The venue for the recent FreshForward event in Chicago, presented by FMI, underscored the inevitability of the evolving consumer. Held in a funky, colorful meeting space inside a former meatpacking building, the room’s décor was designed to spark creativity with throwback pieces ranging from 1950s-era mismatched chairs to vintage games and toys like Etch A Sketch to a mix of classic and rare album covers.

The customer is always right. That mantra was engrained in me at an early age when I worked at my first food retail job. My employer trained me well; I was empathetic, responsive and exuded a positive attitude – even when a shopper was having a bad day and I was the closest sounding board for his or her complaint. Since it’s Customer Service Week, many of our members wish to remind their associates of their own core values as they relate to serving their customer and find new ways to better engage with shoppers across their communications channels.

As a good-news oriented, lets-find-the-opportunity–here kind of person, it troubles me that the piece of FMI research posed for annually providing a snapshot of the state of the food retail industry tends to focus on concerns and apprehensions.

To protect consumers, retailers are now expecting more from their supplier’s food safety and quality processes. We believe one way to accomplish this is to be transparent about your food safety and quality programs by implementing a rigorous food safety and quality management system such as the SQF Program.