Data has been at the center of many discussions and presentations for years. Big data and small, for many retailers and brands data is not the strategy, but the intel that informs or supports a broader product and/or consumer engagement strategy.

Celebrated chef and culinary personality Robert Irvine will take the stage to emcee Stir It Up!. With this added star power, this fundraiser is sure to go from “stirring” to “sizzling!” The event will take place at FMI’s Midwinter Executive Conference on January 27 in Miami, Florida, and supports the FMI Foundation and its growing family meals movement.

A lot of futuristic movies and TV shows portray a society where robots or Artificial Intelligence (AI) take on a lot of the more mundane tasks in society. In Star Trek you can order a meal from a wall panel, in the Jetsons the dog, Astro, is walked by a treadmill, and in Star Wars those little toaster-oven looking robots scurry around the hallways doing something—maybe vacuuming? Yes, our futures will likely involve more AI, but what does that really look like and how will the food retail industry incorporate AI?

According to Food Allergy Research and Education (FARE), approximately 15 million people in the United States suffer from food allergies. In the last decade, the prevalence of reported food allergies has significantly increased with an estimated four to six percent of children and four percent of adults who are affected by food allergies.