assistance resources including a comprehensive and well-recognized system for tracking, documenting and sharing information about fuel use and freight ...

It’s Messy, but Worth it: Trial and Error in Food Waste Mitigation

In business, trial and error often lead to valuable observations and even successful programs. Trial and error can also be expensive, especially when attempting to shift a cultural norm or make the business case for a new process or philosophy. With ...

What Shoppers Say About Produce Packaging

Shoppers are pushing back on plastic waste, but many consumers do recognize packaging can be important when it comes to product shelf life, food safety, in-store conditions, product information, portability and more. This is particularly true for ...

How to Plan and Execute a Zero-Food-Waste Event

As a professional meeting planner and principal on event logistics for the food industry association, I increasingly challenge our team to make sustainability a goal by either donating uneaten food or partnering with facilities to divert waste from ...

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 ...

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 ...

New Tools in the Fight Against Food Waste

This week, experts in measuring and reporting food loss and waste from the World Resources Institute (WRI) and ReFED shared new resources companies can use as they start or continue to set targets, measurements and actions in the effort to minimize ...

Sustainability Initiatives in Today’s Meat Industry

According to the 2019 Power of Meat Report, eating meat is still the norm with 86% of shoppers classifying themselves as meat eaters, 5% following a vegetarian or vegan diet and 10% describing their eating style as flexitarian (mostly vegetarian ...

Hand in Hand Working to Reduce Food Waste

Founding members of FWRA signed an important memorandum of understandingwith three key government agencies – U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The ...

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 ...