Category: Operations

February 11, 2019

Food Safety – A Door Opener with Retailers

If your goal is to sell product to a food retailer, you should dive into the SQF Fundamentals Program. Take the first step in your food safety journey with our NEW convenient & affordable online course. This interactive course is perfect for small-to-medium sized businesses looking to get their foot in the door with big retailers. Learn more: http://bit.ly/2FsDAng

February 7, 2019

Emerge Subscriber Benefits from Nielsen

We are excited to announce the next evolution of Nielsen and FMI’s longtime partnership which will drive additional value for you. Together, as partners we have combined resources to bring industry opportunities to you such as review industry exploring the growing market trends for shopping for food and beverage online. Now, we are teaming up to offer FMI Emerge subscribers a personalized approach to understanding marketplace insights based on purchase and consumer behaviors for Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) or Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) products that are sold quickly and at a relatively low cost.

February 3, 2019

Building A Culture of Trust and Transparency in Food Retail

In a few weeks, I’ll be traveling to Seattle for one of my favorite research projects—the ethnographic interviews that are part of our annual U.S. Grocery Shopper Trends report. These interviews take place in shopper’s homes and we inquire about their grocery shopping and meal preferences. During these interviews, I love to ask participants to fill in the blank to this sentence, “I trust my grocery store to ______.” For a while, I got responses like “sell safe food,” “be clean” and “have a good assortment of food.” But in recent years, I hear more answers along the lines of “give me product information,” “know where my food comes from,” and “be good to their employees.” This shift in consumer values, uncovered in the face-to face interviews is further verified by our expansive Trends survey findings. Our research shows consumer’s reporting the following as important attributes when choosing their primary store:

Accurate information displayed (65 percent);
Courteous, friendly employees (51 percent);
Knowledgeable employees (49 percent);
Provides information beyond the package (23 percent); and
Open and honest about business practices (48 percent).
In many ways, shoppers are looking for food retailers to have a culture of trust and transparency across their organization, which presents retailers with the challenge of how do you make transparency a vibrant part of your company identity from the C-suite all the way to the associate on the store aisle?

January 20, 2019

The Importance of Transparency and How Does Transparency Differ Across Demographic/Generational Segments?

Consumers want a closer connection to food. Explore what shoppers expect from their grocery store in the way of transparency.

“Transparency is an imperative for growing consumer trust and loyalty.” These wise words are offered by FMI’s Doug Baker, vice president, industry relations in assessing The Transparency Imperative research study released in September by FMI, with support from Label Insight. This research looks at product labeling and transparency from the consumer perspective and why brand owners should care. Here are some key questions that this research addresses.

January 18, 2019

Top Trends in Fresh: Hyperlocalization, New Supply Chains and Prepared Food

There’s nothing stale about the fresh category in retail, which is arguably turning the food retail business on its head. It’s the ultimate disruptive category when it comes to competing for share of the food retail business.

Disruption
Food retailers will continue to find ways to distinguish their businesses in the marketplace by focusing on fresh. Even after years of growth, fresh foods segments are being tapped for bigger space allocations in the store over the next two years, given that shoppers continue to gravitate toward these categories, per the 2018 U.S. Food Retailing Industry Speaks operations survey. Our research suggests that retailers have found ways to further engage consumers and differentiate with fresh foods, better-for-you categories, and private brands, among key growth segments. They are advancing same-store sales and planning new investments in their businesses.

The latest trends in localization, supply chain methods and prepared foods include how to win within each meal prep state and how the most successful retailers integrate them all the ways in which CPG manufacturers and retailers are using various tactics to accelerate sales in the perimeter.

January 16, 2019

Grocery Retail Vocabulary for Emerging Brands

Communication is key to success, and every industry has its own language. Successful brands know that there are common and not-so-common terms, specific to the Grocery Retail Industry, and speaking a common language is essential to developing effective relationships and processes with distributors, wholesalers, and retailers.  We have organized some common Grocery Retail terms that your team will need to better acquaint yourself with the industry. Being well-versed in these will help your company successfully maneuver as you seek increased grocery retail distribution.

We have compiled terms and definitions for industry-lingo such as blind ordering, bracket pricing, broken case price (BCP), BOGO, failure fee, in-line product reclamation, center turnover buying, work-back calculation and more.

January 15, 2019

Pressing Question – Are You Operational Ready for $100 Billion Food and Beverage Online?

The age of the digitally engaged food shopper has arrived, with each day seeing more shoppers moving from experimenting with online food shopping to fully embracing it. Total digital maturation in online grocery shopping is a mere five to seven years away according to research prepared by FMI and Nielsen.

We all know that. This research indicates consumers could be spending as much as $100 billion on online groceries by 2022. Within the next five to seven years, 70 percent of U.S. consumers will regularly purchase consumer packaged goods online.

Consumers today have tools that give them access to detailed information about the products they are looking for. Those digital tools also enable them to buy the products and services they want in ways that are disrupting the traditional food retail model.

Research from Nielsen and FMI over the last three years indicate that not all food retailers are as prepared as we could be to meet the needs of the digitally engaged food shopper and are at risk of missing the opportunity to serve this growing sector.

This past year, FMI’s initiatives to supply food retail with the information it needs to rise to the digital challenge has been enhanced with help from new partners like AT Kearney, Eversight, Precima and the NPD Group.

New Report: FMI Evaluates the Power and Focus on Shopper Health and Well-Being at Retail

Food Marketing Institute Foundation today unveils a pre-release of its 2019 Power of Health and Well-being in Food Retail, an exploration into the consumer mindset of what wellness means to them and what they expect from their grocery stores. The analysis explores the broader definition of “well-being,” as food retailers are increasingly perceived as an ally in their shoppers’ pursuits of health.

Sue Borra, RD, FMI chief health and wellness officer and executive director of the FMI Foundation, suggested that the overall topic of health and wellness is gradually expanding into “health and well-being.” Borra said, “Wellness is still a highly relevant term for our industry, but well-being has a broader definition, including aspects such as emotional health, energy levels, and sleep behaviors.”

“At FMI, health and well-being is a core competency and practice that influences the very fiber of our programs – from mining consumer insights across all areas of the store and online to strategizing about shopper expectations from retail. The Power of Health and Well-being at Retail tells a dynamic story of how food retailers are meeting consumer desires for taste and enjoyment, discovery and mindful connection.”

January 4, 2019

Life in the Fast Lane with Private Brands

Private brands have become full-fledged brands in their own right, as evidenced by 69 percent of consumers saying it’s very or somewhat important to have a good assortment of private brands in food and beverage. These own-brand products continue to make strides and hit an upward growth trajectory again.

As consumers continue to explore new products based more on attributes and less on the brand providing them, retailers are quickly positioning their own brands to differentiate as a competitive strategy. The FMI Private Brand Leadership Council stays on top of these trends with the second release of the Power of Private Brands research. To dive deeper into private brand topics and insights throughout the year, the council broke up the research into four separate releases:

December 16, 2018

Developing a Strong Broker Network to Grow Your Sales

Building and Maximizing Your Broker Relations to Increase Your Sales

We recently sat down with three seasoned broker professionals to get their wisdom on building an and maximizing broker relationships. Here are some pearls of wisdom: