This paper contains two chapters related to changes in retail food delivery and sales. The first discusses trends in consumer demographics and lifestyles and how these continue to drive changes in the way food is prepared and delivered to consumers. Retail stores are responding with new formats:...

Efficient Consumer Response (ECR) is an industry-wide, collaborative initiative to re-engineer the grocery supply chain. This report presents findings from a study of ECR adoption in Minnesota grocery stores. Data were collected through interviews with managers of forty stores that are broadly...

The Retail Food Industry Center established the Supermarket Panel in 1998 as the basis for ongoing study of the supermarket industry. The Panel is comprised of individual stores that provide information annually on store characteristics, operations, and performance. The Panel has two overall...

The Supermarket Panel collects data annually from individual supermarkets on store characteristics, operations, and performance. It was established in 1998 by the Food Industry Center as the basis for ongoing study of the supermarket industry. The Panel is unique because the unit of analysis is...

Higher union density (the percentage of employees in an area who belong to unions) is known to raise the wages of union members. We find that in the supermarket industry, higher density locally also leads to higher wages for non-union members. Despite this, workers who are not in unions lose...

This paper presents a model-based approach for competitive analysis of manufacturing plants in the U. S. food processing industry. As part of this approach, plant competitiveness is measured using Operational Competitiveness Ratings Analysis (OCRA) -- a new non-parametric method of computing...

Many food retailers perceive home meal replacements (HMR) or meal solutions as major opportunities for sales growth. These fully- or partially-prepared foods appear to solve growing consumer needs: lack of time, lack of skill, and lack of desire to prepare food. However, a recent financial...

Increased concentration in ownership of retail and wholesale food companies in the United States naturally leads to the question "How does concentration of ownership affect consumers?" Does it lead to higher or lower food prices, better or worse service, more or less choice between stores and...

The most efficient food delivery system in the world is becoming even more so with new electronic information gathered at the checkout counter and quickly transmitted to food distributors and manufacturers. In order to meet new competition in the retail market for food and food services,...

Background: The National Food and Agribusiness Management Education Commission (NFAMEC whose materials can be found at https://www.agecon.purdue.edu/cab/NFAMEC/home.htm) issued a set of recommendations to the U.S. Department of Agriculture in December 2006 based upon an extensive three year...