January / February 2017

Food-at-home prices in 2016 are predicted to reflect a 0.25 percent to 1.25 percent decline, according to the USDA Economic Research Service, making the past year the first time since 1967 that retail food prices reflected annual deflation.

President-elect Trump has not previously held a government leadership position, so we have no experiential basis from which to forecast how he will govern.

As in, who's going to drive it—retailers or customers?

I've always posited that food should be more like fashion. Similar to the latest trends in lapels and color palettes, consumers' palates are attuned to what's hot in the food world.

The retail industry continues to experience dramatic change, with technology and shifting customer demands creating significant challenges and unprecedented opportunities. This is especially true in the dynamic world of supply chain where five macro trends are unfolding. They include:

While there can be plenty of debate about the vitality of the U.S.

More recently, Google's DeepMind, christened AlphaGo for a tournament of Go (described as exponentially more complex than chess), beat a human genius from Korea in a championship tournament.

Virtual reality has the potential to combine the two.