Sustainability

SQF Code Recognized as a Procurement Standard for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games

The five Olympic rings aren’t the only thing food retailers will notice at 2020 Olympic games in Tokyo, Japan. The SQF Food Safety Code for Primary Production has been recognized as a procurement standard for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic ...

FMI’s 2018 Financial Diversity

Providing the retail food industry with the myriad products and services that FMI offers requires resources—both human and financial capital. To avoid being a one-pronged fork, any well-run business endeavors to diversify its revenue sources and FMI ...

Where Does Sustainability Live?

At a conference in June, a young man spotted “FMI” on my nametag and struck up a conversation. “I’m interested in the food industry and want to be part of it, but I don’t understand where sustainability lives.” I was a little taken aback at this and ...

FMI’s Strategic X’s and O’s in 2018

What is true for the industry is reflected in the life of its trade association. 2018 has been a year of the need for FMI to pay attention to where we plot our X’s while carefully watching out for those sneaky O’...

The Fresh Food Supply Chain: Combating Food Waste

The strawberry – featured in a video produced by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and shown at a panel discussion on Combating Food Waste during the recent FreshForward event in Chicago – doesn’t stand alone. According to panelist Dr. Frank Mitloehner, ...

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....