Sustainability

NAFTA Saved You $3.09 on Today’s Purchases

For many of us, it is hard to appreciate the role this free trade agreement plays in making our lives better; after all, we don’t get a receipt that says “NAFTA saved you $3.09 on today’s purchases” in the way we do for membership in store clubs or ...

Technology Reinvents Retail − From Supply Chain to Store Shelves

In today’s food retail environment, emerging technologies − from blockchain to Internet of Things (IoT) − are beginning to produce clear gains. Retailers are leveraging new technologies to enhance aspects including supply chain, food safety, and ...

Energy Trends Reflecting Today’s Shopper

Contrary to numerous media stories, Millennials are still seeking in-store shopping experiences despite their growing interest in ecommerce. Retailers are working to create energy-efficient and sustainable shopping environments to not only meet the ...

Understanding the New Food Marketplace

Terms never spoken just a few years ago are now entering the lexicon of those involved with the food industry: Urban agriculture. Vertical farming. Lab-grown meat. Plant based protein. Food-as-a-service. Statistics and forecasts about the future ...

The Expanding Universe: Food Retail Keeps Pace With an Evolving Definition of Sustainability

The definition of sustainability has evolved enormously over the past decade, expanding into the broader concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR). When we talk today about sustainable supply chains, it doesn’t just cover the environmental ...

The Lego Legacy of 2017

2017 has been a year of big accomplishments for FMI, but something of a Lego-experience since these huge achievements are the sum of many, many small steps and tiny pieces coming together. Over the next few weeks, FMI will devote its blog platform ...

To Speak with One Voice

We refer to this new program as the Unified Voice Protocol and it is FMI’s most recent effort to establish a model approach to proactively perpetuate the environment of trust consumers tell us they enjoy with food retailers and to enhance that trust ...

Protecting Your Brand Reputation with Seafood Fraud Mitigation

While emerging technologies and tools to track and verify, such as blockchain, will enhance our future response to supply chain fraud, FMI is focusing its efforts on helping members detect it today. FMI has just released, Best Practices on How to ...

Telling the Story of Sustainability in Food Retail

Consumers want to know this fact – they want to feel like the store where they shop and where they get their favorite things shares their broader values. But they want to see behind the numbers to what these efforts really mean. Data is always ...

What Does Renewable Energy Mean for Food Retail?

In the last decade, food retailers have made notable efforts in the area of renewable energy to reduce the environmental impact caused from operation expenses....

FMI State Issues Retreat: Where Grocers Go To Learn About State and Local Issues

To assist our members in making sense of this legislative chaos, FMI holds the State Issues Retreat in August, an annual conference that brings together food retail grocery associations and grocery company government relations professionals from ...

Cage-free or Not to Cage-free, That is the Question

As anyone with any debating experience can attest, the toughest opponent to counter is the one who is allowed to keep changing the terms, reconfiguring the terminology or moving the vocabulary goal posts. This is an important lesson to remember ...

Sustainability: Local Action, Global Impact

To this day, I can still hear my mom scold, “Make sure you wash your hands before you come to the dinner table.” It’s easy to say the age-old rule of “wash your hands before you eat” has been engrained in many of us. But, what if I told you there’s ...

4D Printing: How Self-Assembly Materials Will Impact the Food Industry

If I had to pick one MIT team to shadow for the day, I’d probably follow Skylar Tibbits, co-director of the Self-Assembly Lab at MIT, TED fellow and speaker at this year’s Global Sustainability Summit August 9 – 11 in Nashville, TN....

Sustainability and Food Retail: Alive and Kicking

Consumers were undoubtedly anxious in 2016, but the “sustainability bandwagon” kept rolling for food wholesalers and retailers. The industry’s commitment to creating sustainable supply chains and proactively engaging on a broad spectrum of corporate ...