Your company’s participation in the annual The Food Retailing Industry Speaks survey fuels the research and insights FMI uses to represent the food industry.
By: Steve Markenson, Vice President, Research & Insights, FMI
Now, more than 75 years after the inaugural The Food Retailing Industry Speaks (Speaks) report debuted in 1949, this analysis continues to provide the food industry with important benchmarks, facts and figures that are leveraged across our advocacy efforts, in conversations with the media and by our members desiring to make informed business decisions.
This past year, information from Speaks and other FMI research has been invaluable in how we articulate convincing arguments on some of this industry’s most pressing issues.
The Speaks survey results provide a plethora of industry facts and figures that you can use for benchmarking, and we can use for assessing the state of the industry. These include important measures such as out-of-stock rates, shrink data, same-store sales growth, sales per labor hour, number of SKUs carried, store size, and so much more.
What will we learn about our industry this year? This year’s Speaks report will, of course, continue to trend key financial and operational benchmarks while incorporating questions about new industry issues and challenges. Some of the new areas included for this year’s Speaks study include:
- More on the impact of technology and ecommerce. We take a deeper look at the impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Generative AI (Gen AI) in a number of areas across the food industry.
- The food and other industries have been impacted by cybersecurity threats in recent years. Cybersecurity has been identified by FMI’s Board as a pre-competitive, priority issue for the industry. As a result, we have added a small series of cybersecurity-specific questions to this year’s survey.
- We have expanded our Human Resources section, with the help of the Mercer Group, to take a deeper dive on workforce issues.
So, how does FMI know what it needs to know about the food industry? We learn it directly from the food industry through your company's responses to Speaks. In 1949, 64% of the industry responded to the first survey. We need your help to get your company to respond this year. Contact me at SMarkenson@fmi.org to learn how your company can participate. We want as many voices as possible represented in Speaks.
Learn more and download the full 2025 Speaks report at FMI.org/GrocerySpeaks.
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