Food Marketing Institute (FMI), Arlington, Va., and Chicago-based Technomic, a research and consulting firm in the foodservice industry, formed a strategic business alliance to offer food retailers concrete information on the growth opportunities for the fresh prepared food area of retail stores.

“Supermarket fresh prepared foods is one of the leading growth markets in the entire food industry, and our important alliance with FMI will enable us to significantly enhance our understanding of the characteristics and drivers of the market,” says Bob Goldin, executive vice president of Technomic. “We are fully committed to delivering world-class original insights for FMI members and our clients.”

“Technomic has been analyzing the retail perimeter since the early days of home meal replacement, and provides vision into the rapidly-changing world of supermarket fresh prepared foods,” adds Rick Stein, vice president of fresh foods for FMI. “Our partnership will provide our members data and trends on all elements of fresh prepared foods, including consumer perspectives, marketplace developments and back-of-house operational efficiencies.”

FMI and Technomic will launch the initiative in November 2014, with an evaluation of product sales, staffing, rates, space allocation, merchandising and other strategic measures. The partnership will also offer an interactive online tool that allows retailers to objectively evaluate how effectively they manage their prepared food programs and includes white papers to analytically explore trends.