Food safety has long been one of the issues that keeps retail CEOs awake at night. It’s not only the recalls that worry them, but also the potential for supply chain and in-store mishaps by personnel, routine sanitation, product shelf life and more. While federal, state and local governments have instituted wide-ranging regulations on the
An old story explains a lot about how the retail supply chain does and doesn’t work for both consumers and trading partners: A customer goes into a butcher shop and complains that the store down the street has lamb chops on sale for $2 less per pound. The butcher replies, “Why don’t you buy them
Consumers have made it clear that they are looking for more local and specialty products in their neighborhood supermarkets. This is the most recent, and perhaps most pronounced, phase in the evolution of consumer tastes and preferences, a trend that started reshaping supermarket inventories nearly 20 years ago. In response to this emerging trend, more
At the turn of the millennium, the extended retail business was aglow with technical and operational possibilities. The internet was seen as both a platform for selling things and for making the merchandising and fulfillment process more efficient. Data processing power and storage capacity was growing dramatically, so analysis that previously took weeks could be
The headlines just keep coming: “ConAgra Agrees to Pay $11.2 Million in Salmonella Outbreak” “Two People Die After Eating Raw-Milk Cheese Made in New York State” “Brazil’s Largest Food Companies Raided in Tainted Meat Scandal” “3,300 Children Hospitalized After Food Poisoning” And those are just in the last few weeks. Concurrent with the ongoing deployment