Oct 17, 2019

By: Allison Febrey, Specialist, FMI Foundation 

Gold Plate Awards“Trick or treat!” is more than the rallying cry youngsters use to extort candy from friends and neighbors at the end of this month.  It is also a strategy to keep the spirit of National Family Meals Month™ alive beyond September.  The “trick,” you see, is to relive the wonderful programs you developed last month promoting family meals by applying for the possible “treat” of a Gold Plate Award.  And believe me, that award carries way more clout than pumpkin spice.   

Food Marketing Institute Foundation created the Gold Plate Award in 2013 to recognize outstanding programs implemented by the retail food industry that encourage families to enjoy more meals together each week in the month of September. 

A Gold Plate Award celebrates your company’s best-in-class family meals program and is a recognition to be shared with your entire organization, acknowledging the role they played in your success. The award showcases the many benefits of both sharing family meals and helping your customers make family meals happen. The winners of the Gold Plate Awards are announced at FMI’s Midwinter Executive Conference in January in front of an audience of retailer and supplier C-Suite executives –the perfect venue to be recognized as an industry leader in family meals programming. 

In 2019 the Gold Plate Awards will recognize retailer, supplier and community collaborator programs that creatively participated in National Family Meals Month in September. The following criteria will be used by our third-party judging panel in the selection of Gold Plate Award winning programs:

  • Reach of program – breadth, depth and number of people that the program reaches
  • Originality/Creativity
  • Promotion of National Family Meals Month
  • Corporate participation – level of company/store-wide involvement
  • Ability to scale and replicate the program 

Winning companies will be selected in five categories:

  • Retailer Category A (1 - 49 stores)
  • Retailer Category B (50 - 199 stores)
  • Retailer Category C (200+ stores)
  • Food Manufacturer/Supplier Category
  • Community Collaborators (Formerly “Allies”)

Applications for the Gold Plate Awards are now open and are due by October 31, 2019. Learn more at www.FMI.org/GoldPlateAwards and a reach out to the FMI Foundation with questions.  

For more information or questions, reach out to the Gold Plate Award team at familymealsmonth@fmi.org

Submit Your Gold Plate Award Application