Recent amendments to the tax code provide the industry with new incentives to donate food that would otherwise be wasted, meaning there is a new economic motivation around decreasing food waste in our supply chains. At the TPA Supply Chain Conference (February 22 – 24) we’ll be looking deeper into the topic of food waste during the session, Technology, Taxes and the Economics of Food Waste. I took time to chat with co-founders Cohen and Roger Gordon beforehand to better understand the complexity of the issue.

We’ve been sharing inspirational stories from dedicated, hard-working store managers through a series of interviews with past FMI Store Manager Award winners, and we recently had the opportunity to continue the conversation with our 2014 Category A winner Larry Hack, store manager at Martin’s Supermarkets in Granger, Indiana.

The meat department is one of the most important categories for many food retailers. A good meat department can help a store differentiate itself from the competition, and can be a significant driver of sales and foot traffic. The 2016 Power of Meat report produced by the Food Marketing Institute (FMI) and North American Meat Institute (NAMI) is chock full of data food retailers and suppliers can use to understand consumer shopping trends.

The survey will provide a view from the eyes or our food retail department managers. What do they like about their job? What challenges do they face? How well do they communicate with store management and field supervision? Where are the opportunities to develop the knowledge and abilities of this key management group?