FMI - OMEGA - West Virginia Oil Marketers & Grocers Association

Modern day demands a new type of shield, especially when it comes to protecting businesses from one of the most deceptive enemies, a cyber attack. Our best defense is to collaborate and share information about previous attacks to help each other be better prepared and learn from missteps. Food retailers are committed to ensuring their customers’ information remains private and protected. As the industry starts to utilize more technology like robotics, self-driving cars, etc., our technology security professionals need to be ahead of the curve and anticipating potential threats.

According to FMI’s U.S. Grocery Shopper Trends 2018 report, brick and mortar grocery stores, the signature channel in the food industry, have stabilize their status despite consumers’ use of other channels. Trends claims, “Consumers do shop across channels and banners, but still recognize the supermarket’s central role in meeting and defining their grocery shopping needs.”

I’m in event planning mode. Our totally new and unique event FreshForward is coming up in just about a month and I’m very excited for the experience. Speakers are getting confirmed, sponsors or coming in and retailers are making travel arrangements. But, amid all the excitement, I wanted to take the time to properly introduce and explain FreshForward and give folks a sneak peak of what to expect. I could think of no one better to help me with this than my old friend, Barb Renner, vice chairman and U.S. consumer products leader with Deloitte.

At this year’s International Association of Food Protection in Salt Lake City Utah, Ashley Eisenbeiser, director of food and product safety, Food Marketing Institute, moderated a session discussing how retailers effectively communicate food safety messages with their customers.

In the third webinar of this series, Leading Retailers: E-commerce as a Competitive Advantage, FMI and Rosie engaged in a panel discussion with leading retailers who have successfully launched online shopping at their stores. The discussion quickly shifted to the topic on many food retailers minds—is online grocery shopping eroding in store business?