Workforce

Our Favorite Buzzwords: Unprecedented Disruption

It is heartening to know that together, we can navigate through today’s unpredictable marketplace and chart a course into the future. I’m thrilled to share this short clip with you in preparation for the FMI Midwinter Executive Conference, held ...

The Food Industry Advocates for Needed Change

Advocacy work enables the food industry to foster mutually beneficial relationships with state and federal government to inform and shape policy that best enables our industry to effectively feed families and enrich communities. Few understand this ...

Navigating an Extreme Obstacle Course

As I look at the results of The Food Retailing Industry Speaks 2022 report, I see many of my professional role models throughout the food industry navigating a different type of obstacle course than my childhood idols. The food industry has had to ...

How Your Company Can Win with A People-First Culture

No one can deny that the COVID-19 pandemic has had a profoundly impact of the food industry workforce. According to The Food Retailing Industry Speaks 2022 report, 87% of food retail businesses and 86% of food supplier businesses surveyed report ...

The Food Industry Thrives on Diversity

Going to the grocery store is an enriching experience, and it is so in multiple ways. Beyond the abundant variety of food items on every aisle, store associates are often members of the communities their supermarket serves. Representing their ...

When Silence is Not Golden

If we needed a prompt that racism remains one of America’s most critical moral failings, then the recent senseless murder of 10 black grocery shoppers in Buffalo, New York, provided a grim and tragic reminder that this societal blight persists. The ...

Opening Day: FMI’s 2022 Future Leaders eXperience Has Officially Begun

“Your future starts today.” These words may ring hollow to those of us who assign them to the trash bin of clichés, but to the incoming class of FMI’s 2022 Future Leaders eXperience, this oft-quoted phrase is both figurately and literally true. ...

How Does FMI Know the Current State of the Food Industry?

The answer is from YOU. We know because the industry tells us each year when we ask, as we have been doing every year for more than 70 years. The first ever The Food Retailing Industry Speaks (Speaks) report appeared in 1949. Seventy-three years ...

Resilience in Troubled Times

About 100 Western Michigan University (WMU) junior and senior food marketing students together with their faculty celebrated a successful 56th Food Marketing Conference in Grand Rapids, MI this past week. The annual event brought together around 700 ...

Eyeing Greater Urgency on Key Issues

As we near what we hope is the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, FMI and Oliver Wyman have reconvened and published Volume 7 of our annual journal to provide a future-focused roadmap for the food industry that harnesses the wisdom and insights learned ...

Are You Prepared for Potential Threats?

In today’s world, the margin separating a completely average day from a day where yet another violent incident takes place feels razor thin. False and misleading narratives have undermined public trust in our institutions. Increasing societal ...

Interview with Chieh Huang, Boxed.com: Part I, Investments in Workforce

FMI Midwinter Executive Conference Chairman and Co-Founder and CEO of Boxed.com, Chieh Huang, responded to several questions I had for him regarding his journey to build a successful wholesale and technology platform from the ground-up that recently ...

Presenting FMI’s 2022 Class of Store Manager Award Nominees

On the day that we have set aside to celebrate the hard-working supermarket employees by proclaiming it Supermarket Employee Day, one would be amiss to not acknowledge the special talents of those who serve in the position of store manager. The ...

Encouraging Health and Well-being for Supermarket Employees: How K-VA-T Food Stores Supports their Essential Workforce

To showcase just how some of our members are encouraging health and well-being with a focus on the essential food industry workforce, we decided to reach out to hear more from one very inspirational supermarket employee, Lori Hamilton, registered ...

Encouraging Health and Well-being for Supermarket Employees: How Harmons Delivers a Wholistic Approach

We reached out to Sarah Kiel, registered dietitian, and wellness champion at Harmons, to share her perspective on the good work going on to encourage health and well-being with a focus on supporting the essential food industry ...