Technology

The Boardroom’s Perspective of The Future of Retail

For the fourth year, FMI and Oliver Wyman have teamed up to provide thought leadership on the most pressing issues facing the food retail industry. The annual edition of Boardroom takes readers directly into the C-Suite of food retail companies and ...

Learning Differently in 2018

People learn in different ways. Some of us are visual learners. Others better retain information by hearing things explained. Another group learns best from performing its own research. Some prefer having a hands-on experience and others just want ...

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 ...

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’...

Is Your Data an Enterprise Asset?

Data has been at the center of many discussions and presentations for years. Big data and small, for many retailers and brands data is not the strategy, but the intel that informs or supports a broader product and/or consumer engagement ...

The Future of Artificial Intelligence in Food Retail

A lot of futuristic movies and TV shows portray a society where robots or Artificial Intelligence (AI) take on a lot of the more mundane tasks in society. In Star Trek you can order a meal from a wall panel, in the Jetsons the dog, Astro, is walked ...

Strategizing for the Future: We’ve Launched FMItech@Midwinter

We’ve launched FMItech@, a new feature at FMI Midwinter Executive Conference, placing the spotlight on technology. We’ll delve deep into proven and emerging trends and their applications for your businesses. Through FMItech@, we’ve added Tech Talks, ...

If You Think Your Customers Don’t Care About Accurate Product Knowledge—Think Again

Here’s some news: When shoppers are at home, they’re often staring at their computer screens to get information about the products they want BEFORE they hit your food retail aisles. Retail Dive tells us 67 percent of shoppers research products ...

Photo Friday: Amazon Go Store Tour

This week, Hannah Walker, senior director, technology and nutrition policy, Food Marketing Institute, immersed herself in a digital shopper experience at the newest AmazonGo store in Chicago with Lee Foley, a member of the Amazon Public Policy team. ...

Grocers, Get Ready for Artificial Intelligence-based Transformation

Among the six digital imperatives for a successful omnichannel strategy established by FMI and Nielsen is one that involves completeness and consistency across in-store and digital shelves, cutting costs and creating a clear assortment inventory ...

Empowering the Shopper During Customer Service Week

The customer is always right. That mantra was engrained in me at an early age when I worked at my first food retail job. My employer trained me well; I was empathetic, responsive and exuded a positive attitude – even when a shopper was having a bad ...

How Is Technology Changing Grocery Shopping?

This year’s U.S. Grocery Shopper Trends study took a deep dive into the world of technology to understand how the evolving digital world is changing how Americans shop for food and how that may impact food retailers. On the surface, when we decided ...

Technology, Loyalty and Millennials

Millennials continue to lead the way online in using the same-day and next-day delivery models but also in subscribing to meal kits and in taking advantage of online touchpoints for food service takeout or delivery....

Digital Relationships Forge Engagement with Shoppers

Influencers – humans and animals –live in a digital world where they have a strong consumer following based on lifestyle, humor, advice or even culinary skills. There are tiers among influencers; celebrities hold their own, but they can also embody ...

AI Powers The Customer Experience

Not a day goes by that I don’t find myself reading about grocery stores rolling out new technologies to engage shoppers. If you happen to Google “technology in grocery stores,” I guarantee you’ll find at least five pages of relevant, interesting ...