Category: Operations

August 29, 2018

Emerging Brands – Six Common Pitfalls to Avoid – Advice from a Retailer

Introducing a new brand to the marketplace can be equal parts excitement and frustration. Joshua Dooley of QFC/Kroger shares his insights and advice on six common pitfalls for emerging brands that can make the difference between flourishing and vanishing. Joshua is one of many retailers and mentors who support the FMI Emerge community.

August 12, 2018

Talk the Talk – Grocery Retail Terms You Should Know

 There is a whole lot of learning to do when growing your brand through grocery sales.

Successful brands know that there are common and not-so-common terms, specific to the grocery retail industry. Speaking a common language is essential to developing effective relationships and processes with distributors, wholesalers and retailers. As your brand begins to expand its shelf presence, having fluency in grocery trading lingo can accelerate your business relationships by leaps and bounds.

August 11, 2018

Is Your Brand Ready for the Next Level?

Take the 5-minutes Assessment to find out! You’ll gain an initial review of how your company is doing, and identify areas of opportunity to help your brand reach grocery retail distribution.

Once you’re finished, download the “10 Critical Steps to Food Retail Distribution Success”.

July 25, 2018

8 Steps to SQF Food Safety Certification

If you produce your product in your own facility, it is critical that you have your certification program plans underway. Take a look at these 8 steps and contact our team if you have any questions on getting started.

July 8, 2018

Food Brand Trends: Don’t Ignore the Clean Label Phenomenon

The clean label is a food trend that is only going to get bigger. Consumers are spending more time reading labels and voting–with their wallets–to support food brands that are simplifying ingredients and engaging clear labeling practices for their food brand packaging.

The quote that stands out the most in the FMI white paper, The Clean Label Phenomenon for Food Retailers: Enhancing Transparency for Consumers was pulled from a July 2017 Food Dive article. It comes from a small regional food brand owner: “[i]n our region, there hasn’t been a hue and cry from consumers for clean label, but we decided as a company that’s where we needed to go. Even if our core customer doesn’t care about it now, at some point it will.”

June 24, 2018

Have You Explored the Benefits of Diversity Certificates?

Supplier Diversity is a business process that works to level the playing field for suppliers. Retailers offer Diverse Supplier programs to promote trade participation of suppliers that is reflective of the diverse US population. Some programs include deep discounts on promotions or even no fees because of the certificate.