The FMI Foundation has adopted a new mission statement focusing on enriching society's experience with the food industry and prioritized initiatives under three pillars: Inspire, Nourish, and Safeguard, while planning to expand key programs such as career inspiration, family meals promotion, and scholarship offerings to enhance impact and relevance.
By: David Fikes, Executive Director, FMI Foundation
In the life cycle of every organization, there are times when its leaders must reexamine, redefine, and reimagine its mission to retain relevancy, vibrancy, and vigor. Or as sage Bob Dylan reflected in his song It’s Alright, Ma (I’m only Bleeding), “He who is not busy being born is busy dying”. With the aid of a team of Oliver Wyman consultants, the FMI Foundation spent the better part of last year undergoing an intense review of its portfolio and mission. The net result of this period of self-scrutiny is a new mission statement and a more focused set of priorities.
At our January Board meeting, the FMI Foundation Board of Trustees endorsed a new mission statement that emphasized impact, broadened the mission and provided more flexibility. The new Foundation mission statement is: Enrich society’s experience with the Food Industry to amplify our impact on well-being.
The new mission statement puts the Foundation’s focus on society and industry stakeholders, prioritizing those initiatives that resonate with the consumer and prospective workforce.
The board also adopted the recommendation that the Foundation’s topic areas would be most impactful if they adhered to a value proposition supported by the three pillars of Inspire, Nourish and Safeguard. Specifically, the Inspire pillar includes enhancing industry reputation as a career destination with competitive compensation and benefits. The Nourish pillar embraces building awareness of the nutritional, mental and physical health benefits of sharing meals together. The Safeguard pillar encourages Foundation work in promoting better consumer communications regarding food and product safety AND strengthening in-store safety protocols, practices and training.
An analysis of current Foundation initiatives across the criteria of consumer focus, mission alignment, emotional appeal and potential impact called for three current programs to be retained and expanded. The Foundation’s Inspiring Careers in Food program, in partnership with Junior Achievement, received high scores but was encouraged to seek additional partners for a more national footprint. The family meals campaign was also viewed quite favorably and was encouraged to expand beyond “Family Meals Month” both in terms of time and target audience. It was also recommended that the Foundation find ways to expand its scholarship programs beyond its current food safety auditing scholarship initiative with SQFI. While focused on expanding, enhancing and strengthening those three areas, the Foundation will continue working with the Partnership for Food Safety Education on deepening adoption of the Safe Recipe Style Guide.
Check out our two-minute highlight reel for more information and ways you can be involved in supporting the Foundation’s new directions. If you have thoughts, opinions or suggestions about the Foundation’s future efforts, please contact the Foundation’s executive director, David Fikes (dfikes@fmi.org).
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