The one-year anniversary of the EMV shift is just around the corner. FMI has heard countless stories about the delay in certification and the increase in cost of business operations, even for retailers who have the chip-card readers installed in stores.

Speaks and Trends. These are the nicknames of the best known, long-standing research reports produced by FMI. The Food Retailing Industry Speaks report is an annual survey sent to FMI members and other food retailers in the food industry that benchmarks supermarket operations data and includes the FMI Worry Index. The U.S. Grocery Shopper Trends report, prepared for FMI by the Hartman Group, provides data on the U.S shopper and changes to shopping habits over time.

If the Fed was looking for an indicator that the U.S. economy was ready for a rate hike, the August job numbers weren’t any help. After two spectacular months of employment gains, August’s disappointing numbers made one thing clear – we desperately need to pick up the pace of job creation and put more people back to work. In the grocery business, this is sometimes easier said than done.

Every day in September has been a real treat because my daily emails are full of new and exciting National Family Meals Month™ stories. It’s clear that grocery stores are coming up with creative ways to join in on Family Meals Month and that the movement has transitioned from mainly a social media discussion to promotions and activities playing out in-store. At the same time, the Dietitian community has joined in to echo the benefits of eating together for families of all shapes and sizes. As the Family Meals Month messages continue to crescendo, here are a few examples of how companies and people are taking part.