Sustainability

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 ...

Grocers Tackle Climate Change Through EPA’s GreenChill Refrigerant Management Program

Refrigerant management offers an opportunity for food retailers to evaluate source refrigerants as well as examine their leak management practices. These opportunities are the driving forces behind the creation of EPA’s GreenChill partnership ...

Forced Labor and the Impact on Supply Chain: What Retailers and Manufacturers Need to Know

In today’s “prosumer” world, consumers are placing greater pressure on suppliers and retailers to raise their standards and performance with regards to how products are made and who makes them. Product sourcing is a supply chain responsibility and ...

The 25% Of Us Who Grocery Shop for Ourselves

I’m one of the 25% of grocery shoppers making purchasing decisions solely for myself. As a single shopper, I have my own methods to meet my household shopping needs, but are my shopping habits really that different from co-shoppers, shared shoppers ...

Five Trends from the Fancy Food Show

Walking the aisles at the Summer Fancy Food Show, where FMI had a booth showcasing the SQF Food Safety Program and FMI Emerge for companies growing their grocery shelf presence, we picked up on five key trends to share with food retailers and FMI ...

FDA Support of the Product Code Date Label Initiative

Frank Yiannis, Food and Drug Administration (FDA) deputy commissioner of food policy and response, gave FMI’s and GMA’s joint initiative urging industry-wide adoption of standard date-label language a ringing endorsement in his recent letter to the ...

Conversation with Kroger: Zero Hunger | Zero Waste

This month, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced a federal interagency strategy to address food waste, and among the priority areas ...