Fresh foods offer food retailers a powerful opportunity to stand out during the holidays by delivering quality, convenience and memorable meal solutions.
By David Haaf, Vice President, Fresh Foods, FMI
The holidays are prime time for food retail, and fresh foods can play a starring role. Beginning with Thanksgiving, the season is marked by entertaining and enjoying meals with family and friends. Shoppers are looking for good value and high-quality produce, meat, seafood, deli, bakery, foodservice and other fresh items to make celebrations special.
At this year’s FMI FreshForward conference, presentations and discussions focused on strategies to advance fresh success. Those approaches are captured in the FreshForward Action Guide, and many can be tailored to the holiday season. Here are six winning strategies inspired by the conference’s discussions.
1. Play up Differentiation Through Fresh Foods
Retailers need to underscore what makes their fresh foods offer meaningfully different and merchandise around those strengths. This is especially important during the holidays, when differentiation represents a unique kind of value for shoppers.
The key is to lean into fresh signature products, store-produced fresh foods, quality and experiences that competitors cannot easily replicate, rather than attempting to compete solely on price.
2. Showcase Holiday Entertainment Ideas
Shoppers are looking for fresh items for holiday entertaining. Retailers can help by relaying ideas for meals and platters through compelling presentations.
FMI’s Power of Meat 2026 found that holidays, special occasions and entertaining remain the primary reasons consumers are willing to spend more on meat and poultry. This year, almost half of meat shoppers said holidays are drivers for spending more, versus 35% of shoppers saying this the year before.
Store holiday displays should communicate quality, freshness and value. Packaging, lighting, messaging and merchandising can all help bring those attributes to life.
3. Drive Holiday Meal Solutions
Retailers can inspire shoppers with innovative meal recipes featured on websites and social media. These recipes should address holiday needs, including ideas for repurposing leftovers. Recipes can also come to life in stores through product cross-merchandising.
Convenience matters too. Shoppers are interested in easy meal options, such as grab-and-go and heat-and-eat items, as relayed in FMI’s The Power of Foodservice at Retail 2026.
4. Leverage Fresh Food Storytelling to Build Connection
The holidays provide an ideal opportunity to communicate with shoppers and build connections around meals and entertaining. Food retailers can tell the stories behind products and meet fresh shoppers where they are, across marketing and messaging platforms ranging from TikTok to texting.
The key is to fine-tune communications for each platform and consider engaging credible influencers to strengthen messaging efforts.
5. Optimize for AI Search During Holiday Planning
Sixty-five percent of shoppers would like to use AI to help plan holiday meals and learn new kitchen skills, according to FMI’s U.S. Grocery Shopper Trends 2026: Holidays.
Retailers and brands need to ensure their products can be found through AI tools. Customer-facing AI agents, for example, influence how some fresh consumers shop and interact with retailers or brands. It’s important to understand what product details are needed for an agent to showcase an item.
6. Highlight Quality and Value
Many holiday shoppers are value focused. Food retailers can respond with cross-departmental bundles that offer quality and savings.
They can also contrast food retail prices with those of restaurants to underscore the savings of preparing meals with items purchased at retail.
Putting These Fresh Foods Strategies to Work
Food retailers have many opportunities to outperform on fresh during the 2026 holidays. The key is to pursue innovative approaches to merchandising, marketing, storytelling and value. And the opportunity extends beyond the holidays. Retailers can carry successful fresh strategies into the new year and beyond.
Now that’s an approach we can all celebrate!
Industry Topics address your specific area of expertise with resources, reports, events and more.
Our Research covers consumer behavior and retail operation benchmarks so you can make informed business decisions.
Events and Education including online and in-person help you advance your food retail career.
Food Safety training, resources and guidance that help you create a company food safety culture.
Government Affairs work — federal and state — on the latest food industry policy, regulatory and legislative issues.
Get Involved. From industry awards to newsletters and committees, these resources help you take advantage of your membership.
Best practices, guidance documents, infographics, signage and more for the food industry on the COVID-19 pandemic.
