FMI Observations

Just got back from the Food Marketing Institute trade show in Chicago. This is the first event as part of my new career in the retail media industry and it was definitely eye-opening. Part of my duties involved manning a pod in the StoreNext booth, where to my left was El Monterrey handing out taquitos and margaritas and to my right was the Unilever booth. The Unilever booth was showing Axe Body Spray and Wishbone Salad Spray. I had to wonder if they were mixing them up from the same ingredients in the back. The Unilever booth also featured commercials running on a continuous loop on a flatscreen display right in front of me. This one was in seriously heavy rotation.



Edamame, agave, acai, pomegranate and goji were all hot items. There was also a plethora of tea-based carbonated energy drinks. I did have a Budweiser malt offering that was blueberry-pomegranate flavored that was quite tasty. I also tasted some chocolate hemp milk which tastes about as good as it sounds. There were several straw-based drink flavoring solutions that did not really work very well.

Purecart offered a shopping cart sanitation car wash which was kind of clever, but the lasting image for me was Snoop Dogg Dog Toys.