ARLINGTON, VA – Despite a challenging year marked by a persisting pandemic, historic inflation, supply chain bottlenecks and labor shortages, the food industry is making significant investments to meet shoppers’ evolving tastes, according to FMI—The Food Industry Association’s annual comprehensive research report, The Food Retailing Industry Speaks 2022.
The survey finds that food retailers are focusing on investments in new technologies (73%) like foodservice ordering and delivery, dynamic pricing and mobile checkout systems. They are also increasing labor allocation for online purchase fulfillment (52%) and in-store/curbside pick-up (48%).
Retailers report they are also expanding numerous fresh or perimeter departments. More than 80% are increasing the space they allocate to fresh-prepared grab-and-go products as well as offering foods with beneficial nutrition attributes for health and well-being (70%). The departments expected to grow include locally sourced (72%) and organic produce (62%), plant-based foods and animal protein alternatives (64%), allergen-free (38%) and gluten-free (35%) SKUs.
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